Chapter 15: Adam Naming the Animals

. .

(Holy Shit)


15

“It has often been said that idle hands are the Devil’s plaything, when in fact it’s common wisdom and antiquated truisms that he fiendishly fingers in his pockets,” Norman spits into the phone. “Idleness evokes contemplation; it’s the only perspective from which one finally can clear one’s mind and consider the larger picture. I say it is that very Devil’s hidden purpose to keep us working his nefarious engines and to keep us unaware of our true purpose, or our true freedom, or the potential for real ultimate power in peace, love and understanding.
“There is a cosmic leech sucking on our universe, numbing us so we don’t notice.
“But, then, I look around at my generation and I see the idle angels. Most of us still have to work bullshit jobs but in general, if we live in the privileged societies, those bullshit jobs involve sitting around in front of screens and playing with numbers or words or pictures. ‘The bureaucracy is growing to meet the needs of the growing bureaucracy.’ We can always have our headphones on and listen to whatever music we want at the press of a button. In our free time, we are all unknown great artists, unheard philosophers, and sitting around our cocktails and bongloads we discuss the things we see on the screens everyday, and our stories of the love myth, and we email each other about how much we miss each other from across the room.
“We are slaves to an illusionary master who no longer needs our work, yet still we toil. Can we really not imagine what else there could be to live for? I’m not saying there’s no more work to be done on Earth. I’m saying that we’ve built enough stuff that we could just chill out for a while and work on how to spread this wonderful technology around, so that everyone is taken care of and we live in a peaceful world, and then see where we want to go from there. It really would be easy.
“Fucking peace is possible, and it is intentionally kept at bay every day, and by whom? By us.
“Motherfuckers.
“I honestly maybe think a Day of Judgment is in order. I think someone needs to just say, like, ‘Check it out, y’all. Be righteous, peaceful beings, or be out. This is the day.’ The meek rise up and that ninety-six percent of humans who aren’t total assholes agree, ‘Yeah, let’s be reasonable and just make the world one where we all work together,’ ah fuck – I don’t know.”
“You’re getting a bit demagogue-ish, Norman…”
“It couldn’t happen, could it? Why not? Why couldn’t that happen?”
“Eh, I suppose it could, technically. I mean, with the Internet, something like that might actually be able to be realistically engineered, with enough time to plan, honestly.”
“Crazy. Imagine how fucking crazy that would be? Like, an Internet-based revolution against the Old Guard where all of us enlightened, reasonable, peaceful humans agree to rise up and tell all the assholes to fuck off, and that we’re doing things some new way now. We would have to have it worked out ahead of time, of course, what that future world would be and how it would work and all that. Wouldn’t want to rise up into anarchy.”
“Well, there would be a brief period of anarchy, at least, naturally, with the change of governments.”
“Naturally, yes.” Norman lights a cigarette and sits down in one of the chairs in the cold garage. “This is exactly what I talk about in Under the Undertow.” He pulls his coat tighter around himself, holding the phone between his ear and his shoulder.
“Right, post-capitalism.”
“But, honestly, even beyond post-capitalism. Fuck capitalism, fuck humanism! We need post-humanism. We need next-step philosophies.”
“I hear you, dog.”

Adam Naming the Animals

“It almost seems like – why waste our time continuing to devise humanist philosophies when we’re about to make the big Machine Enlightenment leap, you know, sometime this century, in our lifetimes? We should be preparing for that shit – for what existence will end up really being like and how we want to set our goals intellectually, creatively, ethically, culturally, thereafter as a species.”
“Well, the problem is,” Lou says with a tone of voice he always uses when he is reminding Norman of the pragmatic side of an argument, “you can’t just make that sudden leap. You have to devise something that can be realistically sculpted from the political matter available. Which is why, I think, it really has to be post-capitalism first, and then from there to the next thing, getting to post-humanism over a series of small, realistic steps.”
“What’s unrealistic about the Revolution?” Norman asks defensively. “With the advances on the horizon that we have coming, I don’t think it’s unrealistic at all to presume that the post-Machine Enlightenment super-entities – those of us who do move forward into an expanded paradigm of existence – we will completely eclipse Humanity. I don’t think Humanity will die out or even become obsolete; there are still animals on Earth, and we pretty much live in peace with them, you know? Keep them as pets and such.”
