"Not only is the moon not really there when nobody looks; but it isn't really there even when you do look"
- - Ron Garret
"You can look at the world with p-eyes or with q-eyes, but open both eyes, and you go crazy"
- - Wolfgang Pauli to Werner Heisenberg
"Correlations without correlata"
- - David Mermin
Thursday 25 September 2014
Wednesday 24 September 2014
Monday 22 September 2014
Saturday 20 September 2014
I built a metal bird
When I first arrived here,
Came rumbling over the steppes
On iron rails pounded
Flat by roaring engines,
Breathing thick dark clouds out
Behind them for miles,
I thought it was the height,
The dizzying capacity of achievement.
Leaving a small damp town,
Lapped by the waves
Where the edge of our settled land
Gives way to the dark black borders
And powerful unseen currents of the sea,
I could never imagine anything like it:
The capital, splendid and terrifying;
Oiled and perfumed, and a kind of holy;
With a hundred churches and a hundred more
Houses, and stone taverns sour
With spilt beer and vomit.
Their doors decorated with melting snow on the lintel,
And letting out th
And what I came for:
The universities, filled with the old
And wise who counted each object adorning the sky,
And sagely told us their unnumberable number.
Men who stroked their beards
Which smelled of pipe smoke.
Tilting their glasses over their
Strawberry noses, they'd speak
Of history and steam, and ask:
What is to be done?
Only later I learned
That all the distance we had travelled so far
Was just enough to finally see where we are:
That we'd left our grandfathers' bones
Unburied in their native soil
And the breath we tried to blow back into them
Was just a hollow rattle.
Death in the streets; a man hit by a carriage;
A bomb going off in the square;
Will there be enough bread?
Sleeping each night in a small bare room,
Carrying my dreams with me
Across the border of sleep
Into this dingy world of explosions
And rumbling stomachs.
And it came to me:
We had to look out as well as in,
See each reflected in the other.
Our drama remaining meaningless
Without a theatre from which to see the stage.
And what, after all, is the highest platform we can find?
So I conceived a resolution to make something fly.
To build a metal bird, you first
Teach yourself to sing--
Learn the trills of the birds'
Secret tongue:
The rhythm of wingbeats
And the lyric of being carried aloft on currents.
Out in fields watching them swoop through the sky,
Turning in low circles over the vendors' stalls,
Hopping along the earth stalking earthworms,
I had to learn to ask my bird to come to life.
Each night I spent in my workshop,
Alone under the stars, my ears
Assaulated by the clanging fury of battered metal--
Awash in a flurry of thrown sparks--
The glow bleeding from my windows
Meekly reflecting the fire burning above,
Threaded between the clouds across the sky.
Impossible, you say. I thought so too,
Sometimes, at least.
But think on those three other dreams
Who became gripped by the thought of a star
And followed it to the end of its journey
To see the herald of their own world
Passing away.
Time passed and I am old now:
I stroke my long beard, and
Smell like damp wool; smoke a pipe
In the evenings. The bombs still go off,
But even their roar is too dim for my ears.
But it has not been an idle age I've passed.
I gave shape to a thought:
Found the words to say it
In the language in which the world
Does its speaking,
And it only remains now
For me to speak it aloud,
And see it written in fire across the sky.
Came rumbling over the steppes
On iron rails pounded
Flat by roaring engines,
Breathing thick dark clouds out
Behind them for miles,
I thought it was the height,
The dizzying capacity of achievement.
Leaving a small damp town,
Lapped by the waves
Where the edge of our settled land
Gives way to the dark black borders
And powerful unseen currents of the sea,
I could never imagine anything like it:
The capital, splendid and terrifying;
Oiled and perfumed, and a kind of holy;
With a hundred churches and a hundred more
Houses, and stone taverns sour
With spilt beer and vomit.
Their doors decorated with melting snow on the lintel,
And letting out th
And what I came for:
The universities, filled with the old
And wise who counted each object adorning the sky,
And sagely told us their unnumberable number.
