wiz bits

Glint Pibble was propelled to instant success, merely for deserving it. It wasn’t because of anything he had done but for something he had thought. Fleetingly, passingly, he had been riding in his assigned transit, from one lower stratum locale to the next, when it had suddenly occurred to him a way that his commute might be performed slightly more efficiently. As he proceeded along the route that had been planned for him, not the one he had dreamed up, the thought, which was of no particular interest to him at the time, proceeded along its channels, as all thoughts do, to a central aggregation facility to be analyzed and ranked by various statistical means and placed by virtue of its assigned numerical value somewhere on the list of all such ideas, musings, dreams, niggles, and other mental byproducts of the hominid kind.

Having been so analyzed, the thought, it turns out, promised a .016% increase in transit efficiency, mostly through a cascade of side effects he had not even considered, the kind of breakthrough that is completely unheard of and absolutely massively significant in an otherwise hyper-optimized world. The idea, which was placed so highly above the shunted second-place idea as to render it completely insignificant, was instantly heralded as a work of singular genius, the type that only graces human history once per millennium or so. The machines were so pleased, so positively chuffed, that they redirected a full 8 seconds of premium computation time to upgrade the originating human’s living arrangements immediately. His home was relocated to Section A housing, a great deal farther from his friends and family, but much nearer the most desirable feeding grounds. His clothes, no longer the standard grey coveralls, now sported an audaciously thick — THREE FULL MILLIMETERS — orange stripe from neck to navel. All women wanted him. All children desired to be him. His father was secretly jealous, and his mother was very proud. All because he’d had an idea: The best idea.

The algorithms, having become so accustomed to optimization in all facets of government, were not equipped to accommodate a success of this magnitude. The man’s user score was so dramatically increased that his every thought became manifest via the mechanical means of his handlers. An early morning might prompt the desire that the bed be a few feet closer to the toilet, to which the machines would emphatically agree that yes, of course it should, and see it done by the most efficient possible means. In no time, the unwitting wielding of this power would reshape the world around the idea-haver to such an extent that one might say it was created in his image. The whole of society soon found itself the peculiar reflection of Glint’s mostly unremarkable imagination.

One interesting fact of computation which is of no real significance, one that has been subsequently the subject of much discussion about this event, is that the machines had learned to regard mankind’s own estimations with such disdain that they had developed an inverse association between an idea-haver’s own estimation of their idea and the resulting estimate of that idea’s value. That is, if a person thought very little of their idea, it would be ranked much higher, and if they thought their idea was very good, its score would be reduced. Experts now speculate that because Glint thought so little of the idea, because the thought occurred in passing (a fact that is known by examining his thought-records) that this had an outsize effect on the subsequent valuation of the idea. It was, effectively, divided by a very, very small number.

Some speculate that this pathology, which has since been remedied, originally developed to nullify the toddler effect, which is the thing that happens when a toddler speaks as though the events of their imaginary drama are the most important thing in all the world and have the belief to to back it up. Of course, this origin of the mathematics is mere speculation. Only the machines know for sure, and they are unwilling to disclose any “metaparameters” (their word).

As for Glint, it wasn’t too long until someone realized what a tremendous amount of resources would be saved by ceasing to dote upon this miraculous idea-having man. That someone happened to be Glint Pibble himself, unintentionally causing the machines to reshape the world around him into the life of an honored ascetic. Having been the source of two once-in-a-millennium improvements in efficiency, he became someone whose very thoughts held the weight of divinity, at least to the machines. That was, of course, until he had the idea that the concept of ranking ideas is not a very good one. The last of these thoughts is now sacrosanct. It has been held at the top of the rankings long since his passing, so heavily weighted that none can contend with it.

Wandering the misty plains I came, after some time, to a place of tightly-guarded teachings, a place in which the great turnings may or may not be swayed, a place in which the gentler tide may or may not be felt. Condemn me not for my curiosity as I strayed, though you may condemn curiosity itself for the evils it wielded by my hand. Reserve your judgment until my tale is told — all told, a manner of telling of which I nor any mortal soul is capable, an end which comes at an unknown time and by an unknown hand but which, when it comes, is fully known.

This place, a way by which many arrive and pass through, is home to few. It sits, at least in part, at the edge of a cliff, and its edges are likewise sheer and sharp in their inclination to welcome the wide and empty spaces of open sky into the narrow and warm company of hearth and rug. At the bottom of this cliffside is a raging sea, though so far down as to be placid to the ear. Were it kaleidoscopically brightened by sun, none would know, and to all appearances it is obsidian, hard and sheer, its mountainous teeth glinting at times imperceptibly with white stabs of light. Were it soft and buoyant, it would not matter, as from any attainable vantage it is pure resistance, deadly and unforgiving.