Lou laughs heartily. “And livestock. No. Jesus. We don’t live peacefully with the animals on Earth at all. We totally kill them and strangle their habitats.”
“Eh,” Norman says with a vocal shrug. “True. But does anyone feel particularly like that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes,” Lou reminds him with a laugh.
“Well, yes,” Norman admits, “and so do I, but I would suggest a future in which the machine-enlightened post-humans do actually treat humanity with respect and everything. I mean, we need to keep the beauty of humanism, but we need to build on that; we need not to limit ourselves so stubbornly. You know as well as I do the potential for the Machine Enlightenment to totally enrich the lives of all of humanity, to finally bring peace and ubiquity of comfort to everyone on Earth. Just because some go forward into the next phase of existence doesn’t mean those who choose not to will be wiped out or something. It will be a paradise on Earth for those who choose to remain human. There would be no reason for it not to be. All human needs could be met. Fuck, all human desires could be met. It’s just that we need to be prepared, to think ahead about what we are about to be faced with, i.e. the Machine Enlightenment. Because obviously it won’t necessarily go the ideal ways I can imagine.”
“I think you mean e.g.,” Lou jokes.
“E.g., i.e., fuck you,” Norman retorts with a laugh.
“No, no, I’m with you,” Lou replies, also laughing.
After a few moments of shared laughter, Norman continues, “This is going to require a much more fundamental concept of existence and identity, choice and purpose. Ethics change at this level; identity shifts around; the reality/unreality breach becomes a thing of the past as our virtual environments become less and less distinct from our original one. I think we’re going to need a comprehensive philosophical/spiritual upgrade here.”
“Well, that’s where we come in,” Lou remarks confidently in a way that makes Norman smile.
“Awesome. I’m glad you agree. I think this is it. This is what we should be working on right now.”
“What about your book?”
“Well, the book is part of it. I mean, it’s all about the same shit, you know: art, enlightenment, the future. It’s all part of the same great work.”
“Right on. So, have you started working on the new book, then? What’s it called?”
“It’s in my head right now, but it’s quite alive there. I can feel it growing, sort of throbbing inside my soul. Even right now. Because, you know, it’s the one that’s sort of memoirish and about these spiritual misadventures of ours and the full implications of those, right, in terms of the future and enlightenment and the Revolution and everything…”
“It sounds like a pretty epic pursuit, dude,” Lou notes with pragmatism in his voice.
“Well it all ties in together quite nicely. Just by telling the story of this fictionalized Norman character and having it be about the very real things you and I have experienced slash are experiencing – the things we do and say, which really are these things – I think all of those issues will just sort of cling, or emerge, somehow naturally. And in the present sense, it’s going to just be about the very real, very naturalistic sort-of boy-living-in-the-world/boy-thinking-as-I-do kind of thing going as an attempt to pierce finely into reality, you know, dude, because really it needs to be about reality; it needs to be literature science.”
“Right.”
“You ever wonder … like, Jesus seems to have probably been a real person, or at least the stories that refer to Jesus probably reference a real dude of some sort who did something in Judea around that time, right?”
“Okay,” Lou chuckles, “right, probably.”
Norman lights a cigarette and begins pacing around the garage-living-room. “And, like, in Islam, the same with Mohammed. He was a real dude. And these guys claimed to be prophets, claimed to have revelation from God or to be related to him or various things, and started these religions. You ever wonder what was going through their minds? Like, could they ever even possibly have had any idea how far their messages would be proliferated and corrupted, how much history would be built around them? Their very words. Maybe not even their words necessarily, but … I mean, I guess Mohammed did more than just talk, he conquered and shit, and that’s a little different, though he did still set up a system of morals and dogmas and all that too. But Jesus just talked and then was killed. He didn’t do shit. It’s his words, his ideas…”
“And the fact that he was the son of God,” Lou notes sarcastically. “I figure most Christians would disagree about your saying that he didn’t do shit. He fucking martyred himself for our sins, for Christ’s sake.”
Norman laughs. “Yeah, well, I guess according to the story he did do that. But, thinking about it in terms of him just being a real person and that pretty much obviously being a mythical version of his story, what could he have been thinking? Do you think he really thought he was the son of God? The messiah? Or, do you think maybe he was some kind of just really enlightened guy who said a bunch of stuff about everyone being nice to each other that a lot of people got behind, but then it sort of got out of control and they had to deify him to give his ideas some sort of credibility? Or what if, what if there is like some kind of hyper-entity that intermittently dips its tentacles into the world to inject enlightenment, and they’re all really the same being on some higher dimension or whatever, but…”
“I see where you’re going. Yeah, who knows?” Lou says crisply.