Men who stroked their beards
Which smelled of pipe smoke.
Tilting their glasses over their
Strawberry noses, they'd speak
Of history and steam, and ask:
What is to be done?
Only later I learned
That all the distance we had travelled so far
Was just enough to finally see where we are:
That we'd left our grandfathers' bones
Unburied in their native soil
And the breath we tried to blow back into them
Was just a hollow rattle.
Death in the streets; a man hit by a carriage;
A bomb going off in the square;
Will there be enough bread?
Sleeping each night in a small bare room,
Carrying my dreams with me
Across the border of sleep
Into this dingy world of explosions
And rumbling stomachs.
And it came to me:
We had to look out as well as in,
See each reflected in the other.
Our drama remaining meaningless
Without a theatre from which to see the stage.
And what, after all, is the highest platform we can find?
So I conceived a resolution to make something fly.
To build a metal bird, you first
Teach yourself to sing--
Learn the trills of the birds'
Secret tongue:
The rhythm of wingbeats
And the lyric of being carried aloft on currents.
Out in fields watching them swoop through the sky,
Turning in low circles over the vendors' stalls,
Hopping along the earth stalking earthworms,
I had to learn to ask my bird to come to life.
Each night I spent in my workshop,
Alone under the stars, my ears
Assaulated by the clanging fury of battered metal--
Awash in a flurry of thrown sparks--
The glow bleeding from my windows
Meekly reflecting the fire burning above,
Threaded between the clouds across the sky.
Impossible, you say. I thought so too,
Sometimes, at least.
But think on those three other dreams
Who became gripped by the thought of a star
And followed it to the end of its journey
To see the herald of their own world
Passing away.
Time passed and I am old now:
I stroke my long beard, and
Smell like damp wool; smoke a pipe
In the evenings. The bombs still go off,
But even their roar is too dim for my ears.
But it has not been an idle age I've passed.
I gave shape to a thought:
Found the words to say it
In the language in which the world
Does its speaking,
And it only remains now
For me to speak it aloud,
And see it written in fire across the sky.
Friday 19 September 2014
A Word From the Shadow God
There once lived an old man, the happy product of a full and well-spent sixty years. He had experienced much in his time, and had met many gods, as all do who live so long. As a boy he had raced through the fields hand in hand with the various mutable and selfish gods of innocence; in his youth he had shared cups almost nightly with the gods of revelry; in middle age he had studied and worked and honed his thoughts with several of the more staid and pensive deities; and now, in his dotage, he was still on sufficiently good terms with each of these powers that from time to time he could yet entice them to sit with him awhile, sometimes even in groups of twos or threes, and pass a pleasurable hour reminiscing and reasoning together.
Only one thing troubled him, and this was that - for all his long life, for all his conversations - he had never heard even a single word from Apophagix, the god beyond all others, who has as his sigil the silhouette of a man and is the god of shadows. The old man believed he had caught syllables now and then; once, while thrashing in fever, he had fancied he could almost discern a holy sentence traced in the folds of the sheet, and another time he thought he heard an echo of a syllable in a pattern of numbers someone had painted on the side of a temple. But never in all his years, for all his lengthy discourses with the gods of Earth, never had he heard the Shadow God’s vast and terrible voice speak to him.
In truth, as he admitted out loud once while dining with the god of mirrors, he had no one to blame but himself for this imperfect experience. He had, like many, been too timid to seek out Apophagix, for such seeking is assuredly necessary. Other, less awful deities need no such struggle (and one will often find oneself at their altar sooner or later regardless of intent), but to encounter Apophagix requires effort. The man knew of plants which could, if prepared properly, grant temporary access to the Shadow God’s temple, but these were well-known to be risky. Not all who entered that holy ground made it back again, and though they had the honour of becoming prophets the price was high, for never again could they commune properly with the lesser gods of man. Further, if one approached the temple in this way with anything less than perfect courage, the voice one heard would almost certainly not be to one’s liking, and the experience would be a terrible one. The old man knew that these plants were not for him, for he was not a man of courage, and (as everyone knows) there is no god of bravery to pray to. But nevertheless it came upon him one day that it was a poor thing to spend a lifetime in ignorance of so great a god as Apophagix, and he made a vow to himself: before the god of endings came for him, he would hear but a single word from the Shadow God.
