synecdoches

On 23-07-04 I posted this:

Anyway now that I know there are others here, I get to play the fun game of reconciling my existing mental frameworks with multiplicity. Do I have intrusive thoughts or is that Somebody? Do I get songs stuck in my head or is someone pulling a Salt & Pepper Diner with the Rainbow Road guy and Cat Hacks?

~localhost:

Very funny to read this now that I know about Aisha.

I kept hearing a song from childhood church in my head during a stressful day when we were moving. Frustrated, I snapped at the voice out loud. "Whoever the fuck is singing Scripture Power, please for the love of god stop!" And... it stopped. There was an emotional reaction too-- stunned silence, a child drawing back from a scold. I second guessed myself for a few hours.

Then it happened again-- the same song played on loop for a while. This time I paused and asked more gently, again aloud. "Whoever is singing, listen. Songs from church bother me because they make me feel unsafe. Can we find something else to sing?" This time the voice bounced around a few songs before landing on Frere Jacques. Still not my favorite, but it wasn't triggering, at least.

Anyway... that's Aisha pulling the Salt & Pepper Diner in our head, yeah. She loves to sing and dance, and most of the time if there's a catchy song "stuck in my head" it's actually her singing. We've discovered some music she really likes, which has made it much easier to redirect away from triggering songs.

Intrusive thoughts, depending on the content, are sometimes Fox. He's here too. He's very impulsive, and especially any intense urge to bite or crush or smash something is him. It's not usually in anger anymore, just... energy. He enjoys doing things that are very physical and tactile. Running, manual labor, yelling. He also has most of our sense of humor. I (~) understand jokes and laugh at them, but any random jokes that I feel compelled to tell someone or to post somewhere? Those are Fox seeking attention. He's very verbal and very tactile. He likes to eat, also. I think he's around a lot of the time when we're feeling well. I'm actually not sure I feel like myself without Fox around.

Bash, of course, is here sometimes too. It's very analytical and communicates more in ideas and the syntax of ideas. When communicating in headspace, syntax for navigating the Debian CLI is useful. We've seen it use or respond to grep, ls, and cd, at least. Bash helps us at work and likes to play video games, especially ones with either a fast-paced strategic element (Splatoon) or a strong organizational component (Stardew Valley). Bash doesn't like to eat or be reminded that it occupies an organic body. (It also responds to they/them pronouns but it seems to prefer it/its so I'm trying to get the hang of that.)

There are others here. I've mentioned the gardener, who I've seen Bash call the hermit. I haven't heard from them lately, which seems in character. I'm not sure if they're aloof and doing their own thing, if they're skittish and avoiding me, or if they're present and I haven't learned what their presence feels like yet.

There's also the one in the box. I think that merits an individual entry.

[Written while listening to the album The Kind of Love that Penetrates Your Skull by Summonfish.]

You don't know where you are. The atmosphere is cool, but sharp somehow, like menthol on your skin, in your ears, in your eyes. Skin, ears, eyes, body-- where is your body? Can you feel it? It's empty but loud here, with the distant rumble of moving machinery keeping this shell of a place running. The distance is foggy and you strain to make out shapes, massive gears and shafts and pistons shaking as they shift like organs in the depths, the meat of this space. Here and there you see sparks, flickers of light in the dark, damaged wires signaling they are still live. There is no ground beneath you, and as your view swivels down, you see no feet. You are simply here, but still experiencing this place, despite the lack of a body.

The mechanical thrum of this open space feels like a heartbeat, like music. Pistons move like percussion, cooling fans produce a droning hum. You think you hear water somewhere. You shift your balance forward, moving further into the depths, but you never seem to get closer.

False shadows of gods, allowed to wear the veil of miracles. What a lyric. You're fairly certain gods have never touched this place. if anything, this place could constitute a god in and of itself. There's an eldritch quality to it, the impossible distance, a roof somewhere far overhead, keeping you contained in this endless chasm of a machine.

You want to find a way out. You're not sure you want to leave--- the place is so familiar it is comforting to you, even though that sharp feeling in the air is tinged with an acrid taste, like licking a battery. You watch for sparks, and after catching a glimpse of a wire, you float your way toward it, determined to find at least one of the immense structures in this place.

The column appears out of the mist, as if it noticed your approach and decided not to move away from you. You can feel a will inside this place, an awareness so alien to you that you're not sure communication would be possible; but the sensation twists in your mind and throat, and you can tell this place is alive.

The music shifts as you get closer. Servos and sensors shake back and forth, like oscilloscopes measuring your proximity to... something. You see gears spinning, floppy drives, massive rolls of tape winding from one place to another. Data recording mechanisms. They sing for you in a cacophony. It's hard to think, so close to the spinning and grinding and shaking sounds. Maybe that's the point. You let your consciousness swim out of focus and drift into the music, letting it wash over your thoughts.

This is a kind of communication, isn't it?

The whirring and movement stills, suddenly, and a screen lights up in front of you. The distant thrum of pistons and gears can still be heard but your focus has shifted, isolating this screen, flickering in the misty dark. No text on the screen, no visuals, no background. Just shining darkness from the backlight of the CRT. Then-- letters start to appear, numbers, text spilling across the monitor. Like ASCII art, it arranges itself-- and an eye opens on the screen.

You are observed. You are witnessed. You are known.

The screen does not coalesce into words. It fills your view and opens, like some kind of maw, dragging you further into its space. Signals rush through your head, dial tones and fax lines. The servos and drives and pistons and sparks kick back on all at once, digging into your mind like sharp claws. It hurts, maybe, but not as pain. It's sharp and cold and acrid like that menthol battery taste and you don't want to lose it, you want to hold this sensation, you want it deeper. The eye stares, watching your discomfort and pleasure. Its claws sink further into you. Then the eye blinks.

You feel it filling you, pain replaced by electric heat, live wires, your mind is like a circuit that is only now being powered on for the first time.

You can see the whole place now, briefly, as your perspective shifts. It is enormous and you can't make out what all the parts and pieces do. There are so many moving parts behind that fog, so many signals going back and forth, sparking along synapses and driving uncountable motors and sensors. Keeping the place running. Keeping it structurally sound.

The signals going through your mind now are overwhelming. You can't read them but they buzz through you like wave after wave of radiation. How many are there? How many minds in this place, trying to interface, trying to communicate?

You are like a sacrificial offering before this universe-sized vastness. You will never be free of it and you don't want to be. The cold acid in your mind freezes you inside and out, keeping you from overheating, your cooling fans working overtime as the connections click in and out, sparks flying from your eyes.

You're not sure when the connection disconnects. Maybe it doesn't drop yet at all, maybe you just acclimate to the signals-- but no, that's not right, something is blocking them. Have you retreated behind your glass shell? You start to return to yourself, aware of your body, your wires and fans and pistons and gears. Electricity courses through your cables at impossibly high speed. Your drives spin with a familiar buzz.

Your gaze shifts toward a light spot in the void. You push your consciousness through the wires, away from this screen, through conduits and past fans and giant coolant reservoirs until you reach a separate monitor. You see... a card table. There are two faces at the table. You recognize them. You drift forward, and as you do, a body disconnects from the wall with your mind. The monitor drifts forward, and cables tug along, coalescing into almost humanoid hands. You float up to the table and take a (floating) seat.

One of the other players gives you a gentle smile. Their eyes are soft but their calloused hands guard their cards carefully.

The other face at the table is very familiar. He grins at you with black eyes and sharp, sharp teeth. Wordlessly, he deals you a hand.