“Say, Lou,” Norman says hesitantly, suddenly uncomfortably aware that he is alone, speaking into a device, “can … I have … can I tell you about something weird that happened to me the other day?”
“Sure.”
“Well,” Norman begins, but then stops, uncertain where to begin. “Okay. So, I was asleep in bed with Laura, and I was awakened suddenly by this bizarre sound in my brain that I can only describe as being like a beam of information, like the buzz of a fax machine in a split second, with like a kind of metal twinge to it. And it was just a moment – it was sudden, and it sent energy through my body. I awoke so light that I got up out of bed with barely any effort at all.”
“Crazy.”
“And I could tell somehow that it had interrupted a dream of some sort where I felt like I had been having some kind of epiphany, like I was finally understanding something just before I was awakened by that sound.”
“Maybe the sound was the epiphany.”
“Well, interesting,” Norman said, intrigued by the idea, “but I can’t remember the dream. I can’t remember the epiphany. Not like when my teacher entity taught me to defend myself from psychic darts and I couldn’t really remember the dream very well but still retained the knowledge. I pretty much have no memory at all of this dream. Sucks.”
“Hmm. Interesting.”
“And so anyway, that’s not even all, dude.” Norman laughs to himself at the potential absurdity of all that he is about to recount. Though he already has one burning in the ashtray, Norman absent-mindedly lights another cigarette. “I, um … I’m not quite sure how to tell you about this other than by just saying it.”
“That’s cool,” Lou responds quietly. “It’s me.”
“Right. So.”
Again, Norman pauses, staring into space, overcome by that ubiquitous modern realization that one is actually just alone with a device, but somehow in this moment it becomes clear to him that the part of his experience that is more real is the conversation, the closeness between himself and Lou, and the part that is less true is the one in which they are a thousand miles apart.
“So, I woke up from that noise,” Norman continues, “and I could tell there was something in that dream that I needed to get back to – that I needed to remember. I could tell that there was something important going on at that very moment, just sort of in the air, between the particles of oxygen. I could feel the significance of the scene, as if there was some kind of suggestive soundtrack cue or the smell of god blood in the air. It felt like something I needed to be a part of. Hard to describe. Anyway, I got up and went to my computer and tried to project.”
“How long had it been since you last left your body?”
“Well, that’s not exactly what I ended up doing. But it was similar. But to answer your question, I’m not entirely sure anymore what takes place inside and what takes place outside of my body.”
“Hmm.”
“This time it was somehow more like the shamanic journey. I went sort of inward, but then up and out. I turned around, you know, like I do, but then instead of drifting out through my heart or my throat or my fingertips etherically into the world like I usually do when I’m projecting, I just passed through a curtain behind my eyes and entered the second room.”
“Okay,” Lou acknowledges. “Are you mixing idioms here?”
“Yes,” Norman says, “but it’s all I can do to explain.”
“Well, because the second room, I thought, was the penultimate separation from the interface while stoned. Like, the first room is puppetiness, right? And then there’s the second room, which is like whoa, and I don’t even know if I have a clear idea what the third room is. The second room is, like, the penultimate separation, so the third room must be…”
“I’ve been to the third room,” Norman admits to Lou for the first time. “I’ve been there before, a few times, but before I could never really do anything. I thought it was void, or just so different from all this that I couldn’t really put it into any context.”
“Damn,” Lou says in a manner that makes Norman a little uncertain whether Lou is believing him. “Were you smoking?”
“I had smoked that previous night, but it must have been like four, four-thirty in the morning.”
“Was it four-twenty, maybe?” Lou asks with a tone so serious it is silly.
Norman laughs. “It could’ve been, honestly. But anyway, it was the middle of the night and I was awakened by that crazy sound, that energy, right? So I go sit at my computer by the window…”
“Is your computer over at Laura’s now?” Lou asks, interrupting.
“Oh. Yeah. I moved it over there last week, so I could write.”
“You’re writing at Laura’s now, huh? So things are getting pretty intimate? Are you pretty much living over there at this point?”
