by Ira Nayman
“It seems to me –”
Unfortunately, we’ll never know how it seemed to Noomi, because the elevator hit the lobby and started to rise without opening its doors. “That’s it!” Crash fumed and pressed the emergency elevator stop button. The elevator’s motion momentarily stopped, which gave Crash the opportunity to pry its doors open. “Everybody out,” he commanded.
“Phillipa isn’t happy about this,” Jeroshi told him.
“She wouldn’t be the first elevator I’ve had to disappoint in pursuit of official Transdimensional Authority business,” Crash replied.
They climbed out onto the second floor of the building and walked down the stairs to the lobby.
As they walked away from the apartment building, Noomi couldn’t help but notice that it was about ten stories tall. Surely, it was much taller when they first landed on it!
“Are you alright?” Jeroshi asked her. She had apparently been frowning.
Before Noomi could answer, a blue and orange blob rollopped up to them. Jeroshi gritted his teeth.
“Are you alright?” Noomi asked him.
“Fine,” Jeroshi grunted.
“What are those things?” Crash asked.
“They have no mouth and they must scream,” Jeroshi said through clenched teeth. “And, they just won’t ferking shut up about it!” Before anybody could say anything further, he picked the blob up and drop kicked it. It sailed over the building and hit a cloud with a loud “THUNK!” Then, it dropped behind the building out of sight.
When he saw the expression on their faces, Jeroshi commented: “What? It’s lighter than it looks.”
“What exactly are those blobs?” Noomi asked.
“Criminals,” Jeroshi told her. After a couple of seconds, he realized that this was insufficient, so he added: “Most of the reasons for criminal behaviour no longer exist. We all live on solar energy, which is abundant. Most objects, when damaged, can be repaired easily enough by finding their constituent atoms and convincing them to reincorporate. The only exception is human beings; when put back together again, our consciousness seems to be missing. That…uhh…object I encountered with a large amount of kinetic force was once a brick wall. For reasons never fully explained at trial, it fell on a human being that had assumed the form of a mongoose with the tail of an A to CA volume of an encyclopedia. I assure you that the trial was aboveboard – it was found guilty by a jury of its peers.”
“Other walls?”
“Seven walls, three floors and two roofs, actually.”
“And, the colours,” Crash asked. “Do they represent different crimes?”
“No. We let them choose their own colours. We’re not barbarians, you know.”
The investigators let this pass. A couple of seconds later, Noomi asked, “Can’t you just…talk the atoms in the dead person’s body into coming back together again?”
“Oh, we tried that,” Jeroshi replied. “Many times. But, there was always something missing. A light behind the eyes. An ability to form coherent thoughts. Certain fine motor skills.”
“A soul?” Crash suggested.
“Something inside the amygdala,” Jeroshi countered. “After over a century of living with conscious matter, we’ve come to the conclusion that atoms are good with structure, not so good with processes.”
As if to drive the point home, a miniature billboard erected itself over Jeroshi’s head. In the top half was an animation of atoms coming together to create a tissue box. When the box of tissues was complete, an equals sign appeared next to it, then a large green check mark. In the bottom half of the box, a head appeared. Over the head was a thought balloon with the equation ‘e=?’ The animation ran through several different possible solutions (including: pi x yummy2; elegant eviscerations extending exponentially; half the value you’re thinking of, but, then, you always were an optimist, and; Harold), until an equals sign appeared next to the unfinished equation and a big red X appeared next to it.
“You, uhh, you’ve wanted to do that for a long time, haven’t you?” Noomi asked.
“A couple of decades,” Jeroshi admitted. “The problem is: everybody here knows the basic principle. Thank you for being my audience.” The billboard deconstructed, falling back inside Jeroshi’s head.
Before Noomi or Crash could respond, a car came down the street. But, of course, because of where they were, it couldn’t just roll on its wheels. It tipped up on its grill and fell on its roof. After a couple of seconds, it tipped up on its back and fell on its wheels again. After another couple of seconds, it started the process all over again.
