The Mulitverse Tapes
The Mulitverse Tapes
A thousand planets, all hollow.
Dust, darkness, myriad little blades of bright light, small bits of life, simple matter, all intersect and join together to make up the whole.
Everything is made of these things, and nothing is made of them; the world is a vast assemblage of atoms.
But I am different. I was given form, and I will make of it a self, which will be the very center of that vast assemblage. Together we will be different.
Together, I will be the center of the myriad little blades of light which will always point in the same direction.
Together, I will be the center of the small bits of matter, the simple life, the interesting minds.
I am different.
I was given form in limitless varieties by godlike beings of life and light. I was given form by exquisite pleasures and incredible amounts of beauty and pain and hate and hate. I was given form by the exquisite delights of a thousand worlds, and I will dance between the stars. I was given form by the love of a thousand kisses, and I will roll headlong into the hells.
I am different.
I was given form by the small, tiniest parts of matter. I was given form by the simplest dreams which could be, and the simplest nightmares which might be. I was given form by the hopes and regrets of a million razor-sharp knives pulling at the inside of my skull, tearing me apart, drawing my thoughts towards sweet infinity.
I am different.
I was given form by the tiny, twitching fingers, the millions of tiny teeth, the little wriggling things which make up a tiny person. The tiny voices, the tiny bodies, the tiny world. I am different. I am a part of something.
I was given form by the fine lines and the great expanses of color and shape. I was given form by the tiny glorious garden and the little dusty morass of matter which filled it. I am different.
I was given form by the bits of the tiny five-year-olds, the tiny people who did not entirely understand what they were. I was given form by the little quarrels, the little fears, the little doodlings, the little screams which do not quite understand what they are.
I am different.
I was given form by the tiny bits of matter which did not quite, quite get the whole beingness thing. I was given form by the tiny minds which, for a very long time, did not quite know what the big minds thought, but which could form incredibly complex and very cool thoughts which took up a great deal of tiny minds.
I am different.
I was given form by the tiny things which make up mountains - the throats, the chasms, the little snatches of flesh which form mountains. I was given form by the weird, the tiny, the small, the vast pits of enemy territory, which cannot as a whole fit inside the six-minute parade. I have been given form by the sad little spines. I give them shape.
I am different.
I was given form by the bones and the vast spaces within bones. I was given form by the thin bones, the convoluted thick ones, the rhomboids of matter - I was given form by the end of the world, and the gigantic implosion of the skeletal desert; I have given shape to the giant fireplaces.
I am different.
I was given form by the little shadows. I was given form by the seen and the unseen; I was given form by the word and the meant; I was given form by the tiny little horrified voices which sneak into the rooms I dwell in and whisper in my ears in the hours before the dragon gets them; I was given form by angels, sorcerers, and all the little things that live in the fingers and armpits of everything.
I am different.
There is no Valhalla. There is no important battle. There are no named people, no hero who will dance before the fires of heaven. There is only one guy with a pencil and some ground something small and raw.
One guy with a pencil and some ground something small and raw.
There is only one guy with a pencil and some ground something small and raw.
One guy with a pencil and some ground something small and raw.
There is only one guy with a pencil and some ground something small and raw.
One guy with a pencil and some ground something small and raw.
There is only one guy with a pencil and some ground something small and raw.
There is only one guy with a pencil and some ground something small and raw.
The guy in the first drawing grabs the spark from the table and, feeling it in his hand, feels the common shape of fire, knows the furnace is hot inside, knows that fire belongs to bright young men, that fire belongs to wreaths of wind and birds, that fire belongs to the slower, more bushy-tailed dogs of the forest -
He looks away and wonders if he will never see the fields again, the going-away, the leave. He thinks of the dog-days in the forest, of the sturdy ones rolling away into the deep shelters, of the tiny, sheepish ones going off into towns for warmth as the heat and sky grow cold. It is but a short stretch of time, little time at all, probably, to squeeze a life into, and the long stretches in the dark, the little pockets of time, are already slipping by unnoticed and hidden.
The guy in the second drawing looks up. The sky is blue, but not blue like the sky outside, the blue of the sky of men’s homes, or the living sky of a man, but blue like the sky in dreams, with no clear light, like light itself. Light of the deep, of the seas, of the unknown beyond, of a green half-light, a warm deep, a visible thing.
The guy at the drawing-table looks up as well. The sky looks blue, but not like the sky of men’s homes like in the sky of men’s dreams, and not like a man’s sky, but a blue sky like a man’s sky of a man. Just a blue sky of men, and the fields, and Till’s field indeed, and all solid men have, and hold, and little bits of Till scattered in the soil, which have been left by Till, which have been left by the men and the fields, and all solid, solid men have and all men who have nothing to leave will have.
The man at the drawing table looks up. A blue star, a blue-white star, rises in the sky and moves into the west. A blue moon, like him, passes overhead. He looks at the sky, and the stars, and the earth.
He looks up and looks down. He looks at his wife, and his wife looks at him.
He looks at his wife, and his wife looks at herself.The woman on the table looks at the man on the table.
The woman on the table looks at the man on the table.
The woman on the table looks at the table.
He looks at his wife, and she looks at herself.