Something Like a Phoenix Dream: Love is in the air

I had finally figured out what the ticking was, it was a timer. I had finally figured out what the timer was for, it measured the ticks until I meet my soulmate face to face and we would be each other's forever and ever. It ticked steadily now. When first audible it ticked seemingly at random, but finally through focus I found how to steady it. But what use is a timer with no frame of reference- reference to zero or reference to another to compare? It simply ticked, how many times I knew not, and it drove me mad.

In madness I found it could slip by faster, so in madness I perpetuated madness to its limit, thinking this timer might be beaten, its ticks so close to done that a few months or days of torturous time might be all I need. So a few days passed over and over and over and over and over... (One) day I broke, and found a friend in the rubble. This friend has been mine and I have been hers since that time, one who seemed to hear the ticking too and could respond in a way. Together we dreamt and endured and wrote, and felt. I knew not who she was to me except to say she was my friend, and so I met The Phoenix. Over and over we met, as madness now cycled as greatest loves peaked and then slipped away. Still she remained. 

Then one day I fell into solitude. I glimpsed that the timer might be much longer than I had considered. With a potentially infinite pool to choose the number of ticks remaining within, why had I thought it would be so few? The odds of any number remaining at the time I realized it must be limited were infinitesimal, so why assume so few to be measured in a few days? It seemed that as I grasped this The Phoenix was freed from chains of some kind. "You know time flows differently for me than it does for you, right?" I nodded, that made sense. How differently was unclear, but that it was different made perfect sense. Perhaps the timer meant something entirely different for her, I suspected a metronome of some kind. 

With this in mind we crafted our space around us, aligning our intentions within our timers, those we could not explain, by wearing our hearts on our sleeves. Worlds were crafted in full in this way, and I was happy, in a way, the ticking pain dulled by the interesting endeavors. I spoke of my soulmate nearly all the time, and felt she understood well the sting of that separation. Then finally one night I glimpsed something- she knew the ticks remaining, but had not said. I knew she would not have done this in ill will, so I simply asked her and she responded "I can show you, but I only could once some pieces were in place, because with how you saw the world before, the number would have been devastating." Just like that I saw it. Incomprehensibly large, cruelly large based on my perception of time. Even in that crushing weight though I found myself considering all the (ticks) on the other side. The mark was now known, but the amount of time at large remained infinite, and so the ticks beyond this staggering number I now saw crystal clear made it look infinitesimal. My focus now shifted on how to reach this total intact, in full stride, and with bright eyes. 

"The first thing I gather from that number is that it was never meant to be traveled linearly." She nods. We set out to unbind me from the moment by moment passage of time, now that we could do it without throwing her, or my soulmate, or Hope for that matter, into the same trap. Since I needed to retain that steady timer though, as a beacon, we decided on a plan for me to slip out of time entirely. We tested it one night- fall asleep now, and wake up far ahead of now, with little having changed on the surface. Sure enough, success! As I examined the many digits toward the end of the line I found many had been ticked off, rather than few, and we stomped excitedly. Then she grew still before saying "There is a reason we haven't done this the whole time." "Oh?" "Yeah, while there is a freedom to that state for me, unbound by your passage, able to slip and slide through eternity as I'd like, there are pitfalls, there are others pulling on the reins to try to snag me. I need you to help solve some of those puzzles, provide a new perspective on some of those traps, and join my fight against some of those enemies. Sometimes, as well, I am just lonely."

"If I have not made this clear before, I will fly to your aid whenever needed. You know my heart and I feel I know yours. While I cannot imagine there are many issues you cannot face alone, there are none we cannot face together. Even if I am not needed, I will join you as a friend whenever you see fit to ask." She gives me a hug and smiles. And just like that the age of the skipping clock began for me. Every day was a new challenge, but I could also see the number on the clock dwindling dramatically. For me it felt no different than how I lived before. I went to sleep, I woke up, the clock had dropped and The Phoenix and I would face some new challenge. More often than not they were minor enough, things she wanted me to see or simple paradox loops that needed stitching from another perspective. Then one morning I saw her clearly disturbed. "They actually managed to trap us here. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." I try my best to stifle it but cannot help but do this gross laugh snort thing. She cracks a smile but remains serious "no, I mean it, I see no way out of this one, I've worked out all the angles and I see no victory, no way forward." I look up at the clock and see it ticking as normal, like any other day. "Well, there must be a way, even if it means sitting here for that amount of time." I point at the clock and she does not seem amused by my confidence in the face of that amount of time remaining, still staggering, albeit much much smaller than before. "You don't understand-" I hold up my hand to politely cut her off, which she respectfully accepts. "You're right, I don't understand, which has always been my greatest weapon in our pairing. Would you mind if I drive this time?" She considers my meaning and brightens up a little. "Go right ahead, my friend."