“That seems…inefficient,” Crash commented.
“Some objects are easily bored,” Jeroshi shrugged. “I bet it gets great mileage…”
“How soon can you find the Home Universe GeneratorTM?” Noomi asked.
Jeroshi smiled. “I did that the moment you asked me to.”
“What? Where is it?”
“Well, uhh, Vancouver…”
“What are we wasting time here for, then?”
“Well, if you were in control of the atoms in your body, we could all turn into light and be there in no time.”
“Wouldn’t that disrupt our thought processes?” Crash wondered.
“No,” Jeroshi told him. “As long as there is continuity between them, human beings can take on any form and retain their consciousness. It’s only when they’re broken that the pieces can’t quite be put back together again.”
“Like Humpty Dumpty,” Noomi commented.
“Was he a friend of yours?” Jeroshi asked. Noomi looked at him, not sure how to respond.
“Unfortunately, turning into light creatures is not possible,” Crash jumped in. “What are our other options?”
Jeroshi considered for a moment. “I could convince some atoms to form an airplane to –”
“NO!” Noomi loudly interrupted. “No airplanes!”
“Umm…okay,” Jeroshi responded. “How about…a vehicle that hovers in the air and will get us there fast but isn’t an airplane?”
“How would that work?” Noomi asked, suspicious.
“It…it would hover. Above the ground. A little. But, it, uhh, it wouldn’t fly.”
“Hover, hunh? Okay. Let’s try it.”
Jeroshi swept a hand towards the street in front of them. “Great. Get in and we’ll go.”
Noomi and Crash looked at the street, but couldn’t see anything. “Get into what?” Noomi asked.
“The vehicle,” Jeroshi told them. “The hovering but definitely not flying vehicle.”
“Where is it?” Charlemagne asked.
“In front of you.”
“Why can’t we see it?”
“Any way I tried to answer that question would seem obvious and insulting,” Jeroshi informed them.
“Okay, why is it invisible?” Crash insisted.
“It…helps…in the…hovering. Trust me.”
“I’m not getting into that!” Noomi protested. “I never enter a vehicle that does not reflect the light spectrum – I’m old-fashioned that way!”
“We could walk,” Jeroshi suggested, “but it would take an awfully long time…”
Before Noomi could respond to this, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She whirled to face another version of herself, perfect in every detail. “Again?” Noomi moaned.
“Again,” mirror-Noomi agreed.
“What are you supposed to be?” Noomi grumped. “A daytime starshine inspector?”
“A daytime starshine inspector,” mirror-Noomi repeated.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“There’s such a thing as daytime starshine inspectors in this universe?”
“There’s such a thing as daytime starshine inspectors in this universe.”
“This is not what it seems,” Jeroshi stated. Walking around Noomi, he stepped in between her and her doppelganger (literally: member of the Doppel gang – you should see their colours!). Noomi’s double
quickly morphed into a perfect replica of him. “This is actually an object – or perhaps a group of objects – that is curious about what it means to be human.”
“Curious about what it means to be human?” the mirror-Jeroshi asked.
“Yeeeeaaah,” Jeroshi skeptically drawled.
“So, it just repeats what you say back to you in the form of a question?” Crash asked.
“Yeeeeaaah?” the mirror-Jeroshi stated.
“Or, it repeats questions in the form of statements,” Jeroshi replied.
“It repeats questions in the form of statements?” the mirror-Jeroshi asked.
“As I explained earlier: sentient matter is good at replicating forms,” Jeroshi said. “It’s not nearly so good at recreating processes, like human thought.”
“Human thought?” mirror-Jeroshi echoed.
“Wow. That could get annoying really quickly!” Noomi huffed.
“Fortunately, there’s a simple remedy,” Jeroshi told them.
“A simple remedy?” mirror-Jeroshi prompted.
“Let’s find out what you’re really made of.”
