by Davi Cao
Dalana lowered her back down to keep rolling, when the mud swallowed her whole. It compressed her body and preserved only her face’s access to the surface. She saw another three-legged snail roaming the area with its usual calm. She talked to it out of surprise, ready to get out of that trap on her own.
“Don’t you have an owner, little thing? Some Creator behind your coming to this world? I’d like to meet it sometime.” Dalana created a small volcano to raise her body out of the mud.
She got down, however, swallowed again. Laughing at her own silliness, she closed her eyes to think of a better solution. Opening them, prepared to put her plan into practice, she turned her head in fright. By her side, a multi-legged Creator watched her from a higher point, with a big smile full of pointy teeth.
“It is Dalana whom I see, bathing in slime, isn’t it?” OOOO said.
∙ 3 ∙ Old friends meet
Standing still, OOOO also sank in the mud with its thin legs. To cope with that, he bent each one way, giving him a larger base to sustain its lightweight body. It formed a wireframed sphere with its legs, bouncing in successive hops, with a head on its top amused at every hardship it had to face in that world.
“Trapped in there, aren’t you? Need help? You can’t do much outside of Utopia, can you?” OOOO said, circling Dalana with low jumps, spilling mud over her.
“You’re proud of this place, I know. I can get out on my own,” Dalana said.
“No, here, let me help you. I’m glad we meet again, you see?”
Something pushed her out of the mud, drying her up. She floated for a moment in the vacuum. Once down, she stood on solid ground, losing balance with the sudden change of surface. Of course, she thought, the dominant one knew all about efficient crafting in its own world.
“Nothing like mastering the place, right?” she said.
“Not at all. I’m just like you, am I not? Everything melts, even the tougher stuff, no matter how much I try, you see?” OOOO said.
“Good, so you’re in for an adventure, as usual.”
“Always! Boredom is for you and you only, isn’t it? I don’t know how you live with it.”
“Stop saying that. I’m not boring. You lack the sensibility to see the beauty I try to create, that’s what happens.”
“No, I don’t, do I? It’s beautiful, I never denied it. It’s just all the same, and I need new things, don’t I?”
“Well, I have new things for you, in fact, as I’m full of ideas for a next world. It will be—” Dalana began to say, spreading her arms wide to her sides.
“I don’t care, you see? Not right now, sorry. Something major requires my attention!” OOOO jumped above her with its springy legs.
Dalana turned her body to follow it, and shouted to make it stop. “You are changed! What happened to you?” she said.
“Did you notice anything? Why, tell me.” OOOO spun its head to face her.
“Not curious to hear my idea, meeting another Creator and not trying to fit in ... I know you don’t like my worlds, but, let’s see, you were always interested in me.”
OOOO spun its eyes, sliding its teeth across its lips, keeping in silence for a brief moment. “I changed, yes ... Didn’t I? Small creatures, three-legged ones, one of them was next to you a few moments ago, wasn’t it?”
“The snails? Oh, you are the one behind them. That’s interesting, isn’t it?” Dalana mimicked OOOO’s most famous sentence.
“Yes, very, very much!” It solidified more ground around Dalana so that it could join her and speak closer. “The World Voice was supposed to be the only one, wasn’t it? It still is, it can’t sense anything else, it is still alone and will forever be so! The thing is, though, I wanted more, didn’t I? Little creatures that almost don’t melt down, in the world of melt down!”
“They are intriguing. Congratulations. It must have been easy for you to come up with a concept that resisted the depressive pressure, right?”
“Not much, no. I learned with a friend too, didn’t I? Yes, he made a creature that resisted even to the pillar itself! With my help, of course.”
“So, you developed that idea further? I wonder how far your friend got, then.”
“I crafted the snails, didn’t I? They are new eyes. I saw you through them. I loved to see you rolling.” OOOO laughed. “That’s how I like to do too. See, you need these worlds to get better. Nothing good comes out of Utopias,” OOOO said.
“Can’t you let it be? I am me and you are you. If there is anything I can do to help you, tell me and I’ll do it. That’s who I am.”
“We can talk. That’s help, isn’t it?”
“And the place you had to go?”
“Over already. The snail melted down.”
“That’s bad. Are they really needed? Because they will all die, and why do you want to keep an eye on everything? Go play some games.”
“I did, I played countless matches! I am waiting now, you see? So meanwhile I’m having fun with the snails. I found you, didn’t I?”
“Fun with the snails?” Dalana said with disdain. “Good, now you can watch mud from a thousand eyes!”
“Not a thousand, only nine, one for each of my legs. I find some interesting things, don’t I? And I love when they melt, you see?”
“If you’re looking for a way to spend your time, while you wait for whatever it is, do you allow others to mess with them?”
OOOO looked around, searching for one of its snails. On top of a small mound behind Dalana, a little creature dug its way towards them, circling their solidified platform with its legs inserted deep in the underground slime.
“Nobody ever tried it yet. You want to have a go at it, don’t you?”
“I do. These poor things deserve better than to serve as mere body parts to someone who loves to lose them.”
OOOO giggled, “Go on, you got me curious now, didn’t you? What can you offer to these creatures? They can only count the time until dissolution.”
