by Hugh Macnab
came in through a doorway, but couldn’t return. Well let me see. Are you sure you went back to the correct place?
Shylock nodded.
‘And at the correct time?’
‘As best as I can tell. I tried to return immediately after I initially came through,’ answered Shylock.
I can only come to the conclusion that you could not return that way because the door was no longer there, leaving you in a pretty tricky predicament; or an interesting plight – quite a pickle,’ as Bb would say. ‘Still, tricky as that one was, I’m glad I was able to help!’
‘Help?’ asked Shylock, puzzled.
‘Yes,’ replied Dilemma. ‘You couldn’t return because the door was no longer there! Obvious really – surprised you didn’t think of it yourselves.’
‘But…’ Shylock tried, only to be interrupted by Permission.
‘Perhaps you could tell us what may have happened to the door?’
‘Goodness, but you do ask a lot of questions, Permission. You know just how to turn me on…eerrr, if you’ll pardon the turn of phrase that is!’
‘Happy to oblige,’ Permission smiled, sensing that Dilemma was as close to blushing as a non-physical entity could become.
‘Well, let me think,’ said Dilemma, getting back to her question. ‘A bit of a poser that one. What should I propose – an embarras-de-choix, tough question, complicated problem – wonderful. Hmm, let me see...I’ll have to, you know, mull things over, deliberate, cogitate, chew the…my goodness but that Bb character gets to you, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ said Shylock with some considerable passion. ‘Believe me, I know.’
All the time in the…
It seemed as if Dilemma had become jammed up in some almighty imponderable loop or other…so, leaving Dilemma to cogitate, and with Permission’s guidance, together they thought-travelled to follow up on the clue Dilemma had given them. They were going to visit Time.
Without really thinking about what to expect, Shylock had been preconditioned to expect a wizardly old man with a long flowing beard. Something from childhood no doubt he suspected.
He couldn’t have been further from the truth - Time was a two-dimensional rock; not even a particularly imposing rock, in fact so unimposing that Permission spent considerable effort attempting to communicate with several alternatives before finding her. Yes her! Time was a female rock. Shylock had a little difficulty with this at first, until the selected rock explained it to him.
‘Bb warned me you may not understand’ said Time. ‘You see, as you probably realise by now, in our society we have no real need for physical presence. We exist, therefore we are. Furthermore, gender is a vestigial procreative aspect, which is long-since technically redundant. Hence I choose to be considered a female rock, therefore I am.’
‘I see,’ said Shylock, beginning to get the hang of how things worked around him. ‘So, if you decided to become a ten dimensional bi-sexual…safety balloon, you could do so by thought alone?’
‘I do believe you’ve got it!’ replied the rock. ‘By the way, why have you taken on that most peculiar form? Looks most uncomfortable. Anyway, that’s not my problem. Now, you came here for a reason I presume?’
‘Eh, yes,’ answered Shylock, not wishing to explain that this form was his true appearance, while at the same time wondering what Time would have thought of his Unicorn. ‘I came to find out why time is apparently no longer being counted.’
‘Infinity,’ Time replied, simply. ‘We reached as far as we could go,’
‘Yes, so Dilemma explained. But I always understood that infinity, by definition, could never be reached?’ Shylock said.
‘Tsk, tsk,’ replied the rock. ‘My goodness, you belong back in the scientific era making comments like that. Who told you that load of nonsense?’
‘Well,’ swallowed Shylock. ‘I guess I was taught it at school.’
‘School! Good Heavens. What were you doing there?’
‘Taking classes, and learning.’
‘Why? We already know everything there is to learn, and have done forever. That’s one of the reasons I was no longer needed. There was nothing else to discover - no further need for tedious progress just for it’s own sake.’
‘You believe you… know everything?’ asked Shylock, astonished.
‘Well, the collective I certainly does,’ answered the rock.
‘Collective I ?’
‘Caramba! You really don’t know very much yourself do you?’
‘Remember he’s very new here,’ explained Permission, on Shylock’s behalf.
‘I see,’ said the rock, casting his mind back to recall the last newcomer, and failing. ‘So, why exactly have you brought him to see me? You know, I am retired after all.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry to have disturbed you,’ said Permission, in a placatory tone. ‘It’s just that …well…originally my companion here just wanted to go home, but now he needs to collect back-taxes for the Creator, and before he can do that he must find Bb.
