Chapter 12 - Reluctant Return
A few weeks later, I sat at the device past midnight in the middle of May. The state of the world was still in peril as many had to keep working under difficult and dangerous conditions in my world. I was without a job, stupidly awaiting money from the state that would not come since I’ve been going about getting them wrong. Promises of coming back to my old work fluffed up inside me by my old boss every week. I was a puddle of my former self, unmotivated and afraid of coming back in here for Lila’s judgement again.
I did not go inside, though I was sure she wasn't waiting for me in the tiny wooden box. She would be fine if I never came back, but I wanted to finish this venture and move on with my life. Maybe the ball was in my court now. The spawn chamber would be there for me for ten years, Lila included. I had not told her the tracker was on her wrist, but she was smart enough to figure it out herself eventually. It was the only thing I made sure to give as a gift.
Again, I did not want to sleep. The next day was going to be stressful all over. I did not do well against the pressure, but I had to work somehow. I enjoyed doing something rather than just existing and consuming. Nearing my thirtieth birthday in two weeks, I felt that I had those ten years left to reach my goal. Ireland once visited, awaited my return, flowing with green hills, cliffs, and the dark liquid of essence. I would do anything to live there, work there, and die there. Whether buried or scattered, I wanted to end there, no matter how many years I had left.
I decided not to enter that box in the darkness tonight. Real life needed assistance in building before I could come back to Lila with an update. I wanted to leave her to her own millions of years, return only once my life had changed enough to make her smile, but I felt she could be of help along the way to it in some shape of form. For tonight, she was alone again in the darkness of untethered space. I was alone just the same in the dead of night.
break
I had been away for far too long, afraid of coming back there. I did not want to see Lila again for some reason. I put it off, having new thoughts from the void beam into my discombobulated brain of quarantine. Doing anything creative felt like a futile effort to stay alive, but I once again dreamt of being beyond this world. Though I turned my nose at new ideas trying to propel themselves into my brain from the Infinity Void, I still wanted to be part of that void, a story that others could source for bits of originality in their creations.
Beyond the daily shifting sleep schedule, and a new curfew set upon the whole city of New York in lieu of protests, I found myself empty. I had instruments that could give me bits of joy, relight the candle of levity in my brain that JJ huddled near and dear, but it was momentary. That voice of terror still shook my mind sometimes with thoughts of vile actions against living creatures, but I staved him off regularly, even if he wanted something else.
I entered that untethered space again, outside the wooden box in the darkness only lit within. Was she still there, waiting for my return? That would be stupid, but she knew nothing else within there. With the knowledge gained from me, she could very well distance herself from my little box and lead an adventure. I wanted that for her. Anything was better than watching me grow past the final years considered young. I had to be here for her, and for myself.
“Lila?” I asked, while creating a form for myself just past the wall I floated through. She sat on the couch, book in hand with her shirt slid up her back to only cover her chest. Her exposed back was moving up and down the couch cushions for a few more seconds before she slumped down with her eyes closed. The book in her hands dropped from her grip and closed with a bounce against the floor. “Sorry. I interrupted you.”
“Jack, wait,” she said, a bit out of breath. “Poor timing, yes, but wait. She lifted the shirt above, but I turned in time to avoid seeing her bare chest.
“Women in my reality do a similar thing with pillows between their legs,” I said. “I suppose the softness is a welcome surface for the act.”
“You can call it what it is, Jack,” Lila said. “Masturbating isn’t something to be ashamed of.” That I understood, but she came from a world not marred by innocence furthering. Though many youths discovered this act early, it had to be avoided until the laws allowed them to take part in sexual relationships.
“Is that what you’ve been doing while I’ve been away?”
“On and off,” she replied. “Oh, right, I uploaded all the stories you gave me onto your computer. It took a while, so I’m glad you gave me the time. All the books lost in the scatter of the library are now in your computer.”
“It’s not my… thank you, Lila,” I said. It was Rebecca’s computer. I had half a mind to destroy that thing, but now it was a storage device for future stories. I still had to find a story that could actually put me on the map. Tiarto was too outlandish and detailed. Hearteater was too eroticized and limited by inexperience. Garavand was just right, but how did one sell a creature that vile? My best guess was Ivlin, reconstructed in means of My Neighbor Totoro to have a positive ending and transition into a tale of adventures of Nilvi with her strange pet dragon from Secear.
“That one, probably,” I mumbled while browsing the files created on the computer.
“That what?”