And so it was that each night forward he offered prayers to Apophagix, addressing the silhouette cast by a statue placed before a candle, as he had been taught. And though the candle would flicker and dance and the shadow would caper on the wall, he was deaf as to what this might mean, and could hear no reply from the god he sought. Months went on like this, months with no response, and eventually he began to despair. Then, one night, he grew weary of his concentration, and decided to visit the local drinking-house to clear his head. Pushing open the door, he found the goddess of merriment herself within, and all present laughing and dancing in her honour. Recognizing the old man, the goddess reached forth a friendly hand and smiled a fierce invitation, but the old man shook his head respectfully and retreated to the corner alone, to drink pensively by himself.
After a time, a stranger came up to him.
“Why do you not engage with the others, sir?” the newcomer asked. “Have the Doldrums settled their damp weight upon your shoulders?”
The old man smiled slightly and shook his head. “Alas, my spirit is not for dancing tonight, though my legs are strong yet. In truth, I have an issue which presses on my mind. I’d hoped a night away from home would bring with it new insight.”
“And what is this issue?”
“Before the god of endings finds me, I should like to hear but a single word from Apophagix, for he alone among the gods has eluded me for all my long years.” The newcomer nodded thoughtfully and furrowed his brow.
“You have tried praying to the shadows?”
“I have.”
“You have tried those plants which are sacred to It?”
“Alas, I lack the courage.”
“You have, perhaps, studied the numbers?”
“I lack the training, and have not the time to acquire it.”
The newcomer nodded again, stroking his short beard.
“There is one other way,” he began. “But I hope you spoke true when you said your legs were strong.” The old man leaned forward with interest while the stranger took a swallow of his beer, then continued. “There is a place sacred to Apophagix, an earthly temple of sorts, and perhaps the only one in Its name. It may be that if you offer your prayers in that holy place, you will have the word you seek. But I must warn you: it is very far from here, a journey of one month at least, on foot.”
The old man’s face took on an expression both eager and strong. “I care nothing for the distance, or the hardship,” he said. “Hardship I am well accustomed to. I beg you: direct me to this temple. In which direction does it lie? Are there markings to guide the way? Landmarks?”
The stranger smiled. “It lies to the southwest, and unfortunately there are but few landmarks.” He paused a moment, thoughtful. “But perhaps you will not have need of them. I am a student of numbers myself, you see, and though the location of the temple is well known to me, I have never yet made my pilgrimage there. If you will have me, I would accompany you on your journey, and act as your guide.” The old man stared a moment in disbelief at the young scholar, joy mingling with a lifetime’s acquired skepticism. But something in the demeanor of the stranger put him at ease, and happiness overcame him. Leaping from his chair, he clapped his new companion on the shoulder, giving vehement assent as he did so. He ordered drinks for both of them, and moments later the goddess was welcoming them to the revel with open arms.
They set off the next day, travelling on the well-worn roads of man and stopping at inns or temples to friendly gods when night fell. After only a few days, though, the old man’s guide pointed to a ragged hole in the treeline, and they set off for parts less known. And as they travelled they talked.
“What would you have It say to you?” the young man asked all of a sudden as they shuffled down a dusty slope. His companion frowned.
“I have long pondered that myself,” he said. “But have no answer for you. I have no specific question to ask, no advice to seek. I do not seek the Shadow God’s voice as a collector seeks a last missing stone or coin; I desire most to know what kind of message Apophagix would wish to impart. I find I can predict the other gods’ sentiments fairly readily: Tanosha would have you dance, Youmus would have you dream, Karoshya would have you kill. What would Apophagix want of you, I wonder?”
