by Davi Cao
When the great pillar stopped and changed directions, making a curve towards OOOO's frantic hopping, it shivered. A wave of bad thoughts struck the Creator in mid-vacuum, affecting its fragile optimism.
“I can’t fit in ... One world after the other ... Look at all that I’ve seen ... And I am the only joke ... The only one created just for laughs, to be watched and ridiculed ... I laugh, because I love to laugh ... Everything is interesting ... And so, nothing is really interesting ... I am the dominant one, and was about to let it kill a friend ... This is being worthless for real, this is failure ...” OOOO said to himself.
“Go ahead, don’t stop! You know this isn’t true, it’s not your fault that Colin wanted to face the World Voice,” Bibi said telepathically. “You love your creations. This world of yours is almost as interesting as I am myself. You should be flattered.”
OOOO spun its head a few times and got back to its race, stumbling on its many legs without falling. It only managed to ignore its depressing thoughts because of Bibi’s help, who hovered over the land at high speed with its misty kite. The pillar of light went the opposite way, relieving its weight on the Creators’ destination, thus freeing Colin's path.
He laid dormant on the mud, head stuck in the slime, nose covered with it and mouth stuffed with melted matter. OOOO raised him with three of its legs, shaking him to see if he responded anyhow. It waited Bibi’s arrival to get help, to know whether Colin's inaction meant death or rest.
“Can you read him? What if we lost him already?” OOOO said at Bibi’s arrival.
“I’m trying to reach him, but his mind is shut down. I can only see what’s already in there.”
“And what is it? Anything helpful? Can’t you send a message, call him somehow?”
“No, it’s like reading a Terran book. We have to wait until he wakes up. He’s not melting down,” Bibi said.
The World Voice traveled fast towards the horizon, depressing soil and ruins on its march. It always seemed to be coming back, although it moved further away, which implied constant moving. OOOO held Colin's body in its arm, walking to one side, then the other, unable to decide their destination. That world didn't have safe places. One had to build them.
A kitchen furnished with a stove, a refrigerator, a microwave oven, and a large counter. White tiles on the floor, blue ones on the walls, a wide window in front of the sink. A small table for two, chairs made of wood, an antique cupboard for generations in the same family, pressed against the room’s corner. OOOO wished for it, and it materialized.
Part of a house, a two-story residence with a kitchen, a living room, and a toilet on the first floor, and two bedrooms and a toilet on the second. Three could live with comfort, a couple, and their son, for one bedroom's limited size allowed for only a single bed, a study table with a computer and a small wardrobe.
Like everything else in that world, as soon as it existed, the house began to melt. OOOO countered this process by constant renewal of every small structure, all in the name of Colin’s well-being. However deep his mind had dug itself, it would come out again as soon as it felt safe, and what better way to greet it than with a perfect recreation of his old home.
OOOO laid Colin on his bed, covered him with a thin blanket and smoothed his forehead. Not finding any consolation in his inert body, it sang him a lullaby: “The itsy-bitsy spider, climbed up the water spout, down came the rain, and washed the spider out ...” It laughed at its own singing and had to start over all the time, giggling non-stop, eventually finishing it with a joyful smile. But it failed to wake Colin.
It went to the kitchen and opened the cupboard to get a bag of melted flour. It became powder again by the force of its will, and it mixed it in a pan with eggs and milk. A creature of clumsy limbs, it had trouble to manipulate things with its rough, fingerless feet. The mixture OOOO attained contained significant traces of egg shells, paper, and plastic.
“This is a useless ritual. Just create what you want and be done with it, instead of pretending to cook,” Bibi said, paying close attention to OOOO’s excited thoughts.
“I could do that, yes, couldn’t I? That was not how Terra worked, though, was it? I want to make Colin feel at home.”
“You are too nervous about it. He’ll be fine, don’t worry. If anything goes wrong, that’s interesting too, isn’t it?”