The snail got higher, showing more of its long legs as it seemed to float up to the sky. A bubble of a pitch-black membrane pushed it out of the mud, which then proceeded to swallow the creature and roll down the slope without inertia, stopping at the bottom at a sudden.
“What do you see with that eye?” Dalana said, herself well aware of the answer.
“Eternity ...” OOOO said, hypnotized by the new sense of vision inside the bubble.
Immersed in the dark sphere, the snail and OOOO became one, surrounded by an apparatus that served both as portal and mirror. Either by mental connection or by the physical existence of two shells on the snail’s back, the world around them froze and disappeared, melted, and overflowed, and it talked to them through images that existed without existing, formed by words alone, the same ones that haunted and depressed the land.
Sad notions of loneliness, misery, and uselessness, bathed in beauty, in the spectacle of creativity. In the bubble, they searched for suffering, for it lacked in the depths of their minds, and they found only pleasure.
They existed in there for eternity, and eternity meant bliss for those with such a powerful control on any world’s destiny. In the darkness of immortality’s mystical embrace, the snail kissed itself, although it had no mouth and the membranes in every leg couldn’t reach the others. It wouldn’t stop at any impossibility, because it existed in a land where frustration dominated every aspect of existence, and the mere wish for something equaled to having it.
Pure satisfaction, absence of needs, awareness of one’s role in the universe. Lies were truth, the void was everything. Without want, imagination ruled. Nothing bad OOOO could come up with would pass the filter of eternity unharmed. It would find itself in the midst of a fearless place, the blender of mind, and join the fraternity of thought like another one of its siblings.
Let the World Voice wander alone in the world, suffering and wishing for death. In the end, the snail thought, the Voice merely paired love, ennui, and hatred. And so, it deserved a
dmiration, like every particle of dust in creation.
“We are Utopia,” Dalana said, calling OOOO’s senses back to their world.
It rolled its eyes, waking up. “You’re an insistent one, aren’t you?” it said. “That’s not what they’re for. These creatures have no mind, can’t you see?”
The black bubble popped with OOOO’s wish, releasing the dazed snail back to the melted land’s cruelty. The little one tasted the mud with one of its legs, keeping them on the surface, unwilling to dig and eat more of it. It left its long lean body exposed to the World Voice’s full power.
“See, now it doesn’t want to do its thing anymore! You ruined it with your idea, didn’t you?”
“You force it to live in this terrible place and expect that it will be indifferent? Here’s your indifference, what are you complaining about?” Dalana said.
“It wasn’t supposed to have any will of its own, you see?”
“Isn’t that amusing, though? Not to have control over everything?” She struck at OOOO with an undeniable truth.
“Yes, yes, of course, that’s right, isn’t it? You have a way of teaching things, don’t you? Tricky one, smart Creator. You should meet my new friend. He needs this kind of interaction, doesn’t he?”
“That’s what I was waiting to ask you since you found me. Is your friend, by chance, a human?”
“Yes, he is! Interesting, isn’t it?”
“How did you find him? Or is he another one of your resisting creations?” Dalana asked.
“I wish! The exterior truth is more incredible than the created one, isn’t it?” OOOO said. “I was fleeing from the World Voice, right in the beginning, still scared with its power. I feared for my disappearance, you see? That would be bad! I didn’t think it would have this impact on us, did I? No, I thought it would be funny, and much less dangerous, that’s all, although I’m enjoying it. Anyway, I bumped into him accidentally and then tried to kill him. A past world’s creation not melting down? That was wrong, wasn’t it? Later I found out that he’s a Creator just like us and that’s why he wouldn’t die. He was Terra’s child, wasn’t he?”
Caressing OOOO’s neck patches, Dalana said “It’s been long since we don’t have another human Creator, and I lost track of all the old ones. How’s he doing so far?”
“He’s quite fond of drama, isn’t he? Yes, he’s still far from accepting his new condition, despite his latest changes,” OOOO said.
“Perhaps I can help. Can you take me to where he is?”
“No.”
“What? Are you not talking to him anymore?”
“I am. I just can’t do that, not now, can I? Colin asked for a time to himself. Think, solve unresolved issues. And I respect others, don’t I? That’s why I wait alone, you see?”
“He is that interesting then, right?” Dalana hugged OOOO. “One has to be special to be worthy of OOOO’s care.”
“I like you!” It fitted in with her. “Until now, yes, I follow him, because his obsession is still just a promise, isn’t it? He wants to have Terra back. A little like someone we know, isn’t him?” OOOO giggled, looking at Dalana.
“You mean me? No, I don’t like to repeat worlds, you can’t deny that. Only the concept is the same. Isn’t that what he’s looking for too? The concept of Terra, under different conditions? That, I can relate to. So, take me to him.”
“No, not the concept, you see? He wants the exact replication of his original life in Terra! Crazy, isn’t it? Worth following, sure thing, just to see what will come out of it. Potentially boring, however, and we must be ready for it too, must we not?”
“Frustration, that’s what he’ll get. If he lived this time as a Creator, no matter how unwillingly, he should never be able to live the exact same life again. Something will have changed in his mind that will alter his expectations. Something should,” Dalana said.