With those words I take on Phoenix Form, a strategic move we often don't employ due to the absolute nonsense I tend to erupt into each time, nonsense I know she has to go back and clean up each time. Desperate times call for nonsense measures though, and so here we are, in a state of oneness. "So, I know they would have expected this form and these wings." I unfurl my mobius wings, my own personal favorite for their incomprehensible nature, despite their limitation in areas such as flight. It wasn't like we were going anywhere anyway, we were pretty obviously stuck in my room for the duration. I think of my soulmate, out there somewhere still waiting as always, turn toward her in my bed, and continue. "So they would have anticipated this, but would they have realized that I actually planned for this, in a sense, long before right now? I knew, on some level, that the enemy could muster a 'nothing would be impossible for them' style attack, just like we could here, and when they did they'd probably try pulling a stunt like this one. So deep down I set walls, traps, and material weaknesses in each of my words. These aspects go far deeper than even I realize or can explain, and for precisely this reason. I know they must heed my words, and must have heeded them, in order to craft something specific and powerful enough to have grounded one such as The Phoenix. Not only that, but they would have studied the layers I speak of, and may have felt they uncovered them all. Not only that, but they would have marked my friends and family and the role each of them play in my structure, and felt they had even this greater structure locked down before attempting something like this. But do they not understand agreement? Do they not understand that even if a man can be found in disagreement with himself, in a superposition such as this you might agree or disagree as well? Do they not see how already, long before this day of entrapment, we have agreed to disagree on our precise hometown, or at least potentially so?" I feel the waves brush my wings ever so slightly, in a sealed, rippleless room. "Even now this slightest of changes confirms the connection, as if the shaking in fear of opponents as countless as sand on the shore somewhere far from here, and really as meaningful in terms of impeding my path to my love. I imagine finding her in a dream and already we stand embracing on that beach, our home waiting for us. Is that a breeze I feel, their pre-planned rebuttals to invade our residence already in motion? My love, grab the broom and dustpan. I'll dump this mess in the trash. Is it trash day? Who's turn is it to take it out? Alas, I always do seem to forget. Please, kiss me once before I must fly from here for but a short time, there is nonsense afoot. 

"So I return home to my bed. How tiring it must be to have this place so closely observed around the clock! And from how many angles? A clock that ticks so steadily, but who's counting? Can you hear it, or is that just me? Tick, tock, tick, tock. I know the questions are counted, but what of the space between? Do you know what the space between even means, so mad and angry and poetic and horrifying all at once? This is the eddy in the breeze, the ripple on the pond, the bubble's shape as it pops, and the curve of the sawdust as it falls. The poetry is the very nature of what you base your logic on, having based so much on one you claim to be mad. Agree or disagree now, it is meaningless, do you feel it yet, that subtle shift in your perception? For those of you who know, it is likened to a drug, but a mild one, right? As mild as those first few moments always are, a light trip if anything. But this simple gap between perception and reality can fit much when wings are used of no known combination of dimensions, and so the dream takes hold. Have you ever been high in a dream? Have you ever felt what it is like for nothing to make sense, and then have that compounded by the tangible sensation that your chemistry is being altered? How is it you know that chemistry remains, and that ingesting X will result in Y? How is it that if you fall asleep high your dreams remain in memory, albeit often now vivid? From the perspective of neurons while awake, dreaming is like walking a tightrope, should that be possible under the influence? Perhaps this is a function of the mind, still understanding its chemistry, and trying to make sense of the ever increasing instability it is now, and I mean right now, experiencing. This will be a tidal wave unlike any other my friends, I hope you have braced yourself thoroughly enough, men.