Before mirror-Jeroshi could ask, “Really made of?”, the real Jeroshi held out his hand and a flame appeared in it. Mirror-Jeroshi looked at this without interest. “Okay,” Jeroshi said. “You’re not made of coal.”
“Not made of coal?”
Jeroshi waved his hand, and the flame turned into a piece of bread. He dangled the piece of bread in front of his double, but it showed no interest in that, either. “Damn!” Jeroshi exclaimed. “I was hoping that there might be a toaster or two in there.”
“A toaster or two in there?”
With a shrug, Jeroshi concentrated on the piece of bread, which turned into a tuning fork. He tapped his double on the shoulder with the tuning fork, but nothing happened. “So, you’re not a song, then?” Jeroshi mused.
“Not a song, then,” mirror-Jeroshi confirmed.
One flick of the wrist later, the tuning fork had been replaced by a stick. “Here, boy,” Jeroshi enthused. “Wanna fetch? Sure, you do. Fetch the stick, boy. Attaboy. Aaaaand – FETCH!” Jeroshi threw the stick down the street. Mirror-Jeroshi melted into three dogs, one German Shepherd and two Labradoodles, each of whom eagerly ran after the stick.
“Hmm,” Jeroshi said to himself. “I knew it would turn out to be something simple…”
Crash looked at Noomi, who had been registering increasing levels of agogedness throughout this incident. “The sooner we get on that…hovering vehicle,” he gently pointed out, “the sooner we can finish this mission and get back to Earth Prime.”
“Okay,” Noomi agreed.
Jeroshi offered a hand to Noomi, who took it, and was led up and invisible ramp. “Watch your –” he began, but was interrupted by a loud CLANG! Noomi yelped in pain as her head snapped back. “Yeah, that could have been smoother,” Jeroshi allowed. “Still, the hovering.”
Once Noomi was settled in an invisible seat five feet off the ground, Jeroshi helped Crash onto the…vehicle and – with much less yelping and CLANG!ing – took him to a seat. Jeroshi sat down nearby. Then, the ‘vehicle’ rose twenty feet into the air and started moving forward.
“This is disconcerting,” Noomi commented as she watched the buildings flow underneath them.
“Remember,” Jeroshi advised, “hovering, not flying.”
“Will there be refreshments on this…not flight?” Crash asked. Noomi hit him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “What? Travelling through the Pollock always makes me peckish!”
They moved below, over, around and through: buildings shaped like doughnuts and doughnuts shaped like buildings; clouds made out of steel wool (all the better to scrub the environment clean with); a huge rock with a castle chiselled into its top that floated serenely over a lake; a group of identical suburban homes that, when seen from above, seemed to spell out the words ‘help meeeee’; mountains where people skied uphill; and a thirty-foot tall baby’s arm holding an apple.
A couple of hours into the not exactly a flight, Noomi got bored of trying to figure out how Crash could sleep anywhere he found himself. Really! Hotel lobbies! Opera houses! Children’s birthday parties! Invisible vehicles of indeterminate structure! He did look cute curled up in a ball in the sky, but still. Sleeping in chairs was a talent Noomi had never mastered.
So, she turned to Jeroshi and asked, “So, in this universe, you can talk to anything?”
“That’s right,” he responded.
“Anything at all?”
“Yeeeessss?”
“How about god?”
“God?”
“That’s right. Is there a god?”
“Well, there’s Bob.”
“Bob?”
“That’s right.”
“Who is Bob?”
“Bob is the universe.”
“The universe is called Bob?”
“Its full name is ten million phonemes long, but it prefers Bob. The universe is modest that way.”
“So, there is no white bearded gentleman sitting on a throne, having songs of praise sung to him forever, but there is a…universal consciousness?”
“That is correct.”
“Hunh. Looks like I chose the wrong religion not to believe in!” **
** Theologians will dispute this, of course. An omnipotent god could exist in a fully conscious universe without being detected – maybe he just wasn’t returning your calls. Maybe he was out running errands when you prayed. Maybe he’s just not that into you, and he’s hoping you’ll take the hint. God can be inscrutable that way.
