Satin:06/07/1998
3:02:31, June 28, 1998: We are heading toward the bright spot. We seem to be heading down, a least in a relative sense. As the bright spot becomes clearer, we realize it is a white jewel hanging high above us. My expanded awareness feels really mushy, its kinda a weird experience, and the jewel seems to have no real set point. And it doesn't seem to be made of matter either. I'm unsuccessful at finding the mind again, which actually seems like a good thing, I'm thinking. Suddenly, I notice that the hissing sounds that I hadn't been hearing before has just stopped, and that is why I realize I was hearing it. Glen pipes up that he thinks it's noticed us. That's when I realize that the vortex was made of moving creatures, and they seem to have all stopped and are staring at Glen. Great. Now what has he done? They're looking at us. Hi!! Alex seemed to have some sort of realization and starts walking up toward the gem. He said he was supposed to negotiate with it. With a glowing insubstantial gem? I've admittedly seen stranger, but he's not a Cultist. I shut down y Correspondence, it's gooieness is getting distracting. I follow Alex up what appears to be an invisible ridge up to the crystal. We reach a small landing by the gem, and Alex cautioned not to touch it, we wouldn't want to make it mad. Ok, if we want to make it happy, why not dance for it? I back down the ridge and start dancing, to check our future with this thing. I get my answer more easily than expected. Underneath me, I feel the ridge start to undulate, seemingly in rhythm with me. I realize all of the creatures have stopped staring a Glen and are now staring at me. Cool! I love an attentive audience. I of course keep dancing, no longer needing to check the immediate future, it seems pretty obvious to me. Dance and the world dances with you. Here it seems literally. I keep dancing, and Glen eventually adds some movement of his own, though it is not quite dancing as I see it. David, Rachel, and Reuben obviously have the sense of balance of a dead cat, and they fall off. Alex at least manages to kinda stumble down, while Sara manages to cling to the ridge. The ridge's dancing starts to become more complex than mine, so I accept its challenge and make mine more complex right along with it. Reuben starts drumming and Rachel added her voice.That's when the world starts to crack. The floor starts cracking and bright light streaks through it. Then the vortex shatters. Ok, maybe I hadn't quite predicted that end point, but I guess it works. Should make life fun anyway. I feel better to. Nothing like knowing you've been having a good time and so has everyone else, including the world you're standing on.
Of course, since the vortex is now shattering, I'm thrown from the ridge, and manage to break my right arm and it seems a few ribs. A bright beam shot from the gem into the center of the vortex, and the floor crumbles. Which means I am now lying on the flying critters that we staring at me. Great. I manage to stand and walk across the critters toward the beam. Rachel stops to help me. We keep going toward the beam, and Alex asks to go first, he's supposed to. Then he looses his balance and falls through the critters. I try to grab him, but with a broken arm I'm just not fast enough. But a force bolt shot out and whacked him in the head, and he falls into the beam, and vaporized. I burn some paradox, and notice my shadow is going the wrong way. Oh well, shouldn't affect my dancing, so I start. I look to the immediate future, and go into a trance. I say:
Out of Man, a MessiahI came out of the trance and Rachel politely asks for a translation. "I have no fucking idea." I only tell the future, I don't translate. At least not in this case. Huh? What was the Universe trying to say? Besides knowing t his will be the most probable future, assuming we don't change it in the next nanosecond by sneezing or something. I asked for something to tie my arm up with, and Rachel gives me a scarf and helps me tie it.
Out of Ice, a Machine
Out of Sky, a God
And the Cacophony slays them all
Reuben then says, "How? That doesn't make sense!" Wonder who he talks to in his head. I ask Rachel if she wants to come with me. As I see it, this beam seems to be the most probable future, i.e. I'm going to touch it on about 10 seconds, therefore it is my most probable future. She agrees and we reach out and touch the beam.
The next time I am aware, I realize I have a body again, which makes me realize I had been missing it. I'm floating around a fetus looking thing, which evaporates. A baby universe? Who'd of thought of it? Anyway, the more immediate problem now seems to be that there was a black hole, which is then gone. The critters that were supporting us fly away, much to gravity's glee, and our chagrin. We are now falling up, only it is really down, toward Raleigh, and apparently a really big splat.
You know, falling to a certain rather messy death can make a person learn a lot about themselves and the world they are about to impact with. It's also amazing how that epiphany manages to come at just the right time to save your ass. If I had been looking at the future, I would have thought this to unlikely to be happening, but it appears to be happening, so I won't complain. Suddenly knowing how to us Time and Correspondence together to not only teleport myself from one point to another, but to change my velocity, now that's a useful thing to realize when one is plummeting at terminal velocity to one's death. I also seem to have gained a better understanding of the powers of the Mind, I guess after having had contact with such a huge mind. I also realize I've learned more about myself, after dancing with a vortex, and it has taught me how to dance with more skill, especially if I'm doing exotic dancing. This whole experience too has made me more able to resist life's shocks, made me just that little bit more able to laugh at things. I think it had to do with having all those critters have fun watching me dance. There is nothing more satisfying in life than getting people, or critters, to have fun, except maybe dancing and sex, and those usually accomplish that goal to, so therefore I'm right and nothing is better.
Now, there's just this pesky little problem of not going splat. I know how to keep myself from splatting now, but what about everyone else? Are they having the same sort of life-altering experience that I'm having from this whole vortex-then-falling-to-Earth experience? Or are they just thinking, "Oh SHIT! I'm about to go splat and die!"