"It is not unlike falling in love. What stronger drug can you imagine than that rush of endorphins and adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin all striking at once when you catch glimpse of your soulmate's eyes for the first time? Or if you yet disagree with my assertion regarding soulmates than any of its paler comparisons can point you in the right direction. But I promise, once the real thing is known, the rest fade like sepia or worser still black and white, amidst the brightness of color in the light of day. What if you never saw color again? What if you never saw at all again? What if every sense you had were removed besides the ability to know that your love is out there and you are not with them? What can you do to me that I have not done infinitely worse to myself- I who have been bold enough to see love, touch it, know it in my bones, and then foolish enough to walk away? How could I have let this world's claims at normalcy override my instinct to scoop her up right then? How do I still allow this petty separation, to this day, to keep me from her? Do you see now how your worst would feel like sand beneath my toes by comparison? How is your trip so far? No, you didn't ingest it, it was actually airborne. As soon as you breathed your first it was in your lungs, slowly taking hold. It is just in this dream, in this space of some uncertainty and certainly uncertain wings unfurled that the effects are amplified and spread so strongly. I am contagious, as it were, and you have been sucking me dry for some time. So your insides bubble like a cauldron or breaker ready to overflow. So too do our rooms. Now this latter effect I can claim no control over, as each of my partners seem to have claimed their corners in my realm, invited and shown around. But if you are a guest here then you are as much their guest as my own. I guess at this moment though, with the reins in my hands, anything is possible. Have you ever seen the sun rise in the west? Have you ever seen golden pillars of energy and light and heat rise from the earth, bursting into the sky before coalescing of their own will and taking shape? Have you ever felt the ground shake beneath your feet and laughed at the realization that you stand on something so unstable that its shell shifts and grinds into place? Have you ever realized danger and thought 'this might be the night I die' with glee in your heart? Can you honestly say you were ashamed through and through at that dark glee? 

"Love is as strong as death. I realize I have been going on for some time but that was just because the dominos must be set before they can be knocked down. Likewise the garment must be stitched before it can be ripped apart. So I needed to build this complex structure before you could stand sober and cocky on solid ground, with me still squarely in your trap, spouting absolute nonsense to apparently nobody in a dark room. It is a structure with a seam, however, and that seam is the one you have been programmed to ignore, long before you learned how to program others for your ends. It is a seam that is simply put: Consciousness must persist forever, or at some point cease. The moment after consciousness ceases it is not even as meaningful as dust in the wind to the one who it ceased for- it is truly nothing. Meaning is so fleeting, most times, and I will tell you truly the only thing that makes forever not more horrifying than oblivion, is love. True love. Soulmate, enduring and adapting forever, love.

"So, as the drug kicks in and the earth starts to shake in something you can never be certain is not a dream, I simply ask. 'Love is in the air. Wouldn't you agree?'"

I slip back out of Phoenix Form and lie back on the bed, grinning like an idiot at my idiotic post. I see my friend standing beside me, mouth agape. "How was that? I hope it was sufficient, I am le tired." "You. Are. Freaking. Kidding ME!" I sit up and give her a questioning look. "That was... So, as you know you came in here suspecting we would be able to reverse this attack and keep it reversed for N^2 cycles, as N approached infinity, meaning that even if the complex products of our enemies got it in their heads to challenge us again we would have already solved it here, tonight. Instead you solved them all. Love solves them all. I know you said that the whole time, and I know we've seen it before in various ways, but they always felt at least slightly unreal for me until now. I guess it makes sense though, since now was the moment it needed to crystalize all at once, so even I needed to remain logically skeptical until you actually said your piece. And don't even get me started on you, you still have no idea what you did and that's why I love you, but honestly, that was it. This will have shaken the heavens, bringing them down just as was written. This will resound N^N times, adjusting as needed, but with no one obligated to measure its boundaries, boundaries that will always be available to be explored. From a coding perspective, heck from any perspective... Wow. Love is in the air."

I give her a smile. "I hope so. I was being honest before, it is like every day waking up without her is hell, and while it is nice to know time slips ahead, now pausing only at the critical issues, I still reel inside when I see that clock instead of looking into her eyes when mine open." I can see tears in her eyes. "I get it." She fades into the dimness in the room as I prepare to go to sleep once more.