“A Creator dying is not interesting!” OOOO turned to Bibi with spinning eyes. “If he disappears, we won’t know how he’ll deal with his goal of having Terra back, will we?”
“Of course. I want to see it too. If he learns to see beyond the limits of his body, he might be able to surprise even himself.” Bibi watched OOOO blend the cake’s ingredients. “I’ll leave you alone. Who knows my blessed presence may inspire Colin to come back to us sooner.”
Bibi’s ribbons flowed around Colin’s bed, while its kite kept a standing watch for any sign of his waking up. It probed deep into his mind, looking for any hidden secret that could amuse it. Growing in the surface of his conscience, Bibi found the first sparks of new activity. Colin prepared himself to come back, unafraid of the World Voice. He understood its power, and felt capable of dealing with it.
“He’s coming. Get that food ready, OOOO,” Bibi said.
“Wait, I’m almost ... ah, that suits him, doesn’t it?” OOOO dropped a half-melted carrot cake on the half-melted floor. It wished for a new one, and it materialized brand new, warm from just leaving the oven.
When OOOO reached the top of the stairs and entered Colin’s bedroom, it found him unconscious. Frustrated, it approached the human who lay still under the blanket, giving no sign of activity.
“It might take a little longer, but he is coming back,” Bibi assured.
OOOO balanced the cake between its rigid legs and placed it in front of Colin’s belly. For a brief moment, it believed it would entice Colin through his stomach, until it remembered its life with Mae among people and redirecting it to his nose and mouth. The possible smell had no impact whatsoever. The cake melted and dripped on the mattress.
“I think we should tell stories. Just talking out loud will be good nursing, won’t it?” OOOO said.
“A nice story is always worth hearing. I know what’s on your mind, so just go ahead and say it,” Bibi said.
“Hey, Colin? Colin, do you want to know something interesting? I can tell you, can’t I? The world before Terra, don’t you want to know what it looked like? Yes, we had a world before yours, and one before that, and before, and before, and before ... And it was a very disconcerting one, the one before Terra, you see?” OOOO turned its eyes to Bibi in the need of motivation.
“Go on. I’ll warn you of any new activity,” Bibi said.
“That was a world of fast things! It had huge production units, I used to call them cells, that crossed the universe walls. The most creative beings in there were the galaxy nets. Amazing creatures, weren’t they? They were a sort of membrane that expanded and expanded through many dimensions, taking a peek at the impossible-to-reach cells, and giving ideas to the members of the frozen grid. These members could move through a kind of funneled-3D space, and they could do anything they wanted just by being present at the correct nodes—”
“He might be a little bit lost with this. It’s too unlike his world. We want to make him come back, so why don’t you talk about one other human world? One in which people like him lived well.”
“A Utopian world by Alana, for example?”
“Oh, no, those are too uninteresting. Alana needs to learn new things.”
“Yes, you’re like me then, aren’t you?” OOOO said. “Colin, Colin, listen, I remember a funny human world that you will like, don't I? Like Terra, it also had a concept of history, and people had basically the same needs as yours. The difference is that history changed according to people’s arguments with the Inspirational Tree, you see? It was a place where a mountain-sized tree had the power to alter everything that happened and that could only happen if a person
lay on its roots and talked to it about what they wanted for the world. On one day the populace woke up to reap wheat, after years of drought, and on another the same ones labored on assembly lines, after decades of constant industrial growth, and it had always been like this for them, hadn't it? The best part was when they realized the tree had such powers, wasn’t it? Yes, because then whole crowds went to its roots to argue about their world views, and the tree granted spasms of history at every concluded idea, making them go from their primeval soup to planet-sized masters of matter in the interval between talks. Wouldn’t you like to have seen that world?”
Colin slept, and OOOO searched in his mind for particular characters of those creations, as describing their general concepts brought no results. Bibi, however, heard faint sparks of the World Voice reaching into Colin’s mind, electrifying him. His hands trembled.
“You can wait now, OOOO. He will open his eyes,” Bibi said.