“Oh, I’m trying to decide which story to find my way with,” I replied. “I think Nilviivlin would do nicely, if I could fix the mother dying part.”
“Hmm, yeah,” Lila said. “Could also use more relatable names. The upside down and backward bit could still work with some normal girly name. Nilvi is just too weird to be accepted in the mainstream. So, maybe the mother gets a more relatable disease, and maybe they don’t live on a farm.”
“Whoa, there,” I said. “Let’s not get too far with changing stuff. I want to keep some of the charm I initially intended.”
“The charm of gender reassignment?”
“That’s more of a current relevant topic still discriminated against,” I said. “One of them, at least. There are so many right now, but it doesn’t have to be set in modern times.” Lila jumped up from the couch and landed in a squat.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “How’s that going by the way?”
“Terribly. The virus was slowly starting to be contained, but now there are riots in many cities to the point of the government setting up curfews at night. It’s all about police brutality and discrimination. Do you have that in your world?”
“Discrimination, of course,” she said. “Who is getting discriminated against?”
“It’s race based.”
“Race?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t have anyone who is different in your society,” I said. “That’s implausible. There have to be some people that look down on other people just because of something stupid like skin color.” Lila put a finger to her chin and grew silent for a moment.
“There used to be,” she said. “But they all left the planet after a while. The Elner were these humans with different brain chemistries that allowed more access. While they were around, everyone else felt really stupid. It caused a lot of problems. So, seeing as they were brilliant in sciences, they stopped breeding themselves with others to the point of policing emissions with nanomachines. Once they were separate enough, they simply just launched off into the netherspace
“What about the hybrids, and what about those who had just a small fraction of the out group, or just a small fraction of Elner genes?” I asked.
“Anyone with even a faint trace of Elner was part of them.”
“So they forced them to leave even if they didn’t want to go?”
“Yeah. It was pretty dark, but then it wasn’t. We learned a lot from the Elner, and struggled on to get to modern times.”
“I bet it was some many billions of years before you were born, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, before the largest sun collapsed onto itself. After that, we had only light for three of five sectors, rather than four.”
“In those terms, my world has three of six of both light and dark, but it changes between two of six and four of six between.”
“Doesn’t sound very stable,” Lila said. “So you have a cold period and a warm one.”
“Yeah, Winter and Summer,” I said. “There are four seasons. It starts with Spring, going from winter to summer, then Summer, then Autumn, the transition back into Winter. It’s always changing.” Lila smiled and caught eye contact.
“Your plants must be hating that.”
“Some keep green all the time,” I said, proudly. “But others fluctuate, lose leaves, and grow new ones. How do your plants grow?”
“Grow, then grow from within so that the old leaves and fruit can fall off, rot and fertilize the next growth. It’s a constant cycle. Yours is more like: grow, flower, fruit, die, struggle from the start.”
“Death comes to all,” I said. “That’s the law of entropy. Disorder only grows, energy is only ever lost. At least in my imperfect reality. Yours can’t be too perfect, seeing as all the brainiacs left it behind. What if there was a human who was just as smart as the Elners, but had not even a trace of Elner genes in him?”
“Those stayed behind,” Lila said. “Some became Elner fanatics, turning them into deities rather than just smart people, and the others simply helped us survive. We’re glad for that, but they saw the Elner’s departure as a big blow to their race. Some have even been talking about setting out and fighting them, an act of revenge, but that was so long ago, most outcries have died out.”
“As much fun as it is learning about your world, and it is, I think I may have to go.”
“Got here too late again,” Lila said. “You gotta stop doing that, Jack.”
“I was afraid of coming back,” I said. “Thought you’d be upset with me for some reason.”
“Funny,” she said. “That’s why I thought you were staying away for so long.”
“This endless staying inside is burdening my mind,” I said. “It’s like we’re in a similar place. You’re stuck in the untethered space, and I’m left to my own devices. Very often, my own devices try to break me from within.”
“Will you come back tomorrow? During the day?”
“I will try,” I said, afraid to make promises again. “Meanwhile, do you want a new story?”
“You have something new? I thought you gave me all the good ones.”
“All of my ideas are good ones,” I said. “They just need tender loving care of developing into something great, and you’re perfect for that.”
“Alright, lay it on me.”
“This is the Paper Universe,” I said. “It’s related to my paper folding, something I have also not been doing of late. Let’s see if you like it.” I tossed a booklet into the air above Lila so it could float down gracefully, but she launched herself off the floor and hovered the second she got her hands on it.
“Thanks, Jack,” she said. “Goodnight.”
“Night.”
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