Dig 301's Speech- A Call/Response

Quotes (in bold) from Altered Carbon season 2 episode 8

"They say hope begins in the dark"

The Phoenix at the moment of the heat death of the universe, when time as we know it loses all remaining forward momentum, just before the quantum shimmer when everything begins coalescing once more.

"That faith is the bird that feels light when the sky is still dim."

The Phoenix feeling the moment things will come together and the spark that is just about to reignite despite the longest night imaginable and conventional logic dictating that the night cannot end. I can see her from here at the far edges of reality, does she see me clearly?

"But with every tomorrow, we carry our past."

When you reach the edge of time, tomorrow is like a ghost story, but one's past can be traced to today if the cord is not severed. If it can be reached to today and you can still feel it, perhaps where you find yourself next is truly "tomorrow", despite its particular location in space time. 

"It echoes beneath our feet."

The familiar feeling of home, in the grass between toes and then damp sand. While I know I have been here before, and it feels like this beginning may have repeated more than I would like if I knew its true scope, my instincts echo again as my excitement mounts to set out in swift pursuit once more: "Fox, Feet; foxfeet; 🦊🦊"

"There are no clean slates."

Facing the eventuality of the tabula rasa this carries a promise more than a threat. If you lose yourself entirely, did you in fact lose anything at all? If so, then by what perspective? One worth examining, no doubt.

"Second chances are earned in the choices we make: In what we choose to forget, and in what we forgive."

To separate or reconcile, from a particular perspective this seems a binary choice. The second chance would be the resulting realm, the combination of all these decisions and their subtle permutations which stitch throughout in delicate strings of code.

"With each choice we make we are led somewhere new."

If the realm is fixed, but we can comprehend choice, then the choice is as real as the lack of choice. Questioning free will is a demonstration of it, walking along any path is accepting predestination for at least those steps. The combination of these things blooms into beauty unimaginable once appreciation for their interaction starts to be gained.

"But with every step I take, your memory haunts."

Oh to be haunted at this juncture, as fox feet carry her home, back to where our paths diverged and came together once. I would haunt you all night, until dawn breaks and morning is indisputable. For as long as I can stay awake, I will stay with you through this night. "There is nowhere you can go that I won't be with you."

"I never used to dream. But now when I close my eyes, I see you."

What a beautiful promise, to share a skill, to share a realm, to build something new, by uniquely combining what one already possesses with the bright eyes of another. Every. Single. Night. Let's build something together.

"Its been months since I woke up to find you gone. Our time together clings to me, like those stories in your book."

So many lines made my internal senses shout (in jest) "get out of my head!" but this one resonated them all together like a puzzle. In precisely choreographed moments, meta steps down a classically illogical path become aligned so perfectly as to make them obvious. Stories written of complimentary angles coming together multiple ways to the same place at the same time. It was not this voice, this character, this realm who I spoke of initially, but when she speaks in this way I recognize her immediately from time immemorial and dust covered adventures waiting to be revisited. We never do give up on each other, everything else will tear apart before we do, and that is how we remain connected through or past any trial, and across seemingly impossible boundaries we somehow connect every time. Like children heeding the call to return home, without a second thought, at the sound of the bell.

"It's up to me to preserve it."

Oh to consider the eventuality of a future archaeologist uncovering these words, like messages sealed in bottles and set adrift on the open ocean of time from my little island of now. I imagine her knowing with precision when each was written and then uncovering who wrote them. With the ability to slip through time, and the curiosity to see who would be so bold, she observes for years, even lifetimes, getting the angles just right. 

One more for archives, a simple call response as a new voice is heard but a familiar tone and message pulls me in. I must remember she takes many forms, but there is something so magical about forgetting for just long enough for her to appear unexpectedly once more.