Then slowly Patrick opened his eyes. He looked towards Sarah.
Yet his fingers still danced across the piano. He missed not a single note.
In that moment Sarah understood. Patrick had known she was behind the wall listening for quite some time. Not just this day but also in the days before. At some point Patrick started playing for her. He started playing to share who he was with her. He had done this to connect with her. In doing so they had reached a purity in intimacy that most souls would never know. It was done all without saying a word. Patrick had written a symphony of who he was for her ears only.
As he looked to Sarah the notes he played suddenly hit a moment of optimism.
He was playing in D minor which was typically considered the saddest key. However, as he looked at her even amongst the sadness he hit a movement that uplifted the spirit. As he did this he smiled at her. Sarah smiled back. She rarely saw Patrick smile. Seeing his smile added to the beauty of this moment.
He then closed his eyes and lost himself once again in the story he was playing for her. She was glad he did not stop. The moment was too perfect. It was too perfect for words or interruptions.
Sarah knew that Patrick was telling her he loved her. He was telling her he loved her without having to say those three special little words.
Eventually as all good things must, the music came to an end. Sarah felt a pang of sadness when the music stopped. Patrick sat quietly at the keyboard staring at the keys. Slowly Sarah approached him. He did not turn to look away from the piano. She wondered if in his mind he was still playing.
Sarah stood behind him. She stared at the keys with him. She stared into his world and she stared into his mind. She put her hand on his shoulder. Slowly he moved his hand up and he put his hand on hers. It was a simple gesture, but it said it all. It said everything. Together they felt a warmth. Together they felt love.
Patrick began to speak. “I am sorry, Sarah. I am sorry for the way I am. I want so much...to be perfect. I want to be perfect…for you. But things are not...quite as they should be for me.” He paused for a moment. He was still staring down at the black and white keys of the piano.
“But know that…I love you,” he said.
At this point Patrick turned from the piano and looked deep into Sarah’s eyes. “Know that you are everything. I just…”
Patrick turned away. “I just want to be a good person in life. And…I want to see less. I want to see peace and simplicity. I want to look at a piano and just see a piano. And not the infinite pieces of music that can be created by it. But that…is not my lot in this.”
He turned to look at Sarah again. “But…I promise you…I will save us Sarah. I will save us all. I am not sure how yet but one way or another I know I will save us. I am certain of this. I will save you. And all the you’s that exist in the many Verses.”
Sarah knew what he said was the truth. He would save her. He would save her with his beautiful mind.
Sarah sat down next to him on the piano bench.
Patrick began to play again. As he did so Sarah rested her head on his shoulder. She listened to the new symphony he played for her.
***
. The Sea of Glass was built by those who understood that there were unique minds all throughout the Multiverse. They understood that there were those amongst all civilizations that were different. Certain minds could see all the countless possibilities. Those individuals had the potential to change things. They were born different. They were born special. Their minds saw things in a way that others couldn’t. Their minds saw past their universe and saw things not just as they were. These minds saw things as they could be.
The people of Verse Zero began to foster their prodigies. They sought them out and trained them as best they could. They knew the fate of existence lay in the hands of those they gathered.
As the prodigies of the Multiverse were brought together the people of Verse Zero saw something special when they looked to them. They saw hope. They saw hope of all that could be. They saw hope that all that is and all that once was could be saved.
It was understood that one would have sight so great, brilliance so special, that they would be able to see past the observable universe. This person could see past our cosmic horizon. This person could see past what we can know. This individual would be an ultimate prodigy.
They were not certain where or when this prodigy would exist. However, they knew this great mind needed to be located at all costs.
Generations later the children of the Sea of Glass studied. They grew.
Those that were part of Sarah’s generation were seeing their skills improving. As time went on they danced their way in and out of hundreds of different lives in the seas of the Multiverse. They lived these lives and they gained experiences and knowledge that only a lifetime can provide. Living these lives allowed them to better put their own understanding into context. Experience teaches us. Experiences prepares us. All the children who were now becoming young adults were preparing. Even when they stepped into a sad life, a life that had known only failure, they learned much. In some cases they learned more from these lives than the others. Hunger and misery can show the true value in life. It also shows the cost of decisions.
They lived lifetimes in the great Sea of the Multiverse but whenever they returned to Verse Zero little time had passed. Decades in the Multiverse were mere minutes and hours as time was reckoned in Verse Zero.
They children stayed away from certain lives. The Scholars had mapped out the best paths to traverse the Multiverse. If the children were not careful they would stray too far into a realm of the dark where the Multiverse was already starting its collapse due to the great unravelling. Whether through the unravelling or even by natural means, to be killed while in a Verse before escaping would truly be death for those who could traverse through existence. To die in a Verse while your energy still resided there would leave one lost to time.