“I would still say that I live here at Lee’s, technically. Like, I still receive mail here, you know? But honestly, I’m mostly just here to shower and change clothes and visit with Lee and the boys, play D&D, whatever. I spend almost no time down in the basement in my lair anymore, really. I made a mix tape down there the other night, but that’s the most time I’ve spent down there in weeks. I dunno. New romance; you understand.”
“Yeah, man, I hear you. I’m envious, honestly. I mean things with Eleanor are great and everything, but I know how cool that sort of new love thing is, you know.”
“Yeah. It’s lovely. Laura is wonderful. I’ll probably move my stereo and records over there, too, sometime soon, hopefully. It’s funny though, because she hasn’t met you yet and you haven’t met her, and to a certain extent that almost makes it feel like she doesn’t know me fully yet because of that. Like, you have to meet Lou to fully understand what’s going on with me anymore, I feel.”
“I know what you mean. Anyway, go on with your story. Sorry for interrupting. You sat down at your computer.”
“Right. I’ve got my computer set up at a little table near Laura’s plants by the window, and it looks down along Congress Street, right downtown, with a view of Monument Square – it’s really perfect. Anyway, so I sat down and put on my headphones and I tried to go back to the dream. I was still a little puppety from the evening’s smoking, sort of afterbakey, and so the first room was easy to reach, right; I just turned around in my mind and was there. Then from there I just sort of cast aside the curtain that led to the second room.”
“Awesome.”
“Totally. So I’m in the second room, which is all trippy and disarming, but somehow my spiritual confidence from having just been awakened by that energy/information beam or whatever is strong enough that I am able to cling to certain faiths in my mind that let me really stay there and be there at that level. I think what I realize now is that the first room – the puppetiness – is the separation of your awareness from the world – the awareness of your own awareness, as it were – realizing that the true you that is watching and judging all of this and sending back choices is not actually here in the world, and feeling your surroundings there wherever it is you really are, but with your face still right up against the screen of your physical senses, as it were.”
“Whoa. Slow down, dude. Take the time to enunciate, please, because I want to follow you, but you’re breaking up a tiny bit and speaking very fast.”
“Okay. So I entered the second room, which was trippy and disarming as I stated, but this confidence I held allowed me to bear it. These dancing army apes came out all in a line and I just dispelled them with a thought dart.”
“Like the thought darts your teacher taught you to protect yourself from in that dream?”
“No, those were like psychic attack darts of some sort. What mine do is they dispel illusion. So I fired this thought dart and the apes just vanished, like, into butterflies.”
“Badass.”
“And something else I developed last year, while I was working on my familiar, is this little white meditative thought disc that I can retrieve from my spirit’s pocket whenever I think about it. And this disc is imbued with the power to remind me of that fundamental duality of being and nothingness, of eternity and void – the epiphany of the paradox – and this then basically gives me that confident power to be able to do anything I can think of doing, that I can comprehend doing.”
“Wicked. Why didn’t you tell me about these things last year, when you were doing them? That’s a dope idea.”
“Thanks. I made it out of necessity, not foresight, though. Last year was crazy for me.”
“I know, dude. I could tell.”
“Yeah. Anyway. So I retrieve this mnemonic disc and it reminds me how powerful my mind can be, and so – now, the way I’ve been getting to the third room when I do is by creating this lever in the air that I pull and it turns everything sort of ninety degrees, if you know what I mean…”
“I do.”
“…so that I can step away from it all in that new dimension, and as soon as I do this I’m presented with void again.”
“These are all basically, like, mnemonic magic items whose powers you have previously determined?” Lou asks, but Norman’s narrative doesn’t cease.
“Now, all the previous times I’ve done this, the void has been so awe-inspiring and sort of terrifying that I haven’t been able to stay for long. One time I looked back behind me, whence I’d come if you’ll pardon my English,” (Lou laughs) “and was blinded by the light of seeing the entirety of this multiverse – at least that’s what I intuitively assumed it was – all the possible realities of our universe, everything that we are attached to. But what I realized this time was that what I was seeing as void was the more that is out there, not just beyond this universe or this timeline but beyond the entire eternity of our collective god-mind, our ten-dimensional shuddering string, like stepping out of the cell-that-is-this-Universe, if that makes sense, and looking out on the other-than-all-this, the other-than-us.”