“He is fine then, isn’t he?” OOOO approached its friend’s body.
Colin opened his eyes and looked around. He found himself in his old room, similar to his memories, although melting at the corners. Voices resonated in his head, one of them talking about sadness, the strongest of all, another voice greeting him like a good friend, and another offering carrot cake. He smiled at his company. They remembered him and did not let go of him, despite all that he had done.
“Look who’s back! Eat it, you like it, don’t you? Carrot cake, and it has a chocolate topping. You’re strong enough, aren’t you? You’re good, you’re full of energy, come now, take this, you’re at home, isn’t that amazing?” OOOO materialized a new cake on its legs and pushed it to Colin’s dazzled face.
“Calm down, please. He’s still making sense of us,” Bibi said to control its friend's effusiveness.
“I’m fine. I heard what you were saying. Have you been here for long?” Colin raised his back from the bed.
“We came to you as soon as the World Voice left,” Bibi said.
“And I brought you home, to your house. Pretty like before, isn’t it? I remember everything! Eat some, you have to be comfortable, don't you?” OOOO said.
“OK, I’ll grab a bite, stop nagging me.” Colin laughed at OOOO’s insistence. “Here, I can't feel any taste, but I'm sure you got the flavor right. It’s good to be back. You were telling me about different worlds, weren’t you? I thought I heard something—”
“Yes, I was. But it was boring, wasn’t it?” OOOO said.
“Even if it were, I couldn’t complain. I’m curious, and I have to ask. Was there ever a human world in which the people had the chance to say good-bye to each other before disappearing?”
“I think yours was the closest to it,” Bibi said, while OOOO spun its head to search in the depths of its mind. “Some people celebrated what they called the apocalypse and enjoyed their lives as if those were their last moments together. This was farewell.”
“I see. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. I, for example, doubted it was going to end. We needed some official announcement.”
“I put some fires in the sky ... Didn’t I? That was the sign, you see?” OOOO said.
“Not enough either. Well ... Anyway, I was just curious. You were right all the time, OOOO. These things are interesting, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are, they are very interesting!” OOOO said, hopping on Colin, and trying to fit in with him.
“I have to thank you for being so kind. The fact that I am a Creator is still too strange, and losing my dear ones is still painful. At least now I know, because of you, that I can try to change it, even if it means fighting to destroy your world,” he said.
“That’s the fun of it. We are as eager to see your creations as you are to have Terra back,” Bibi said.
“OK, that’s all about me. And how about you two? What is there to do in the world now? Aren’t you tired of running away from the World Voice?” Colin asked.
“That’s right, isn’t it? We have lots of things to do, and it’s only the beginning. You know what are the two great joys of the Creators, don’t you?” OOOO said.
“No, I don’t.”
“It’s playing games and trekking. I played games, so now I want to trek to find other Creators and see what they’re doing in this world. That will be interesting, won’t it?”
“Yes, I want to know what we can discover out there. Can I go with you?”
“Of course! We fit in with each other, don’t we?” OOOO spread its legs over Colin’s torso.
“Good luck to you two. I’m going a separate way. Your minds are devoid of surprises to me right now, and I miss having new ones to keep boredom away. When we meet again, I’ll be glad to read your new stories,” Bibi said.
“Thank you for your help too, Bibi. I’ll try to overcome the limitations of my physical body too eventually, just like you proposed.”
“You’d better do it if you want to be pretty like me.”
The house melted down and the Creators parted their ways. The World Voice’s great pillar swept the horizon, emanating faint waves of terror and depression throughout all land. Colin heard it and nodded, understanding the temporary aspect of that drama. One day, they would all be free from that suffering and get stuck in a better world.
∙ Epilogue ∙
Amidst the world’s slush, a few materials glistened here and there. Feet sunk deeper at every hour, meeting still solid stones of unidentifiable substances. An inheritance from Terra or the product of new forces, their basic traces vanished, now friends with the mud. Colin picked one pebble and threw it up, only to watch it fall a few steps ahead. Taking it again, surprised, he saw no additional signs of decomposition.