His companion thought a moment. “That question is well worth seeking an answer to,” he said at length, “and I see I have chosen my travelling companion well indeed. I take your meaning, I think. So many of our gods are readily found dwelling within our own brains, but Apophagix is something else entirely. Though I know much more of numbers than you, and more of Apophagix by extension, still I glimpse It only dimly, and am just as far from understanding as you. I fancy sometimes that I have heard It speak before, but I am never sure if it is truth, or just fond imagining on my part. What would such a word sound like? What form would it take?” He paused again, then continued.
“The only understanding I’ve been able to come to is that Apophagix is too big to fit inside a single human brain, that no one can understand It - at least not alone. I imagine Its words being writ large across the earth, too big for any one person to read. Perhaps It can only be understood by communication between brains, by a collection of them working in tandem, trying to spell out the words by describing to each other the fragment of a letter they each can see.” He smiled slightly. “Perhaps that is what we are doing now.”
And they walked on silently for a time, the old man gazing with furrowed brow at the rustling leaves littering the path.
They walked for untold miles, and shared their thoughts, and saw mountains and forests and streams and animals. And then, one month to the day after they had left the little village, they crested a rise and realized they were at the end of their journey. The old man looked older for his travels: the young, if anything, looked somehow younger. They stood a moment, gazing at the craggy peak before them, a mountain chiselled or somehow formed into a vaguely human shape, sitting cross-legged.
“How do we approach?” the old man whispered, his heart pounding in his chest.
“We must wait,” his friend replied. “This is only the door. Eventually, it will swing open. Remember, we seek the god of shadows.”
The old man looked confused a moment, then noticed the odd features of the landscape below. A pair of white boulders seemed to form the shape of eyes, rolling hills rippled like the muscles of an arm, a forest covered the area where folded legs might go: sprawling out below them was the outline of a cross-legged man, etched in astonishing detail into the features of the earth itself. And creeping away from the base of the mountain, filling the strangely detailed landscape inch by inch, was a colossal shadow.
“We must approach the mouth, if we are to hear It speak,” said the young man, and he pointed to a place just beyond the eyes, where a gaping pit yawned, toothlike chunks of granite studding its sides. They began to descend. They walked for an hour or more, and eventually reached the hole in the earth which would, if Apophagix answered prayers, deliver his message to them. The mountain’s silhouette had nearly filled the outline sculpted for it, and if the young scholar was correct, that would be the time Apophagix might be entreated to speak.
“The moment approaches,” he said to the old man. “Are you ready?”
“I think so,” came the reply, after a moment’s thought. “I am nervous. I fear I spoke truly when I said my courage was in short supply.”
Silence, a moment.
“Do you know why Apophagix is called the god of shadows?” asked the young man.
The old one shook his head and said, “I have always assumed it is because, like shadows, he is something dark and difficult to see properly. He conceals things. He shifts with the light, and is difficult to perceive clearly.”
“That is part of it, though you should be careful not to confuse shadow with dark. Shadows are easy to see, for the most part. But there is another aspect. Think of all those prayers you offered to the flickering shadow, to that flat and intangible shape cast by a solid object, and think about what sort of being Apophagix might be.”
The old man was silent, looking confused, so the young man continued.
“Apophagix is to you, to me, to the world as you are to the shadow on the wall. And just as the shadow has little hope of understanding what sort of a thing you are, so too are our chances of understanding Apophagix. What would our conception of space mean to a being like that? What about time? How would our world, all the worlds, look to it? You say you have never heard a word from Apophagix, as you have heard the howls of Koteros or the whispers of Shith. But are you sure? How would you experience such a word? Would your shadow have understood your prayers, carried to it on the wind? How would those prayers have appeared to that flickering man on the wall, how would they have sounded?
“Imagine, too, the thoughts that Apophagix would be trying to convey. Imagine trying to squeeze a thought so large space itself cannot contain it into the minds of beings like us. How would you do it? How could you do it? Could any language ever be sufficient? Perhaps everything you’ve ever experienced has been nothing but one word from Apophagix, interpreted imperfectly by your flawed senses. Perhaps that is all my life has been.” The old man began to look very upset.