‘And you wonder if I know how to find Bb?’ asked Time.
‘No, no,’ said Shylock. ‘I know where he is, but I don’t know how to get there, and Dilemma...’
‘Dilemma! Now there’s a ponderous old sod,’ interrupted Time.
‘Yes, perhaps,’ said Shylock, painfully aware of how little he understood about anything anymore, and electing to remain strictly impartial. ‘Anyway, when I asked him how to get to the other side of the moon, he said that I should try to understand the multiple possibilities in the absence of Time.’
‘Multiple possibilities?’ mused Time. ‘I see what he’s getting at. Let me see…how can I explain. If I have retired and time no longer exists, how many of you are there?’
‘Excuse me?’ asked Shylock, completely lost.
‘If time is stationary, how many of you are there?’ repeated Time, indulgently.
‘One,’ offered Shylock?
‘Nope!’ replied Time. ‘Try again.’
Shylock gave Permission a puzzled look, only to see his own confusion mirrored back at him. Then, an idea came to him! ‘None, because I only think I‘m here?’ said Shylock, pleased with this answer.
‘Oh, good answer!’ shouted Time, encouragingly. ‘Wrong, but a really good attempt. Try again. You’re getting the hang of it, really you are.’
However, this time Shylock was fresh out of ideas - stumped. Even Permission remained silent. ‘Come on,’ Time coaxed. ‘It’s obvious. If it’s not zero, and it’s not one…it’s probably not any other specific number at all, is it? I mean why should it be? What would be the logic? At least both zero and one have some uniqueness, but six, four hundred and eleven, or zyph terazillion – I mean, what’s special about them.’
‘Infinitely many,’ Shylock guessed, stabbing in the dark with no rational what so ever.
‘Correct!’ smiled Time, pleased with his newest student. ‘Now that we’ve got that out of the way, if there’s nothing else…I was having such a wonderful snooze when you arrived.’
‘But…’ began Shylock, only to be cut off by Permission.
‘We were a little worried about Dilemma when we left him,’ she said.
‘Dilemma, worried…’ said Time.
‘Yes,’ said Permission. ‘We asked him a question and he began thinking about it…and we don’t know how long it will take him to find an answer.’
‘Is see,’ said the rock. ‘So… because I’ve retired, you don’t know how long you’ll have to wait for an answer. Is that it?’
‘Right,’ agreed Shylock.
‘Well, that’s an easy one!’ the rock answered encouragingly. ‘Forever and no-time at all. They both occur at precisely the same instant. I’d have to crank up time again before there could be any difference.’
‘But,’ said Shylock, not sure how to phrase the next question. ‘How can I get the answer to my question, if he can take forever?’
‘Oh, I can’t tell you about that,’ replied Time. ‘Why don
’t you speak with Reason?’
‘Reason? Who’s that?’ asked Shylock.
‘You don’t mean who, you mean which one don’t you?’ said the rock, continuing before Shylock could ask for clarification. ‘Now, let me see, there’s Reason as in motive or justification - that’s not the one. Then there’s Reason that’s proper and fitting, rational or acceptable – but that’s not the one either. You want Reason III – to dissuade, argue, remonstrate, coax, urge etc. etc. Yes, that’s the one.’
‘You mean to reason with Dilemma?’ asked Shylock.
‘Well I’m glad you’ve at least followed that much! Yes, to reason with Dilemma.’
Reason III
Describing their travel as in the dark didn't do it justice. It was more like being in a complete vacuum or void with a cold empty feeling all around.
When they arrived at Reason III’s thought-address there wasn’t just an absence of light - there was an absence of absolutely everything. No light, sound, or smell. Yet, by now nothing could take Shylock by surprise anymore - other than the fact that he had been able to stop being surprised so quickly. Other people may have fallen apart by this point, but he seemed to be handling it and was actually quite proud of himself for once.
Then the voice of Reason III interrupted the tranquility – the words assaulting Shylock’s nostrils and permeating his olfactory senses. He could smell the voice of Reason III and yet understand what was being conveyed.
‘Yes?’ the discordant scent spelled out, challenging Shylock peremptorily.
‘Am I talking…eh, at least communicating,’ he corrected, while clearing his nostrils. ‘With the ‘voice’ of