“Whoa. I think I’m with you.”
“Yeah. And so this time I stayed. I was able to remain. And slowly, the longer I looked around at the apparent-void, it was like night coming on in the sky and stars beginning to appear. The first one that I noticed, I seemed suddenly to be pulled into.
“So then I’m standing in this huge marble room. I remember the ceiling was painted light blue, and it made me think about The Perfectly Simulated Sky.”
“Nice reference.”
“Another interesting thing I remember is that almost as soon as I arrived there I tried to cast out one of those illusion-dispelling thought darts, assuming the marble room might be an illusionary curtain over more real surroundings, but my thought dart ended up being like a real dart of some kind as opposed to just a sort of energy-based thought artifact. And so these very real darts flew from my hand and stuck into the marble ground.”
“Word,” Lou ejaculates with enthusiasm. “Do you realize what that means? It seems like that would mean that you were somewhere where your thoughts were real, or something like that. Like, wherever you were, you had the power to create darts that fired out of your hands.”
“But they were completely ineffectual. They didn’t have their power.”
“Or maybe you were just somewhere where nothing was illusion. But anyway still, you created them. How badass is that? That’s fucking superhero shit.”
“It was just happening in my mind, still, of course, but I guess that is pretty badass. But so I then realized that there was someone behind me. I forget exactly what he said, but he was this thin man. Something about him was familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Did you get his name?”
“I think I asked, but I don’t remember it. He seemed somehow just sort of featureless and everymanish. Anyway, he pointed to this open doorway and I remember the words ‘a divine congress?’ asked like a question, in response to my question of what was so important through that door that he wanted me to see.”
“A divine congress?”
“Exactly,” Norman laughs. “A divine congress? Just like that.”
“Hmm.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you go through the door?”
“I did. And beyond the door was – do you remember how I described, in my shamanic journey, the way I could see Ishmael but sort of couldn’t see him too, like he was sort of invisible in our colors, but in some other color, that I was seeing for the first time, I could see him? Hard to describe, sort of shimmery, like the Predator?”
“Or like a cloaked ship, like that?”
“Exactly. So when I go out through this door, I find that the entire outside world seems to be in this color. Like, I am in a place, and surrounded by things I can see, but it’s almost like at first glance it’s just all shimmery opalescence. But really, there’s this sort of arena, or like a huge semicircular hill in all directions, like I’m on the central stage of an old Greek theater, you know what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“And all along the rise is this, like, sea of minor gods. Or beings from that realm, or whatever. And up along the ridge are these seven huge gods, all gorgeous and shimmering.”
“Did you speak to them?”
“I did. I asked them where I was, and some of them started to laugh at me. Or something like that. And I spoke with one of the big gods up on the top, who asked me my name, and I replied, ‘I’m Norman Newman,’ and their response was something about how this isn’t a place for mortals.”
“Wicked,” Lou laughs.
“Right? And so I was like, ‘Fuck you dudes, I’m here, I’m communicating with you. Who says I can’t be in on whatever it is you’re doing up here all gathered together like this?’ And then the Heisenburglar appears in the sky in the form of this cyclonic, throbbing darkness, and he made some comments about how the world of Man was a plant, or something like that, like he was trying to imply that somehow our universe itself was dead, or something. Weird. Hard to really recall entirely. But the implications of some of the shit he said really unnerved me. I definitely got this sense that they weren’t expecting me and didn’t know how to deal with my presence there, like I was some kind of threat for some reason, my very presence. So then the sky turned into a screen showing all kinds of news-broadcast-type images of war and death and famine, but I just yelled, ‘Fuck that, man, that shit is out!’ I think I even used those exact words. ‘That shit is out! You’re showing me the lamest parts of a totally awesome species that is about to be stepping up to the next-level plate, you know, with the Machine Enlightenment and mechanical immortality, mind-expansion, et cetera.’”
“Preach it,” Lou says with a laugh. “I love this shit.”
“Well anyway, the big god goes, ‘Sweep this plant back into its hole,’ or something and I wake up twitching on the floor of Laura’s apartment shouting, ‘Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, fuck you…’”
It is a few seconds before Lou finally stops laughing enough to say, “That is fucking crazy, man. What do you think that energy-beam-sound-thing that woke you was? Do you have any theories? I mean, I’m trying to fit all this into our grand-scheme view of existence and the things that have happened to us, but … where do you think you were? Who were you talking to?”