As they danced in and out of the lives that could have been it was easy to almost get lost. It was easy to lose sight as they traveled in and out of these alternate lives. Each decision could have many different effects. There were many repercussions. The decision to take the train could save one from a car accident or could have one stabbed in an alley. The children learned existence was a bizarre mixture of chance and randomness that made each person in these different realities who they were.
One day Sarah stepped into a Universe where the simple decision was made by her parents to name her something else. In this place her name was not Sarah. It never had been and never would be. In some of these realities her mother had divorced and married another man. So even her last name was different. How much can a person change and stay the same, Sarah found herself wondering. In a different time, in a different place, under different circumstances, with a different name could one be remotely able to say they were the same.
What strange sets of circumstances compose us, Sarah thought. At one time she would have believed at the minimum it was a name. A name was a foundation that so much was built upon. In these other realities Sarah had other names and it was easy to almost lose herself. It was easy to forget about the Sea of Glass. It was easy to forget that her name was Sarah. Because these other people were who she was. But they were not.
All the prodigies in the end were seeking the same thing. They were seeking the keys hidden throughout existence. These keys were all throughout the Multiverse. They were pieces to a puzzle. The greatest of them would be able to put that puzzle together and find the center of creation where a cancer was growing and spreading. That cancer was slowly infecting everything.
The children were on a quest throughout creation. It was a quest through space and through infinite possibility. It was a race through all that was and all that could have been.
Amongst Sarah’s generation Catalina was one who was truly gifted.
Catalina made one of the greatest discoveries in the existence of Verse Zero. She discovered somethi
ng in her studies of symmetry. Using the principles of symmetry Catalina learned to find tunnels in other Verses. In this manner the children of Verse Zero could hop from one Verse to another. Through this method Verses could be used as spring boards to other Verses. No one had done this before. Catalina taught them all how to use the symmetry of Verses to move further from Verse Zero through infinity. The children were no longer bound by the shores of the Sea of Glass. The Multiverse was truly open to them now.
This knowledge changed everything and the people of Verse Zero knew they were one step closer to their ultimate goal. Finding the path through creation had always been key.
Catalina’s discovery changed things and now the possibilities were truly limitless.
Together the children learned and their experiences changed them.
***
As Sarah was returning to the dorms she saw Isiah sitting in the field. He was alone and staring at the horizon. They were still very close. They were best friends. Over time Isiah was a constant voice of calm and reason.
As Sarah neared she could see from the expression on his face that something was troubling Isiah.
Sarah sat next to him. Isiah did not look away from the swirling sky.
She studied his eyes for a few moments. She suspected she knew what was on his mind. As she stared into his eyes Sarah knew she too at times had that same look in her eyes. She experienced similar moments.
Isiah had seen something in one of his other lives that was affecting him greatly.
Sarah’s generation was learning a great deal. However, the more lives one experienced the more horrors one saw. The more lives one lived a fear grew at times that one could be washed away by horror.
After a few moments Sarah asked her friend, “You saw something didn’t you, Isiah?”
He didn’t immediately respond. Then he nodded.
“What did you see?” Sarah asked.
Isiah remained quiet. He continued looking into the sky. Sarah reached over and grabbed his hand. She gave it a gentle squeeze.
“What did you see?” she asked again.
Finally, Isiah spoke.
“I stepped into my life. I stepped into one of my worlds. I was standing before a house. However, the house was in flames. I knew the house. It was my house. It was where I grew up. It was where I lived. In that house…was my family. They were in the house and I could hear their screams.”
“In my mind…in this life I knew why the house was on fire. It was on fire because of me. It was on fire because I was a vocal protester. Because I was standing up for my rights. This made many people angry. They went to my home while everyone was sleeping. And they set it on fire. They torched it. They torched it with my father, mother, and sisters inside. I wasn’t even home when they did it. But I got word…and I ran home…but…it was too late. They were already burning. I tried…I tried to run into the flames…to help…but people held me back. The flames were too great so they wouldn’t let me move.”
“It was all my fault. All because of me. All because I made a choice to stand up for what was right.”
Isiah looked down. There were tears in his eyes. “What did it matter? What did it matter, all my protests? In the end. I lost. I lost everything. Because of my choice I lost everything. I lost my family. I lost my father. My mother. My sisters. All because of the choices I made.”
Sarah understood how this was affecting Isiah. “It didn't happen though,” Sarah said as she tried to comfort him. “It didn’t happen in your life. It was another place. It didn’t happen.”
Isiah turned to her. “But it did. It happened somewhere to someone who was me. The cruelty of people...I never expected it. I never anticipated it. Good is good and right is right. I did everything like I was supposed to. I stood up for what was right. But it was my family who paid the price. My family was martyred for it.”
