From: damianj@castle.ed.ac.uk (Network News)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: Reflections on parallelism, Happy endings
Keywords: cheap visual joke, trashy sci fi
Date: 6 Nov 92 21:35:46 GMT
Distribution: talk
Organization: Edinburgh University


            REFLECTIONS
            PARALLELISM



   Asreph Kyuka looked out of the viewport at the stars streaming past.
He, as many before him, wondered about the stars, the glittering
nondeterministic wallpaper that they formed, like a tunnel, curving
and curving, the hazy spectral reflections that lit up the glass -
although of course it wasn't glass - around him. It wouldn't be too 
long now - he'd been preparing himself for a long time, maybe his
entire life, for this moment. The moment when he crossed the frontier.

   He didn't know - nobody knew - what was beyond this. People had 
speculated for as long as anyone could remember as to whether time
would simply stop, whether you would be torn apart, projected through
time, reincarnated, or any one of a million other scenarios. Asreph's
people had long since discarded the useless trapping of their
forebearers' religions in favour of a commonly shared philosophical
view of the world, which transcended their scientific theories,
applicable as they were, only to their universe. So to speak, current
thinking allowed for anything to be possible outside that which was
known, and, if read properly, within that which was known - it was 
just that their world seemed to follow rather humdrum and predictable
lines, not that it had to.

   Asreph didn't have a particular preference, but like the thousands
of other disenfranchised people that had gone before him, day to day
life had lost all reality. There was no more need for politics, no 
need for people to die, or grow old. The world had lost the edge that
people required to give them fulfillment in their lives. Anyone could
have anything. Faced with an eternity of bland happiness, many chose the 
quick way out, but even suicide was difficult. The state didn't disallow
suicide. However, unless you made an extremely thorough job of it, they would
just piece you back together and pack you off for reprogramming. This
was better than suicide, Asreph thought to himself. There was uncertainty,
and therefore there was hope. Hope for a better world - a different world
at any rate, perhaps. 

   Maybe he was insane. After all, there were plenty of things he could
do back home - he could train to do any job at all, enjoy whatever
hobbies he wished, and here he was throwing this all away for nothing.
There were so many places he had never been; people he had never met,
but what it came down to was that for all of the openness of his
society, the opportunities available to the people, he felt closed in,
imprisoned by his freedom. The universe was not large enough.

   He looked at the clock, screwed up his face, and then broke out
laughing.  Time?  Time had pretty much lost its meaning.  Time relative
to what?  In which theory?  Still, too late to turn back now.  Soon
(he suppressed another giggle at his repeated thoughts of time), he
would know, one way or the other. 

   The craft accelerated, loosely speaking. Asreph found he was having great
difficulty concentrating. His head began to swim; he felt as though he
was floating in warm water and the pressure in his ears was building and
building until his head could take no more. His eyesight was starting
to fail him now, objects blurring into each other, colours intermingling
and shifting up and down the spectrum, the ability to place interpretations
on even the vaguest outlines of shapes was leaving him. A sharp stabbing
pain hit him in the temple on top of the lower level continuous humming
discomfort which had been growing inside his head. Asreph made a final
attempt to focus his mind on the control panel several feet above him. 
Then he began to scream and scream and didn't ever stop.


Damian
damian@castle.ed.ac.uk