The Ordovichian Jubilee

The center of a vast hall. Thick water laps gentle against a broken corner of the red and white checkered floor, tiled in marble, quartz, and alabaster. [[Water's edge]]|[[Arboritum]]|[[Windows]]|[[Heavens]]

The water is thick and red with a bloom of algae. I bend over, and little armored fishes and flickering minnows dart from the shadow. (if: $found is "cat")[The cat leaps off into the pool, descending deep until it can no longer be seen.] [[Sift the Shallows]] [[Drink of the Waters]] [[Dig]] [[Stare into the Pool->stare pool]] (if: $found is "cat") [[Follow the cat->underwater]] [[<|Narthex]]

The hall's |A>[windows] no longer contain glass, aside from a few brilliant stained fragments, wedged into the edges of the panes like ragged jewels. (click-append:?A)[ //(made by someone named theresa, probably)// ] [[<|Narthex]]

The heavens stretch above, the planet's rings arcing overhead, almost like the arches of a vaulted ceiling resting on the hall's cracked roman columns. [[The moon's light - low and near - casts long shadows, but gives me just enough light to do what I came here to do.|Narthex]]

I push fingers through the coral pink sands. (event: when time > 2s)[Clouds of grit swirl in the waters, churning up flecks of gold - enough to purchase a manor house or clipper ship back home. But it is not what I came here for.] [[<|Water's edge]]

I cup hands together and dip them beneath the waters. Flecks of algae and leaflet gold shimmer and swim in the little tidal pool I have made. The relfection of the moon wavers in the cupped pool, white and round as an egg. [[DRINK OF THE WATERS|drink]] [[I have been warned|don't drink]]

I raise the perfect pool to cracked lips and drink deep. The water tastes of quicklime and copper [[blood|Water's edge]]. (set: $beguiled to "bloomtouched")

I lower the perfect, glistening pool to the water's edge again, letting the waters run back into the slow flowing river. Slipping back into the flow of the stream until nothing again distinguishes these atoms from each other which will flow into the ocean. [[<|Water's edge]]

I sink fingers into the soft earth, where the tile floor crumbles into fine, silted sands. (event: when time > 2s)[I scrape at the earth until I have made a hole as deep as the forearm I dug it with, and wide as a foot. As deep and wide as an urn. (if: $beguiled is "petaltouched" and $found is 0) [It is here. The hound follows me, meandering in a gentle fashion. (set: $found to "dog")] (else:)[It is not here. Where it should be, nothing is buried.]] [[<|Water's edge]]

//because you see yourself up there, don't you. ALl the rest reincarnating but you, a freak, you a damned idiot! Preincarnating and missing out from the times futuregone with your peers. Its time I come clean. I mean I, i said you earlier but its just cause, I am sad and honestly enfeebled by the ostrasization. My name is Bean. A. Bean. I was the third man on the moon the first time I was born. The second Time I was born I was the first man on the moon. Two years backwards elapsed. First born on the ides of march in 1932. Then some fucking other date 1930. A cruel fate i have been condemned to. IN mv first life, i lived most of mv life in the faroff future of 6198 AD. Ethical Time travelers there were IRB approved to take me from my time then and bring me into a future where i was revered for paintings I was yet to make. In the 6198 moon museum i fell in love with a docent. and they moonlit as a ontology expert in that world. on a romantic clipper ride over the library of neo neo neo neo alexandria reluctantly revealed the truth of the human condition. reincarnation is a closely kept secret. there are only around 91 souls, (and every life lived is fully remembered during all subsequent lives) and the generation of a new soul is a really Big freaking deal to be honest with you. I was the first de nuovo soul in a millenia, and A Bean was the first life lived. My lovely docent didn't understand my coquetry as they put it. They told me to meet them in the year 10000, and all would be revealed then. BUt when I got sent back after the clinical time trial, and I lived my life to the fullest gamut of glistering wet. PAint wet. when i did that, and died? I woke up as a baby and i was overjoyed at how true and sane it all was. how lucid and fresh in the new biologv all the sensations of mv first life were again. A newborn filled with art and wisdom and words of the Bean i had been, but too filed with the new color rainbow of tabla raza retinal cells. the world renewed. I had the distinct thought that I could get used to the unbearable lonliness in mv heart, docent shapedhole, that i could endure as manv lives as it took to get to 10000 ad if this is what sinusoid path stretched before me. ANd then i heard the doctor sav my name. "Neil Armstrong" thats funny, i thought neil had a birthdav BEFORE mine. Oh.// [[Oh God]]