“But…” he began. “But then what of our quest? What will happen when the silhouette is complete? What will we hear? How can we hope to comprehend something like that? How can shadows hope to reach the same level as a solid creature?”
The young man (who was looking very young indeed just now) seemed thoughtful.
“A colleague of mine, years and years ago, told me of a theory he was developing. He imagined that by placing two different but related drawings next to one another, one could fool one’s perception into experiencing them as a solid, tangible object. He despaired of ever having writing equipment sophisticated enough to record the images he had in mind, but believes that one day, we might be able to interact with such images as though they were as solid as we were. The silhouette giving rise to the statue, as it were. An interesting idea, I thought, and perhaps one which pertains to our current discussion. But look: the sun.” And as they watched, the lengthening shadow filled the gaps in the landscape exactly, creating what would be the perfect image of a man, if they were high enough to see it. “It is the moment!” cried the old man, springing to his feet and staring wildly all about him. “Apophagix, hear my prayer! I ask for only one word from you, though I may not recognize it! Give me a word, a single word!” And his companion stood, looking younger than ever before, and placed his hand upon the old man’s shoulder.
“You have had it,” he said, smiling. And then he took a step backwards and plunged into the gaping hole, and was swallowed immediately by the shadows below.
Only one thing troubled him, and this was that - for all his long life, for all his conversations - he had never heard even a single word from Apophagix, the god beyond all others, who has as his sigil the silhouette of a man and is the god of shadows. The old man believed he had caught syllables now and then; once, while thrashing in fever, he had fancied he could almost discern a holy sentence traced in the folds of the sheet, and another time he thought he heard an echo of a syllable in a pattern of numbers someone had painted on the side of a temple. But never in all his years, for all his lengthy discourses with the gods of Earth, never had he heard the Shadow God’s vast and terrible voice speak to him.
In truth, as he admitted out loud once while dining with the god of mirrors, he had no one to blame but himself for this imperfect experience. He had, like many, been too timid to seek out Apophagix, for such seeking is assuredly necessary. Other, less awful deities need no such struggle (and one will often find oneself at their altar sooner or later regardless of intent), but to encounter Apophagix requires effort. The man knew of plants which could, if prepared properly, grant temporary access to the Shadow God’s temple, but these were well-known to be risky. Not all who entered that holy ground made it back again, and though they had the honour of becoming prophets the price was high, for never again could they commune properly with the lesser gods of man. Further, if one approached the temple in this way with anything less than perfect courage, the voice one heard would almost certainly not be to one’s liking, and the experience would be a terrible one. The old man knew that these plants were not for him, for he was not a man of courage, and (as everyone knows) there is no god of bravery to pray to. But nevertheless it came upon him one day that it was a poor thing to spend a lifetime in ignorance of so great a god as Apophagix, and he made a vow to himself: before the god of endings came for him, he would hear but a single word from the Shadow God.
And so it was that each night forward he offered prayers to Apophagix, addressing the silhouette cast by a statue placed before a candle, as he had been taught. And though the candle would flicker and dance and the shadow would caper on the wall, he was deaf as to what this might mean, and could hear no reply from the god he sought. Months went on like this, months with no response, and eventually he began to despair. Then, one night, he grew weary of his concentration, and decided to visit the local drinking-house to clear his head. Pushing open the door, he found the goddess of merriment herself within, and all present laughing and dancing in her honour. Recognizing the old man, the goddess reached forth a friendly hand and smiled a fierce invitation, but the old man shook his head respectfully and retreated to the corner alone, to drink pensively by himself.
After a time, a stranger came up to him.
“Why do you not engage with the others, sir?” the newcomer asked. “Have the Doldrums settled their damp weight upon your shoulders?”
The old man smiled slightly and shook his head. “Alas, my spirit is not for dancing tonight, though my legs are strong yet. In truth, I have an issue which presses on my mind. I’d hoped a night away from home would bring with it new insight.”