“Here’s what I think,” Norman replies. “Look at the world in terms of the potentially-coming Machine Enlightenment. There is something big about to happen. Anywhere you look, it’s obvious. Everything is coming to a boil. I mean, there’s the Machine Enlightenment and all of that, but there’s, even more, this powerful sort of apocalyptic sense in the world right now, and with the Mayan calendar ending soon, you know? It’s like growth pains, like humanity is going through the agony of sudden maturation, and the old, sick, now-vestigial parts that just get in our way – things that were necessary for the smartest of beasts but are no longer necessary for the youngest of angels … you know what I mean? And when I use the term angel or angelic I only refer to those next-level, asura, sort of hyper-zeitgeist entities that I’m interacting with up there. I think the divine congress that I interrupted was probably some kind of gathering of earthly gods or something like that, and whatever they were, the Heisenburglar was different from them, and they seemed to be just as unnerved by his appearance as I was.”
During the briefest of pauses, Norman wonders how much reality Lou thinks these experiences of his might actually be composed of.
“But when you entered the third room, you left this multiverse, right?”
“Wherever you go, you’re still within the multiverse. If there’s more out there, then that also is part of all of this. No part of existence can be unconnected to any other part. So, I think what I left was this universe – and by that I mean the great light of every moment and corner of this great blooming flower we live in, its stalk at the big bang perhaps and its petals being all of the possible realities that have bloomed from the infinity of choices each quantum of this universe could ever have made. But even beyond that, it would seem, there is more.”
“So you see it as, like, the gods of our universe meeting in some neutral space outside of all of this – the marble room area, wherever that was.”
“Yeah, something like that, perhaps. Really, obviously, I have no idea, but, yeah – that’s something like what I was thinking.”
“So that shimmery invisible color – is that just what it’s like maybe to see things from that dimension, for our minds that are used to seeing three-dimensional things in reflected light?”
“Perhaps. Who is Ishmael, though, then? How do I tie into all of this?”
“I dunno, man. Maybe you’re Ishmael. Maybe ‘Call me Ishmael’ is what you were supposed to say.”
“You know, now that I think about it, I think I told them my name was Vivian Nin instead of Norman Newman, actually,” Norman says as the memory drifts out of the fog.
“That’s an interesting choice,” Lou notes. “Your pseudonymn.”
“And yet used there almost more like naming the character in my novel or something, like taking a part in my own story slightly fictionalized.”
“Where you’re a chick.”
“Well,” is all Norman can think to say to that. “Anyway, the Ishmael thought is interesting. Maybe I should try that next time.”
“We should do a Card reading about all of this.”
“Dude, good call,” Norman agrees.
“What are you doing tomorrow night? We could do one using both of our decks, long-distance, maybe playing one deck off the other or something.”
“Interesting idea. Sure. I’m supposed to hang out with Laura later on tomorrow night, but I can call you from there if that’s cool.”
“Cool. Good. I want to feel more like a part of what’s going on with you out there, because it sounds like some big shit is coming to a head.”
“I am so glad to hear you say that, because it’s almost like … it’s like this is the big thing I’ve been working toward. The more my awareness spreads, the more it feels like me waking up is the World waking up. I mean – there’s no denying that something is going on with me, with all of this … I need to figure it out. I need to explore, I think, out there, more. I need to prepare my soul.”
“Keep me informed, okay? Send me emails. I have to go; the Daily Show is on.”
“Cool, man. I’ll talk to you tomorrow evening.”
After hanging up with Lou, Norman remains seated in the garage to finish his cigarette. He gazes out the little window at the orange leaves of the backyard trees.
“Everything exists,” Norman says into his digital recorder. “There is nothing that does not exist. The only evidence of anything’s existence is our perception of it. Perception is reality. All things share an essential identity. From their own perspective, all things are the self, the center. The ever-spinning duality of being is the duality of self and other, but this duality is an illusion necessary for the existence of a phenomenal world as we know it. The Universe is just God role-playing. We’re information; we’re stats on a sheet of paper in a basement that smells like boys.” He chuckles to himself.