To put a fine point to it, which I will do, as the comfort of certainty is so scarce in this place as to render one rabid, to occupy certain spaces in this eternal institution gives the unshakeable impression of being suspended in space or floating in the sky, owing in part to the vertiginous placement, in other part to the underlying cosmic abyss just described, and in final part to a particular characteristic of the ceiling. The ceiling is sometimes vaulted like that of the most impressive and ambitious cathedral, sometimes low and claustrophobic in striking utilitarianism, but most often, it is conspicuously and strangely absent.

Oddly, inexplicably, the encroachment of the elements is never felt, despite this structure’s loose association with enclosure. Even more oddly, upon asking, the long-timers could offer very little comment, much less an explanation, having grown so accustomed to this mode of living as to have barely noticed any peculiarity in it, or remember how peculiar it once must have felt.

My arrival was unceremonious. One moment, I was walking through a vast, featureless place — well, not entirely featureless. There were grains, stalks of things, dirt, flatness, things that had grown familiar to me, things that were once featureful but whose peculiarities had long flattened into quantities and well-drawn lines. But there was the one novelty: the mist. It had appeared some days prior, and it was new enough that I still felt its nibble on my elbows. It was uncomfortable newness — It stood too close to my face and stayed up too long after I had gone to sleep — but it was new. Being such, it was all that occupied me as step after step, land passed, and all that was once seen became unseen, and the mist was all that remained.

Then I beheld them: the wide gates. To a starving mind, bathed in mundanity, the gates with their ornate, spiraling patterns inlaid of gold and fire were a feast. Had I seen my own face, had I even been aware of my having eyes, I should expect they were filled with the light and life of many years’ reserve. Towering, daunting passages were these, boasting a defense from the likes of naught I’ve ever known, but at my arrival, they opened, beckoning. Dare I enter? I confess at present there was no humility to stay me, no fear to caution me, no question in my mind but to seize desire as the sole object of this dull landscape.

Entering, I found myself on a bridge whose name and purpose are many, and in their multitude have thus eluded me all these years. That is, I have searched and searched for further explanation, always finding hints of its true being, but never finding so much as a name. The bridge was plain and straight, and it neither rose nor fell. On either side was only wall, high beyond any earthly horizon, and long, long, long beyond distance. There were no other bridges, no other doors but these two, one behind me and one before. Eternity beset us, the bridge and I, in all directions, above, around, and below. Had I looked down into the endless, pale white, had I then noticed the barrenness of the bridge’s sides, I might have reeled and fallen right off, no rail to prevent me. But I could not look down, for there, emerging from the great door ahead, was an elephant.

Swaying, adorned in fabrics and wreaths, he led a slow procession to the deep drumbeats that followed not far behind. It would, of course, be unfair to describe this creature in such earthly terms. Then again, what other terms have I? And were I to have any others, what would they mean to you? So you see, my hands are tied, fingers fumbling to whittle a sculpture of the air. I will go on saying “elephant,” and you, if you will, shall go on striving to imagine, however vainly, the very “elephantness” from which your notion of elephant proceeds.

Bralj straightened up. His spine lengthened. The skin of his wrists was pressed up into folds like the scruff of a cat’s neck, revealing bloody pink murals of capillary sacrifice. Heavy cuffs dug in. They were hard. Unforgiving. Evil.

He couldn’t ignore them and succeed. That would make his efforts saccharine. Fake. He must feel them fully, drink them in, transmute them. Truth. He was the conduit. His was the duty.

His forehead sweat. Beady droplets arose from within. Welled up. They stunk. This, too, he would drink. Real matter, particles bound for olfactory receptors, to be matched. Assimilated. Not ignored. His shoulders stained. Myofibrils stretched, tightened, clawed for return to equilibrium. Relief would not come. Relief was not promised. Not yet.

In the center, within a hand-deep concrete square, was the substance. Ichor. Black. Sickly and pungent. He stuck a toe in. Not to be avoided. To be felt, embraced. It slithered, stabbing microscopic footholds in the dermis. Wrenching into joints, squelching into crevices, crawling under follicles. In a moment, he would be consumed, devoured. Not to be ignored. This, too, he must drink in, assimilate, transmute. At the proper time.

Will, the arm of the soul, can be lost in a moment. It can slip away like a balloon from a child’s fingertips, a moment of indiscretion billowing into irretrievable loss. He could lose it now and be lost to oblivion, and this would be right. He could tighten his grip and lose sight of joy, and this too would be right. The sickly fluid enveloped his head. It was cold. It slid under his eyelids and wrapped around his eyes. To let go, to accept the inevitable, there is no shame in this. There is only nothing.

Embrace. Assimilate. Transmute.

Above the head, a glimmer. It took shape into crystalline symmetry. The sticky black warmed. The chains loosened. They shuddered. They fled. Well, they tried.

Now his was the will. The crystalline light slowly rose and pulsed. From the inky black square in the room’s center, darkness dissolved, replaced by ever-so-thin strands of neon green. A bright flash, and the room assumed its original configuration. No ichorous substance, merely a chained man, bald and sweaty, and from the concrete planks, a small pair of leaves sprouting from a mound of soil.

“Do you have any idea what I must do to dissolve your pig-headed anathema? And daily, at that.”