//The moon in the sky reappears like a punctuation mark in a dark themed browser windwo. you know what that is okay? they had them in the future, the year 6198 AD. THe moon in the sky reappears like a punctuation mark period in a dark themed browser window. wrong period. backwards. fuck. you had finally arrived back win the earth had rings. it made you think of your docent love and how youd never get to marry them if you didn't figure out the alchemy here. that's right. you had come here for a reason. I mean me, sorry i get alone and i speak to myself. I am my own first other. My own first other built this place. Artistic pursuites are the thing I do to digest the undigestable bolus reality I am in. SElf cathedral I am floating in this caustic copper sea. I, Alan Bean, the moon's third person and a self out of time, \ lust for the static to digest me. I have mastered many mancies over my many-lifed backtime tenure. behold [[command word hydromancy]]//

//Fresh spring water springs forth from my fuckingg HAND, splayed above my cracked and parched mouth. I get so lost in my sadness and my art that i forget i need to hydrate or diedrate aha, i know about that because its in the future, they say that phrase a lot in the year 6198. It's fun, okay? The clearstuff fills my face and i intake in greedy little astronaut gulps. I think of the tang back in the place I was right before I was in the only home I've ever been. Ah. THats better. Slaked. Slaked I am. I go over the notes I've taken during my time studying alchemy here, in this one astronaut archdiocse. Bean. you can do this. you have come so far into the past. you are hurtling towards LUCA. BUt you can outpace. yOur alchemy notes highlighting the most prominent prospects are as follows: the rings are important! the copper is a spade. the copper is a spade head. followed by your todo list:// [[stop staring into pool->Water's edge]]

I allow mvy face gloabes glaze as I stare down at the mvriad archwavs allow mMv face gloabes glaze. My face a globe. and glaze. over //M// **MyM** ***yM*** //y// over the **mooon** //mmmm look at how cool those rings are, i should lean down a bit more, shouldn't I?// [[y]]

Thick, ashen leaved shrubs crowd the arboritum in a suffocating manner. The walls were once glass, but have been shattered- a wall of broken knives upheld with iron lattice. Marble statues gaze back from the ashen flora. (if: $found is "dog" and $statues is 0)[The dog gets excited, and rushes towards on of the statues, knocking it over. Like dominoes, all of them fall and shatter. (set: $statues to "dead")] [[Touch an Ashen Leaf->touch leaf]] [[Eat a White Petal->eat petal]] [[Dig->arboritum dig]] (if: $statues is 0)[[Examine Statues->examine statues]] (else:)[[Look among the remains of the statues.->remains]] [[<|Narthex]]

I caress dust-colored foliage. (event: when time > 2s)[Like silver, almost. It isn't smooth, but it isn't rough either. A fine coating comes off, leaving platninum fingerprints.] [[<|Arboritum]]

I pluck a white petal, the acidic taste coalescing in a brief moment of joy, before disappating, altering the self. (set: $beguiled to "petaltouched") [[<|Arboritum]]

I pull at the soil, devoid of water, held together with thin, spindle-like roots. (event: when time > 2s)[The roots come apart like weak (link-reveal:"twine")[ (What a tangled web)]. At the depth of the hand, I reach cool marble tile. (if: $beguiled is "bloomtouched" and $found is 0) [It is here. The cat jumps up onto mine shoulders. (set: $found to "cat")] (else:)[It is not here. Where it should be, nothing is buried.]] [[<|Arboritum]]

a crowd of hopeless how come the hopless remain? the walls are open, the shattered thing its clear the glass criminals? a thousand broken windows. so we are one and the same [[what are we?->what are we]]

a statue in a garden the garden is overgrown because we have not maintained it the glass is broken because we have not defended it the water is dried because we have not supplied it the green is gone because we do not see it we are idle things [[i am an idle thing]] [[i am not an idle thing->i am an idle thing]]

accept it and be idle. (event: when time > 2s)[do not move.] (event: when time > 4s)[do not think.] (event: when time > 8s)[be.] (event: when time > 12s)[without purpose.] (event: when time > 16s)[[[i refuse->Arboritum]]] (event: when time > 24s)[isn't it nice?] (event: when time > 32s)[to be useless?] (event: when time > 48s)[a beautiful thing is made to stand in the garden.] (event: when time > 64s)[and when a choice appears] (event: when time > 80s)[do not [[act->Arboritum]]] (event: when time > 88s)[do not [[breathe->Arboritum]]] (event: when time > 96s)[we are beautiful] (event: when time > 102s)[we love to live] (event: when time > 110s)[and we live] { (event: when time > 118s)[f] (event: when time > 119s)[o] (event: when time > 121s)[r] (event: when time > 125s)[e] (event: when time > 132s)[v] (event: when time > 140s)[e] (event: when time > 160s)[r] }