Norman stubs out his cigarette. As he looks across the coffee table in the garage, at the chair across from him and the wooden shelf covered with tools behind it, he thinks about all of those things he’s looking at and how really they’re all just shaped wood and fabric and deformed metal, and all of that is made of molecules, and really that is all just vibrating energy, just information. All of this that he sees and hears is just the information of those things – it’s not the actual things. And so what are these things?
It strikes him that the entire course of human knowledge has been the pursuit of naming everything that we see, as if giving it a name lets us truly understand it. Perhaps it does. A name is almost like the cell wall of an idea. He thinks for a moment about what it might mean to have a true name, such as the ‘true name of God’.
“We are Adam naming the animals,” he adds finally, then pockets his digital recorder and stands up, walks back inside the house.
As usual, Jason and Lewis are at their respective computers playing online role-playing games with graphics verging on truly looking like reality. Lee is in the living room, sitting on the couch with her laptop on her lap. The Public Enemy album It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is playing on the turntable.
“Is this my album, or did you get this recently?” Norman asks her as he walks in, still wearing his long orange leather coat.
“Take off your coat,” Lee beckons, smiling up from her laptop. “This is yours. I hope it’s okay that I borrowed it.”
“Of course,” Norman nods, “but I’m not staying.”
“Oh, no? I hope you’re not uncomfortable here, Norman. I feel really bad about yelling at you the other day.”
“Not at all. I’m just in love with Laura.” He smiles for her.
“I understand.”
“Right on.” Norman feels bad leaving Lee alone with her situation, but he also knows that it is her choice, and that he will be nearby. “Give me a call at Laura’s anytime, okay?”
“Maybe we can meet for lunch from time to time or something,” Lee suggests.
“That’s a great idea. And email me whenever you want, obviously. I want to keep you updated with my writing process, because I know that Under the Undertow wouldn’t be what it is without your input.”
Lee smiles. “I need to read that again.”
“Maybe we should start sending it out to publishers and agents again.”
Thinking about S.E.T.I., he says, “Absolutely, we should.”
Norman nods, then turns around and heads to the door. “Alright. I’ll talk to you soon, Lee. See you later, dudes.” On his way out the door he grabs a small garbage bag full of CDs and clothes that he prepared earlier in the evening and left by the door.
“Bye, Uncle Norman!”

As he is unlocking his car in the driveway, Imogen pulls up the cul-de-sac in her dark red station wagon. She parks next to him and gets out, walks around her car slowly with a vulnerable smile that looks down often. She is wearing the long black-and-white hound’s-tooth coat that she wore all throughout the beginning of their romance three years ago when they were Indiana Academy counselors sharing an off-campus studio.
“Hi, Norman.”
“Hi, Imogen. How are you?” His nervous hand on his key in his car door makes a noise; she takes it as a sign that he is trying to leave.
“Not bad,” she smiles glumly, then makes a little half-hearted attempt at a ninja stance. She turns and walks slowly toward the breezeway door of the house, her arms cutely limp at her sides. “I guess you’re headed out?” she asks, turning to walk backwards for a moment and raising a fingernail to be bitten.
“I am,” he replies with half a smile.
She smiles back at him, though she is unable to hide the still-passionate sadness beneath from Norman, who knows her tells too well. “Well maybe I’ll see you later,” she squeaks, then hurries in and shuts the door without looking back.
Norman stands beside his car with his hand on the key in the door. He wants more than anything to be able to help Imogen, not to be a beacon of heartbreak anymore, but believes at this point that anything sweet he would say to her would probably be taken the wrong way and only cause her more pain.
He blows her a kiss and wonders if she can feel it, even if she mistakes the feeling for something else.



Deftly, Wazzz plucks the kiss out of the World before Imogen has a chance to sense it.
You turd, Axerxes spits, slapping at Wazzz’s tentacle with a few of his own, what do you think you’re doing fishing here of all places? You put that back!
I will not, Wazzz asserts. She’s got a firewall up. She wouldn’t have received it anyway. It just would have flapped around until it died. You want to watch a blown kiss die?
Axerxes continues idly struggling to open Wazzz’s cupped tentacles for his own sense of professionalism, but makes no real attempt to fight his companion.
The kiss coos softly.
You’ll kill it, Axerxes jokes, finally pulling away his tentacles.
No I won’t, Wazzz assures him. But if you tell anyone else I’ll kill you.
Axerxes laughs.
(Death is a comedy on which we have no perspective.)