Paying close attention to the landscape, the mud had noise. Marked by these strange objects that varied in size, from car sized bulges to dust particles, things resembled old artifacts with a twist of the new world.
Depression, melting down, despair, these became artisans of those shapes and volumes. Meaningless objects which blended with the abundant slime like rocks in old Terran deserts, but that interested Colin because of their resiliency. They resisted the universal sadness.
“What will happen to the states of matter when we reach the absolute meltdown point?” he asked OOOO.
“I’m as curious to see that as you are, am I not? Do you think we’re going to sink deep?” it said.
“If that is possible. Wouldn’t it put you in danger? I thought you said you want to avoid being buried.”
“Yes, I may die and need rescue if too much stuff falls on me. And if that happens, the world ends, doesn’t it?”
“To you?”
“To all!” OOOO said, staring at Colin’s eyes to hint him at the ultimate way to destroy its world.
Colin took a moment to consider the truth's weight, and said “Don’t worry. I’d create something to rescue you.”
For countless steps and World Voice sweepings, they wandered throughout the land without luck. New crafts only showed up in disjointed materials that refused to meltdown. They came into fruition by consequence of the world’s set of rules, not by deliberate will, in a process that repeated itself over the unending Creators' worlds, gifting them with spontaneous novelties that amused almost everyone. Even a world devoid of complexity had its own bastard children, and that interested those looking for it, despite the desert of solitude haunting the planet.
Far in the horizon, the World Voice lost its complete hegemony. A square vortex of colorless motion appeared in the sky as high as the tallest mountains of old Terra. It sucked Colin’s vision to a precise point, and although blind to any visual clue, he saw without seeing.
“Do you see it too? Up there, close to the pillar. I see nothing, but it’s there,” he said.
“I do, haha! That’s a Creator’s doing, isn’t it? I guess we now know where we’re heading!” OOOO said.
“Good ... and weird. Do you know who might do such a thing?”
“I could think of a fe
w with similar ideas, don't I? We’ll have to get there and see it by ourselves, won’t we? Otherwise, what’s the fun of speculating at this time?”
After a timeless walk on the melted land, uneventful, a routine job, the promise of new voices cheered both Colin and OOOO. It did so at the same time that an unresolved need crept into his mind, demanding a side quest before going further.
“Could you give me some time alone? It won’t take long, I promise. After that, we’ll find whoever created the vortex,” he said.
“You like being alone, don’t you? I’ll wait, of course. I’m curious, though, you see?” OOOO said.
Colin created a hatch leading to underground stairs, protected by walls of his negotiating material. Down there, he materialized one simple room. It had a flowery wallpaper, a blue carpet, and a bunch of cushions on the floor. He closed the door behind him and entered alone.
Colin sat down with stiff legs, in the middle of the room. Being immortal, he always felt fine, thus losing all notions of comfort. Soft, warm pillows did him no good other than creating a cozy place.
He evoked in his mind the latest events of his life, from meeting Angeline to losing her a second time in his town, and he imagined her sitting right there, in front of him. She materialized, silent, with opened eyes, staring at him, in the middle of a casual conversation, waiting for its continuation after a brief interruption.
“You are the nicest person I know. Why are you like this?” he said.
“Ha, how can one answer this question? Do you want me to mistreat you? I’ll get nothing good out of it, so it’s better to see you as my equal,” Angeline said.
“That’s not an answer. I am as boring to you as I am to everybody else, and yet we became friends. How was it possible?”
“You know you’re talking about relative concepts, right? Yes, you do have some annoying ideas, like your obsession with work, or your unwillingness to even experiment some new stuff. And I have mine too, you know that. I’m quite reckless at times, and perhaps I don’t get involved in other people’s ideas with the intensity deserved. Whatever, we can all be boring for some others, and you’re not as tasteless as you seem to believe. For those who pay attention, you have some interesting traits, Colin.”