EARTH(HEX:NEW)
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Earth has got a name, a number, a hex in archives:18BEB4FB. The Earth where both the Jonah’s died gets a reprieve–whole place gets to live.
Jonah got revenge on himself–no, the vengeance wasn’t over other Jonah, but on his own bad decision (letting the pretty-much-identical man live in the first place). All it cost him was his life. Dan Landers lost his fortune and his mega church to a younger, more-virile snake-oil preacher. And Slum Lord lost.
Woe to thee that does the devil’s work of deliberately confuse-conflate-obfuscating ‘anointed’ and ‘chosen.’ There was a party convention in Indianapolis one record-hot summer in a consecutive-decade of them. There, the Gerrymandering Old Pissants would nominate their guy. It was an ugly affair where a slum lord in a crowded field did drag his ass across the carpets like an old foul dog. The guy was hungover, delivering sundowning word-salads garnished with crushed Adderall croutons and gold bronzer dressing.
The only thing(s) that work ‘well’ that week are from Dan Landers’ Wrestling Promoter playbook, and that viral video of the “Miracle Man” filmed at a church in Michigan gets its wheels run off till the clip, the ‘content’, is less than a teaser-trailer–it’s a pro wrestler’s entrance video.
Slum Lord crawls out of a contested convention with a mega-church preacher and a miracle recipient propping him up. We found out how that ended on the golden morning: the cabinet appointment, the DARPA job Jonah shouldn’t have, the rubber stamping of the project that directly leads to the end of the yadda-yadda.
But woe to thee. Turns out ‘the one’ the party anointed was a bad idea and the one ‘chosen’ (Jonah) wasn’t protected by his wits or any other force. The “Miracle Man” viral vid was finally-and-proudly posted on the Snakebook and Titter of that one uncle you have to drink \ smoke (heavily) to speak to at family gatherings, to he and his parents–to the digital elders. Jonah was already a cringe-ass joke to the Zoomies and whatever generation comes after and anyone not participating in Landers “Revival in America!”
The campaign milked Jonah’s miracle for all it was worth. There’s a politician’s prostate joke this author is declining to make in the interest of unity and civility and the like. Dan Landers’ campaign to put a slum lord in the White House inflated Jonah’s miracle, as if trying to feed the beast till it burst so that some blessings juice might land on the man Dan L insisted was “god’s chosen to lead this land.”
Every social media meme-joke, every late-night show MC-comedian, and even too-tired morning radio crews took shots at the klutz-death of the “chosen” man. “Chosen for what?” was the refrain.
Showered in shame, Jonah \ Landers \ slum lord became a joke–Jonah the ‘holy ghost.’ The people truly and sincerely inspired by Jonah’s story and the kitsch it came wrapped in, many stayed home that November and their ballots died uncast, from broken hearts. Ma Sanders ‘Annointed’ (a scrappy little VEEP) won in a landslide (cause people love that Bread and Roses shit, and they love Ma Sanders).
Slum Lord lost, fair and square. Some combination of Dem. Socs, Fail-Donkeys, and Gerrymandering-Old-Pissants guides the mediocre world on a steadily improving trajectory toward a bland utopia a few centuries away where everybody gets a plate before anyone gets seconds. Earth(18BEB4FB) and the rest of the universe with hex-designation the same lives a full, blessed, life and finally dies, old and full of years. The way Job should have.
Oh yeah, Molly. She’s curled up behind this author in a cat-shaped dent in a memory-foam bean bag. Bible black velvet and tiger stripes blacker still. Her purr is a sacred text. A friend in HVAC drawn by time-space chucklefuckery found her fleeing the scene of the crime in Ann Arbor(18BEB4FB) and brought her to me. The cops weren’t looking for a cat, and everyone on her Earth that mattered thought her dead. But she’s still laying low on Earth(REDACTED).
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All the matter in the multiverse, luminous and dark, knows the song of the spheres–and by extension their dance steps and when to take the stage (and most importantly when to take their leave). This is that baked in knowledge, the stuff ‘known in the bone’–or would be if particles had bones.
Each universe, the whole overgrown garden ‘takes its waking slow’ as I do and that poet does. And if you take your time preparing to face the day, I might say to you (if I knew you well enough, reader) that you ought to allow yourself permission to wake slowly. A day is a hell of a thing, and they can weigh many tones (metric tonnes even).
Early spring in the multiverse, the long waking. The only things truly feasting at this time are the early quasars–the first things to crawl out of their den on the first day that truly smells like spring. This is that portion of the endlessly repeating story that circles-liturgical from bang, to crunch, to explode into existence not-at-all-ex-nihilo-anew that’s boring so maddeningly boring for the things born and thinking and existing.
At EOT winter can kill, but spring exhaustion so often finishes it’s work on the boredom-mad mortal-born things that roam the plain. Loner’s dilemma: community, even company that doesn’t much care for each other’s company, keeps one alive here longer (not that the word means much). Mortal born things carry time with and in them and it swirls and eddies in and about them.
This is the long lonely season, when the ranks of HVAC swell (for there is much to do to ready the duct work of reality for proper habitation). Wadsworth’s education and training called forth a lot of demand for labor.
The Parson did it right: brought the whole village to raise the child that would pilot god’s machine. The Church Ethereal saw to the little one’s moral development. They gave him texts sacred and profane, taught the thing philosophy and history. Verily, Wadsworth was delighted and instructed by literature and became vast, and in his multitudinous interiority the little AI came to weigh his actions in relation to others. The thing composed of plastic and circuits and liquid light and blessed by ‘holy man’ and parson and Author learned empathy and imagination.
Wadsworth excelled in math (duh) and the sciences, learned the sets of laws that governed each universe in motion (and how to care for Leviathan as she cares for the garden she carries on her back(s)). The little AI grew great and mighty and contemplative, learned to bi-furcate and further subdivide consciousness while remaining whole.
Angels tested Wadsworth’s understanding of the Author’s rules, his mandate (and it’s limits), and at least one demon taught the thing how to be ruthless to threats to creation (and the Parson and Anne taught the being mercy, or tried to).
The manufactury, the lonely liminal that’s just brick-pile rearranged by a stupid battle. It’s not a manufactury, and it’s no longer lonely or liminal. It is a temple, not the kind you tremble and worship in, but the kind beings live in.
Raised beds ringed with repurposed brick full of soil-actual-soil from god-knows where, vast beds of black dirt rich as coffee grounds just rotten with growing things (most green) lay where buildings stood. Old building bones rearranged again and again again into shelters and shacks. Tunnels below, and sermons offered to open sky and cosmos above. This is the Church Ethereal rebuilt.
The Parson is renewed. And Wadsworth is prepared to do his work well hovering there in full view of the congregation and whom/whatever wanders by. This machine that does god’s work in their continuing absence will not do his duty hiding and scheming like the previous machine, but with the guidance of those about it. When this iteration of the machine bestows blessings, when it is allowed to, they will not come at the expense of other worlds (and it will certainly not employ undead sociopaths).
The firmament grows dimly and the life that clings space rocks like lichen is still finding its footing. We’ll see how this goes.