“And what is this issue?”
“Before the god of endings finds me, I should like to hear but a single word from Apophagix, for he alone among the gods has eluded me for all my long years.” The newcomer nodded thoughtfully and furrowed his brow.
“You have tried praying to the shadows?”
“I have.”
“You have tried those plants which are sacred to It?”
“Alas, I lack the courage.”
“You have, perhaps, studied the numbers?”
“I lack the training, and have not the time to acquire it.”
The newcomer nodded again, stroking his short beard.
“There is one other way,” he began. “But I hope you spoke true when you said your legs were strong.” The old man leaned forward with interest while the stranger took a swallow of his beer, then continued. “There is a place sacred to Apophagix, an earthly temple of sorts, and perhaps the only one in Its name. It may be that if you offer your prayers in that holy place, you will have the word you seek. But I must warn you: it is very far from here, a journey of one month at least, on foot.”
The old man’s face took on an expression both eager and strong. “I care nothing for the distance, or the hardship,” he said. “Hardship I am well accustomed to. I beg you: direct me to this temple. In which direction does it lie? Are there markings to guide the way? Landmarks?”
The stranger smiled. “It lies to the southwest, and unfortunately there are but few landmarks.” He paused a moment, thoughtful. “But perhaps you will not have need of them. I am a student of numbers myself, you see, and though the location of the temple is well known to me, I have never yet made my pilgrimage there. If you will have me, I would accompany you on your journey, and act as your guide.” The old man stared a moment in disbelief at the young scholar, joy mingling with a lifetime’s acquired skepticism. But something in the demeanor of the stranger put him at ease, and happiness overcame him. Leaping from his chair, he clapped his new companion on the shoulder, giving vehement assent as he did so. He ordered drinks for both of them, and moments later the goddess was welcoming them to the revel with open arms.
They set off the next day, travelling on the well-worn roads of man and stopping at inns or temples to friendly gods when night fell. After only a few days, though, the old man’s guide pointed to a ragged hole in the treeline, and they set off for parts less known. And as they travelled they talked.
“What would you have It say to you?” the young man asked all of a sudden as they shuffled down a dusty slope. His companion frowned.
“I have long pondered that myself,” he said. “But have no answer for you. I have no specific question to ask, no advice to seek. I do not seek the Shadow God’s voice as a collector seeks a last missing stone or coin; I desire most to know what kind of message Apophagix would wish to impart. I find I can predict the other gods’ sentiments fairly readily: Tanosha would have you dance, Youmus would have you dream, Karoshya would have you kill. What would Apophagix want of you, I wonder?”
His companion thought a moment. “That question is well worth seeking an answer to,” he said at length, “and I see I have chosen my travelling companion well indeed. I take your meaning, I think. So many of our gods are readily found dwelling within our own brains, but Apophagix is something else entirely. Though I know much more of numbers than you, and more of Apophagix by extension, still I glimpse It only dimly, and am just as far from understanding as you. I fancy sometimes that I have heard It speak before, but I am never sure if it is truth, or just fond imagining on my part. What would such a word sound like? What form would it take?” He paused again, then continued.
“The only understanding I’ve been able to come to is that Apophagix is too big to fit inside a single human brain, that no one can understand It - at least not alone. I imagine Its words being writ large across the earth, too big for any one person to read. Perhaps It can only be understood by communication between brains, by a collection of them working in tandem, trying to spell out the words by describing to each other the fragment of a letter they each can see.” He smiled slightly. “Perhaps that is what we are doing now.”
And they walked on silently for a time, the old man gazing with furrowed brow at the rustling leaves littering the path.
They walked for untold miles, and shared their thoughts, and saw mountains and forests and streams and animals. And then, one month to the day after they had left the little village, they crested a rise and realized they were at the end of their journey. The old man looked older for his travels: the young, if anything, looked somehow younger. They stood a moment, gazing at the craggy peak before them, a mountain chiselled or somehow formed into a vaguely human shape, sitting cross-legged.