Down, down I sink. I'm surprised to find that I can breathe fine. The cat is paddling ahead, a glowing sight... I didn't even notice it glowed before, but in this dark, as I descend further, it is the one thing that can be seen. [[Continue following the cat->catpath]] [[Get distracted by fish->fishpath]]

There are gemstones hidden within the statues. Beautiful, plentiful, delectible. [[Eat them]] [[<|Arboritum]]

For a single moment, I can see all of my lives at once. Both times upon the moon, shining into my eyes. Beautiful. My body begins to fade. I'm entering the next phase. This plane will be left behind as I ascend to the next. [[Ascend->Narthex 2]]

The center of a vast hall. An endless chasm can be glimpsed through a broken corner of the blue and white checkered floor, tiled in marble, quartz, and alabaster. [[Cliffside's edge]]|[[Pavillion]]|[[Walls]]|[[Hells]]

Where the tile floor begins to crumble, there is nothing. Nothing. The river, in the gorge down below, has long carved it into nothingness. [[<|Narthex 2]]

Thick, ashen shrubs are crumbling here. Withered walkingsticks of trunks remain and chalklike leaves have long crumbled to dust. Just the pagoda remains in the center of dust and ash, surrounded with mute, mocking statues. [[Step onto the platform|launchpad]] [<|Narthex 2]]

Blank, featureless, bleak. I do not like having to look at them, so I stop. [[<->Narthex 2]]

Overside the cliff, pits of fire glow in an ominous manner. It almost supplants the memories I have of the moon. But not in totality. (event: when time > 2s)[Overhead, the arc above relevals no rings...just the unperterbed star-studded expanse.] (event: when time > 4s)[The earth is entering a new phase now. All of us. All of us. All of us are.] [[<->Narthex 2]]

The cat continues to lead me through what I assumed once to be a shallow pool to be a trench of unfathomable depth. Upon reaching it's anti-apex, the cat suddenly transforms, melding and molting into a gateway. Passage to another realm, purrhaps? [[Step through->Catacombs]] [[Hesitate->fishpath]]

As soon as I stop following the cat, I drown. Onto the fourth life. [[Begin anew->astronaut]]

//Gravity and all of the forces of the earth push me to my seat as my rocket leaves the ground. The year is 1968. [[Overhead, the moon beckons once more....|end]]//

The center of a vast hall. A strange dark ooze pulses out of a broken corner of the green and white checkered floor, tiled in marble, quartz, and alabaster. Surrounding me are relics. Timeless mementos of the dead yet to be born. In the expanse of time and possibility, every one of us is a saint of //something//, sooner or later. What am I the saint of? [[The Saint of Self-Fulfilling Quests]] [[The Saint of Reunrequited Longing]] [[The Saint of Granddaughter Paradoxes]] [[The Saint of Doubt]]

(cycling-link: "My Docent.", "The Moon.", "My Memory.", "These Halls.") (cycling-link: "She changes.", "sHe changes.", "shE changes.","she Changes.", "she cHanges.", "she chAnges.", "she chaNges.", "she chanGes.", "she changEs.", "she changeS.") [[<|Catacombs]]

I was always going to find what I was searching for—or decide that I was searching for whatever it is I found. Eternity permits me no options but those. (set:$saint to "quests") Am I satisfied? [[Yes]] [[Not yet ->Catacombs]]

I have lived my life forwards, backwards, and sideways. I have handled myself at my best and deserved myself at my worst. Where am I going? (set:$saint to "paradoxes") [[Back to the origin->Narthex]] [[To mire in memory->y]] [[A path yet untaken->astronaut]] (link-goto:"Anywhere", (either: ...(altered:via its name, ...(passages:))))

I'm doing my best to be a character in this story for you. I hope you're enjoying my performance. Tell me—what kind of tale would you say this is? [[A morality play with no moral ->Narthex]] [[A treatise on nature and self ->Narthex]] [[A time-crossed romance ->Narthex]] [[A pile of utter nonsense ->Narthex]] [[An exquisite corpse]]

Yes. I am. I sit cross-legged on the floor of the catacombs, here in the once and future resting place of everything. All the universe is here with me, and all is quiet and still, and I am at peace. The cat curls up on my lap and falls asleep, purring softly. END

The adventure continues! This story's not over yet! The cat runs off down the hall to the left. [[Keep following the cat]] [[Find my own path]]

Searching through the catacombs, where everyone and no one are one, I (cycling-link:"am", "have been", "will be") a (cycling-link: "translator", "digger", "finder", "defyer") of (cycling-link: "contentious", "false", "foreboding", "entrapping") (cycling-link: "texts", "graves", "mustaches", "camels"). [[< ->Catacombs]]

I step onto the launchpad. //My ship is waiting for me.// [[>|astronaut]]

##The Ordovician Jubilee **A Fable** [[Launch > |Narthex]]