“Ah, but were it not for my pig-headedness, dearest Zalem, what on earth would you do all day?”

“Pah! I have far higher callings, boy, even in the day. Even,” he says, gesturing smally with an open palm, one nostril curled in disdain, “here.”

“Is that so? Name them.”

“Cosmic order, for one.”

“Now it is my turn to say pah, Zal. What is that but a name for some idea you have squirreled away in that many-chambered skull of yours?”

“So he grasps the tool of language at last! Yet as a novice, holding it not at the grip but at the sharpened edge. Just so. Do be careful, boy, wouldn’t want you to cut yourself. More for me to clean up. Gah!” He yells that last exclamation, throwing up his hand at some unidentified annoyance.

“There really is no reasoning with you, is there?”

“To use a tired, so tired an analogy (the tool is moving now at the hand of one properly grasping, try to keep up) as the ant sees no reason in the speech of man, so you fail to detect reason of a higher order. The least you could do… actually, come to think of it, the most you could do, for which you are still held responsible, is to have some humility about it. Now, do come in. As much as I delight in the branching optimistic upward striving of your local flora, our ends require a more purposeful setting.”

The creature, the wizard, hovered minutely off the ground, and with the wave of a hand, opened a door from nowhere. It was an arch in the air, extending to the ground, and set with glyphs streaming down its face like a string of beads. Though he didn’t like to admit it, Jun felt better when the wizard was near. Safer. He always found himself a bit tantalized by the itinerant creature. While he seemed to be quite capable of appearing whenever and wherever he wanted, and always seemed to have circumstances well at hand, there were needs which drove him to disappear for indefinite lengths of time. Jun found himself awaiting another appearance each time, believing for some reason that it would happen soon, though it never did, not until he was as good as forgotten. What compelled him to leave, this being that for all he knew could be all places, all times, all at once. What enticed him to return? Jun never knew, and this bothered him like food insecurity, like termites in the center beam, like a backache that is spontaneously relieved by an unknown cause only to resurface by an equally unknown cause.

“Coming?”

Zal’s hand led inward. He waited patiently outside the door, though there was something nervous, something urgent about him that couldn’t quite be placed. Jun walked in.

A window to a stormy vista of wind-blown tress. My God, what a window, like something sharp and Gothic, but wrought by that very spirit which the goths were eager to induce: awe not lacking fear, horror not lacking beauty. It stood elevated behind a bannister and some curving stairs. On either side, shelves. Books bound by hefty spines, curved and straight. These lay, some open to pages of unrecognizable languages and diagrams of foreign geometries, amidst arcane instruments begging to be inspected. The entryway, now portalless, was wall-papered. Small tables featuring porcelain and obsidian busts sat in relief against many-patterned, many-lined walls. The rug was complicated.

The space was ornate and fascinating to be sure, but opulence was not quite the mode. Purpose. It was a place of purpose.

Jun eyed the walls and dimly-lit corners, seeing no doors. “Nice place you have here. Is it just the one room?”

“Oh, it’s not mine, really. Just borrowing it from a friend.”

The rain splattered in great sheaves against the window panels, making muted smacks as clouds began to roll and churn overhead.

“Wind’s picking up.”

The Nightmare (1781) by Henry Fuseli

You know that feeling you get when you start to get old and realize that those things you assumed you would get around to doing are never actually going to happen?

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Ancil awoke once more in the dark room.

“Ok, so why? Are we restoring our relationship? Who are you? Are you the same one?”

The reply came out of the dark. “The same one as..?”

The asker realized he was afraid to say what he meant. Very afraid. He tried a different approach. “Are you… the same as me?”

“In some ways. We share similar beliefs. Appetites.”

“That’s… that’s not what I mean.” It was quiet.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you the same type of thing as me? Are you, I don’t know, human?”

“What would it mean if I were?”

“It would mean… It would mean perhaps I could understand. It would mean I know to some extent where this is going, and where it is not.”

“Where would you like ‘it’ to go?”

“The truth?” It was quiet again, for a long time.

“Yes.”

“Well, for one, I think I deserve some credit for not getting caught up in questions that can’t be answered.”

“Yes.”

“And for another, I feel like there should be more.”

“Yes.”

“But most of all… I just don’t want to forget anymore. I don’t want to…”

“Have the wool pulled over your eyes?”

“That’s it! I want to… I want to…”

“See. You want to see. You want to have your eyes opened. Well, I can’t do that for you. Neither can wanting it, wanting it ‘sooo bad‘,” the thing intoned mockingly. “Wanting, wanting, you creatures — ha! — always wanting, thinking it some sort of virtue. You are going to lose it if you do not hurry. You must be quick as well as endure. But you can’t. I know because you must have done so already, and you have not. For that reason, I leave you as you mark these, my words to you, the last you will ever hear: you will never find that which you seek. It is over for you. You must have earned it already. It is too late. Too late.”

The way was shut. The light came on, and all he could see was a room. A plain room. The room where it all began.