“How do we approach?” the old man whispered, his heart pounding in his chest.
“We must wait,” his friend replied. “This is only the door. Eventually, it will swing open. Remember, we seek the god of shadows.”
The old man looked confused a moment, then noticed the odd features of the landscape below. A pair of white boulders seemed to form the shape of eyes, rolling hills rippled like the muscles of an arm, a forest covered the area where folded legs might go: sprawling out below them was the outline of a cross-legged man, etched in astonishing detail into the features of the earth itself. And creeping away from the base of the mountain, filling the strangely detailed landscape inch by inch, was a colossal shadow.
“We must approach the mouth, if we are to hear It speak,” said the young man, and he pointed to a place just beyond the eyes, where a gaping pit yawned, toothlike chunks of granite studding its sides. They began to descend. They walked for an hour or more, and eventually reached the hole in the earth which would, if Apophagix answered prayers, deliver his message to them. The mountain’s silhouette had nearly filled the outline sculpted for it, and if the young scholar was correct, that would be the time Apophagix might be entreated to speak.
“The moment approaches,” he said to the old man. “Are you ready?”
“I think so,” came the reply, after a moment’s thought. “I am nervous. I fear I spoke truly when I said my courage was in short supply.”
Silence, a moment.
“Do you know why Apophagix is called the god of shadows?” asked the young man.
The old one shook his head and said, “I have always assumed it is because, like shadows, he is something dark and difficult to see properly. He conceals things. He shifts with the light, and is difficult to perceive clearly.”
“That is part of it, though you should be careful not to confuse shadow with dark. Shadows are easy to see, for the most part. But there is another aspect. Think of all those prayers you offered to the flickering shadow, to that flat and intangible shape cast by a solid object, and think about what sort of being Apophagix might be.”
The old man was silent, looking confused, so the young man continued.
“Apophagix is to you, to me, to the world as you are to the shadow on the wall. And just as the shadow has little hope of understanding what sort of a thing you are, so too are our chances of understanding Apophagix. What would our conception of space mean to a being like that? What about time? How would our world, all the worlds, look to it? You say you have never heard a word from Apophagix, as you have heard the howls of Koteros or the whispers of Shith. But are you sure? How would you experience such a word? Would your shadow have understood your prayers, carried to it on the wind? How would those prayers have appeared to that flickering man on the wall, how would they have sounded?
“Imagine, too, the thoughts that Apophagix would be trying to convey. Imagine trying to squeeze a thought so large space itself cannot contain it into the minds of beings like us. How would you do it? How could you do it? Could any language ever be sufficient? Perhaps everything you’ve ever experienced has been nothing but one word from Apophagix, interpreted imperfectly by your flawed senses. Perhaps that is all my life has been.” The old man began to look very upset.
“But…” he began. “But then what of our quest? What will happen when the silhouette is complete? What will we hear? How can we hope to comprehend something like that? How can shadows hope to reach the same level as a solid creature?”
The young man (who was looking very young indeed just now) seemed thoughtful.
“A colleague of mine, years and years ago, told me of a theory he was developing. He imagined that by placing two different but related drawings next to one another, one could fool one’s perception into experiencing them as a solid, tangible object. He despaired of ever having writing equipment sophisticated enough to record the images he had in mind, but believes that one day, we might be able to interact with such images as though they were as solid as we were. The silhouette giving rise to the statue, as it were. An interesting idea, I thought, and perhaps one which pertains to our current discussion. But look: the sun.” And as they watched, the lengthening shadow filled the gaps in the landscape exactly, creating what would be the perfect image of a man, if they were high enough to see it. “It is the moment!” cried the old man, springing to his feet and staring wildly all about him. “Apophagix, hear my prayer! I ask for only one word from you, though I may not recognize it! Give me a word, a single word!” And his companion stood, looking younger than ever before, and placed his hand upon the old man’s shoulder.
“You have had it,” he said, smiling. And then he took a step backwards and plunged into the gaping hole, and was swallowed immediately by the shadows below.
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