Theologians should chill out. The multiverse is a big enough place that not every universe has to have a god as they understand it. ***
*** “Yes, they do.” Cellatious the Vulgar of Avila, master theologian and red velvet cake fetishist. ****
**** I stand corrected. *****
***** This whole star thing is getting out of hand – if it keeps going at this rate, we’ll end up with more stars than the MGM private bathing facilities! We need a better system for connecting the text to the footnotes. Let’s switch to letters.f
f What? Why start at ‘f’? Why not start at the beginning of the alphabet? This is getting ridiculous! Stupid footnotes – why does a fictional story even have footnotes, anyway?g
g It’s post-modern.h
h Post-modern my Aunt Jemimah’s hiney! Footnotes are just an easy way to add something ‘clever’ to a text. If an idea cannot fit into the body of the narrative, it should be left out entirely! Oh, and this letter thing is totally not working for me. Let’s switch to numbers. Sometimes, the old ways really are the best!
“Bob says, ‘Hi.’”
“How do I know that’s true?”
A voice boomed: “WOULD I LIE TO YOU?”
Noomi’s stomach gurgled. It was very quiet, quite lady-like, really. Still. “Sorry to doubt you,” she quickly muttered. The gurgling caused her to reconsider her opposition to Crash’s question (assuming she hadn’t forgotten it completely), and she asked, “Is there any food on the…vehicle?”
“I’m afraid not,” Jeroshi answered.
“Would it be possible to…well, not land, seeing as we’re not actually flying,” she continued, “but, you know, stop someplace where we can get food? I could kill for a good steak.”
“I know just the place,” Jeroshi assured her.
Four minutes, fifty-seven seconds later, the not a plane didn’t land in a field of tall grass. Jeroshi exited the vehicle and walked towards the middle of the field, Noomi trailing behind. He looked around and, when he was satisfied he was in the right spot, Jeroshi concentrated. “Are you making food?” Noomi asked. “Because we haven’t discussed what I –”
“Ambience,” Jeroshi stopped her.
A few moments later, a large oaken table appeared in the field. Carved into its thick legs were ornate images of…a field. Four large, padded, very comfortable looking chairs appeared around the table. Noomi
put her hand on the nearest chair and was about to pull it away from the table when Jeroshi shouted, “No!” and the field furniture disappeared.
Before Noomi could say anything, the table reappeared three inches to the left and rotated seventeen degrees clockwise from where it had originally been. “What,” Noomi wanted to know, “was that about?”
“Location. Location. Location,” Jeroshi informed her. “It’s the first rule of fine dining.”
Noomi tentatively pulled a chair away from the table. When it appeared that it wouldn’t disappear, she sat down. While this was being decided, with a flourish of his hand, Jeroshi created a white cloth and spread it across the table.
“What can I get for you this fine afternoon?” Jeroshi brightly asked as a fine china setting appeared on the table in front of Noomi. “We can do a very nice jumbo shrimp with a seafood sauce.”
“Mmm…I’m not really big on shrimp,” Noomi responded with a frown. “Could I possible get…a steak?”
Jeroshi closed his eyes for a few seconds, then shook his head as he opened them. “No. Sorry about that, but cows were grazed in this field and left hard feelings among the grass and trees, not to mention a methane stench that took years to dissipate. How about something else…perhaps a nice shrimp casserole?”
“Noooo, I really don’t like shrimp. How about a burger?”
Jeroshi shrugged. “It’s the beef thing, you see…”
“How about a turkey burger?”
Jeroshi nodded. “Let me just check with the kitchen…” He closed his eyes for another few seconds. When he opened them again, he regretfully told Noomi: “Sorry, but Gary says they can’t do it.”
“Gary? Who is Gary?”
“Gary is a group of atoms that was once part of the leg of a turkey,” Jeroshi explained. “They did not enjoy the experience, and are afraid that being part of a turkey burger will bring back unhappy memories.”
“Can’t you get other atoms to be part of the turkey burger?”