From: tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Subject: Re: four words
Date: 15 Aug 92 16:24:58 MDT
Organization: University of Utah, CompSci Dept

>chenille
>head
>hydrometer 
>niche
>
>The story must not be written in chronological order.

****

  Out there I could see now that my Mom loved me because of the endorphine
and neural substrate signalled by her genes.  Her love was forced by
chemistry; the thought sickened me to a depth of despair which brought
on denial.  My head ached, and I longed to think again that love could
be real if nothing else could.  These god damned assholes knew what I was
thinking, and I would never let them see it, I could still outthink them.

***

  "We are beyond you," explained the simple looking man, "and you, if any,
can join us."  He lightly rubbed his foot on the chenille rug back and forth,
as if trying to stamp out my identity with a small gesture.
  "You can see that we serve truth," said another man by his side who had sat
previously silently, "and that is ultimately good."
  "Fuck off," I replied, "I'll never join your god damned religion ever. You
can't convert a convert."
  The first man rubbed his foot on the rug again, and they both got up and
left, leaving me alone.

***

  Slim was screaming over the roar of the engine, but I couldn't make it out.
I could see he was pointing back through the pouring rain, back across
the trail of our speedboat.  The equipment spread out all over the deck
was certainly ruined, and I kept tripping on it, making me want to throw it
all overboard.  Some sort of intelligence agent I was, god damn, I thought.
  "The fanatics are right behind us," screamed Slim right next to my ear,
"we can't let them have you, you are onto" but he didn't finish, and he
fell down across the hydrometer, somehow landing face up.  It seemed like
he was laughing at me, but his laughs brought forth blood which gushed forth
from his mouth.  It was hard to see what the hell was wrong with him, but
his blood was bursting out of his mouth for sure, and then washing down
across his face.  Then I got hit.

***

  "Since you won't listen to our reason", said the calm faced simple man,
"you will have to listen to your own."
  I struggled in the straps to lift my head to see him, but I could only
see the chair next to me and the ceiling from my position.
  "See, you have built yourself an ideological niche- founded on thousands
of years of confusion and carelessness.  The bridge to truth can be self
constructed- but only if you see it.  You live in a mess of half truths
now, my friend.  And if you can't take it, you will burn up." The calm
faced man stopped talking, and stuck something hot in my arm which made
my arm throb for a moment.
  "You can't fucking brain wash me," I said weakly.
  "We aren't," he replied, "this is a mental enhancer, and it will 
augment your speed of thought."

***

  There in the shadows of thought I could see the universe intricately
bound up, shifting its patterns along in its topological mazes.  The
mechanisms of things fell into place, bringing along with it the
form and formless thoughts.  Being embodied, I could rise above and
see the foundation of perception, and that it was circular, the perciever
percieved as a foundation, and pain was only a reflection of action 
without any quality unto itself.
  "But I am embodied," I spoke out, "and so the lines of understanding 
must stop here."  
  But they did not, and suddenly I broke free of them, and beyond myself
to see that I was merely nothing.  The plans of my captors seemed silly
and weak, but I understood them now completely and I cried out.

  Days later I awoke.  The simple man was there, and he said, "You are
free to do whatever you wish, you may leave now.  Many people have spoken
of you as our leader, from the things you said in your delirium.  That is
so, is it not?"

  I rose and looked at him, "I am."
 

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