“What true victory is there for the martyr?” Isiah wondered aloud. “The victory is for those who come after the martyr. They can look back at all the martyr lost and sacrificed and say that what the martyr did was right. But to the martyred it doesn't matter. The martyr simply dies. The martyr burns in the fires of the wicked. The martyr loses.”
“As I stood there watching the flames I knew that in that world my family would become a symbol. They would become a symbol for all that should be changed. People would remember what happened to them. In the probabilities there would be a school named after my father. But in the end my father burned to death. When they found his body he was in the hallway. He was trying to beat down my sisters’ door to save them. He could have survived. He could have ran out of the house. He could have ran outside. The path out for him was clear. But he didn't. He stayed so he could try to save my sisters. He died a hero. He died a hero who didn't save anyone.”
Isiah was crying now.
“How can we live with what we know? How can we live with all that could of happened when we know it did happen?! How can we live knowing that for every act of justice there was an act of injustice? For every great victory there was an equally great defeat. For every comedy there was a tragedy. There is always a place where all the heroes die.”
Sarah wrapped her arms around Isiah. She held her friend close as he cried. She was silent as she did so. She simply didn’t know how to respond. His questions were all questions that she knew there were no good answers for.
In the end it was logic. In the end it was math. There was always the possibility that the good lost.
Somewhere.
***
The Philosophical Principles of Death. The Scripture of Farinata Uaegli Abertio.
Gospel 000089
I study the insects and the arachnids. They speak to me. They teach me.
Insects have in them no malice. No hatred.
They go through their functions in the service of the greater good of their species.
The spider is savage yet it does not understand murder? It does not understand the act of taking life. It merely understands the importance of sustenance or the need for self-preservation.
I study the spider. I watch its movements. A spider has a brain. It has a mind. However, there are complexities that the spider’s mind, a mind which can help it to create such intricate webs, can never understand. The webs the spider creates are in part channeled through the actions of the mind by instinct.
The spider cannot comprehend the idea of worlds and realities beyond its web and the need for food. The spider cannot understand ideas of hope or madness? Ideas of madness exist far beyond the comprehension of the spider or the fly.
As I watch the spider devouring the fly I have to wonder what concepts exist above us? What concepts exist beyond us in the way that ideas of madness cannot be comprehended by the brain of the spider?
I have grown to understand that in the simplicity of insects is purity. Insects live without madness or compassion. Ants understand the importance of the future in a way that is beyond thought. They live in the purity of instinct. The worker ant does not put its needs above the needs of the colony. Imbedded in the evolution of ants is the drive to protect the queen. Not for love of the queen. But for the understanding that the queen represents the future.
The generation without compassion is the most benevolent. Thus, we should strive to be more like the insects in their simplicity. We must always work for the greater good.
Without compassion insects work to bestow the gift of the future to those that follow.
We must be more like the insects because in truth, like madness to the fly, emotions do not exist. They are mere concepts. Love is not true. The only truth is the now and the future.
Our reality is not tangible nor constant. It is ever changing as concepts like madness, love, and hope are continuously altered. The truths we think we know are simple imagined structures that we place ideas upon.
They are ghosts.
In the digital plane reality is created by 0’s and 1’s. The things that are brought to us by comp
uters do not exist. They are mere representations of ideas or of something that once did exist.
However, digitally we can store and recreate the most beautiful symphonies ever composed. We can store images of those we loved. We can stare at these digital recreations and weep for those we have lost. But the image itself is a ghost of a concept. It is electrical variations stored in a machine.
These made up concepts have deceived us. They have chained us. They have constrained us.
To the ancients time was measured in seasons and days. They had no need for seconds. No understanding of hours. There was day and night. It was only after society became more structured that new concepts of time were created. Hours became important. Seconds became important.
Computers forced us to create new measurements of time. The concept of milliseconds became important for the mind to understand.
How bizarre the idea of a millisecond would have been to the mind of the ancients. This would be beyond the concerns or understanding of those who measured existence in the simplicity of day and night.
We place values on these new concepts we constantly create. We place values on madness and love. But these values and these concepts are all relative to the observer.
Centuries from now they may remember the year I died. Records might record the minute my life ended. However, my conscious mind will feel the pain the second my heart stops.
My reality is shaped by my constructs of time and emotion.
None of these concepts exist to the spider.
Even madness does not exist on its web.
Verse Twelve: An Endless Waltz
Sarah stood at the edge of the Sea of Glass. Weeks had passed since her discussion with Isiah and she could not stop thinking of it. She reflected on all the possibilities in the Multiverse. She thought not just about the possibilities of what could happen but of how they could affect who she was.
Prisons of Stolen Dreams Page 18