“I don’t know ... He’s very insistent too, isn’t he? Obsessive just like you. Only creates Terran stuff, choosing to live under the weight of Mae,” OOOO said.
“Bad. You have to take me to him.”
“No.”
“Please, I have something to offer! Something to help him overcome this obsession.”
“I don’t want him to overcome it, do I? No, I want to see how far it goes and watch his confrontation. That will be interesting, won’t it?”
“Only if he doesn’t suffer too much from it.”
“Even if he suffers!” OOOO said, eyes fixed in Dalana’s face.
“Come on, I know you mean it, but it’s not up to you to decide his fate. Let’s see this Colin, bring him back to us and show him the options. Walk, big spider, walk.”
“Who ... What ... Stop it, that’s not the right direction,” OOOO said, unable to resist to Dalana’s pushing of its body.
“Then what is the correct one? Go ahead, I’ll follow you.”
“Right, off we go.” OOOO gave her a broad smile. “To Colin’s place, yes, it’s a long walk there, very long, isn’t it, very, very long ...”
“Less talk and more action, go on!”
Dalana tried to emulate OOOO’s idea of solidifying the mud to make for an easier walk, failing at every attempt. The crusts melted down fast, crumbling under her steps with the fragility of thin ice. She soon got back to rolling on the slime and stopping to find OOOO, guiding herself by the incessant hopping of her company.
Always clean because the matter under her had no intention of bonding with other particles, never tiring due to the nature of her being, she rolled and rolled, trusting her guide when it said that the walk took a long time.
They never arrived. The lack of landmarks troubled their navigation, the constant melting down of ruins and hills changed everything often, and one would need effort to realize one walked in circles. Seeing as OOOO jumped nonstop, always moving ahead, Dalana stood up on thicker mud and wished for the lab’s obelisk. Taller, taller, she thought, and it materialized, a thin straight line cutting the far mounds where the planet curved on itself.
“How can I be sure that you’re taking me there now and not just deceiving me?” she asked.
“I am deceiving you, of course, am I not? We are not going in a straight line, otherwise we’d have already arrived. We must give him time, must we not?” OOOO said.
“Bad, very bad. Where’s your respect for me?”
“In telling the truth and taking you to where you want, you see? We’ll get there, eventually, won’t we? And where is your respect for Colin’s wish to be alone?”
“It’s hard to respect what I still don’t know. I need to meet him and tell him about my plans. From what you told me of him, he will be glad to receive my help.”
“You are convinced of yourself, aren’t you? That may not work with him.”
“That’s what we must see.” Dalana lay down, ready to roll again, until taken aback by a surprising thought. “Hey, I’m telling you, you’ve changed, OOOO! How come you’re not curious to see my confrontation with him? In the old times, you’d be rubbing our noses one on the other before we even knew our names. Don’t you think that will be interesting? Only because I’m boring you don’t want to see that?”
“No, I do, I do want to see it, I’m eager, am I not? The thing is, the last time he asked for a time of his own, he created an underground town, and entering there was like opening a box of wonders, wasn’t it? It was full of interesting creations, not just replicas of old Terra, you see? Better yet, yes, replicas, but disfigured by the World Voice! Different creatures, art made out of the materials I laid on the table for others to use. That was fun, wasn’t it? Yes, it was,” OOOO said.
“Good. I want to see that too. Take me there, you don’t have to enter with me. Whatever happens, I won’t put the blame on you. And then I’ll tell you everything I see at his place.”
She seduced OOOO with the promise of more to see, to which it reacted by turning around and jumping over her horizontal body. Dalana rolled to follow it, focused on he
r friend’s hopping strides, paying attention to any ruin or high mound on the way in order to locate herself in the world.
It led her away from the recent World Voice’s path, where the concentrated mud allowed her to walk on firmer ground in erect posture. Able to stand, the dark green door under a hill at a distance showed up clear in her sight. She’d get there even without OOOO.
“You are ready to get in, aren’t you?” it said once they arrived. “Think of something gentle to say. If you want to help, you must open up first, mustn’t you?”
“I am human like him. That’s all I need, if my thoughts are correct.” Dalana touched the dark door’s slimy surface.
“I hate to agree with you on this, don’t I? If he doesn’t like to see you, though, tell me how you overcame it. Good or bad, just give me something interesting, you see?”
“Don’t worry. From what I know of you, you’ll love what my team is trying to do.”
She entered Colin’s safe haven. Below her bare dark feet, an unending stairway opened up to her visit. Walls resisted poorly, at the edge of dissolution, still undecided about their unbearable sadness. One soft push and they would all collapse.
That material existed on a different concept from the one in her lab, some idea she couldn’t understand. Melted light bulbs hanged on the ceiling, providing light even with damaged parts, a charming and inefficient way of giving vision to those who depended on it.
At the bottom of a thousand and one steps, where walls toughened and the floor lay firm as marble, another door closed her path. She embraced it with her body and ear to feel its vibrations, and heard murmurs from the other side. The sign of life, of creation and, hopefully, a new friend.