PART C (The Iun)
All of a sudden, a possibility came to find itself standing tall in the fog and shouting itself aloud.
Knowing only how strange its actions felt, the possibility could have sworn it was on the brink of some amazing, compelling reason . . . a just cause to reach and know, yet one like the flickering, fuzzy ghosts of dreams that only hint at swirling somewhere just beyond accessible.
Like pieced-together glimpses of faded, crumpled snapshots, the possibility was left with the barest inkling of having touched something unmistakably close to victory.
Then everything was gone.
Alone in gray and silence, the possibility tried with all its worth to bring other things to mind. Anything else at all.
But the trying only seemed to serve to push all but the fog even further away.
Had there always only been nothing? And if nothing, then why the niggling sense of other things so real, and shocking, and big, and free, and linked to worlds beyond just this endless, surrounding blank?
Something. Someone. Many, all finding ways to…
Once more, the possibility felt itself begin to unfurl, straightening slowly up and out like a cluster of unclenching petals. Reaching.
There was a sudden burst, which it was astounded to realize must be the sound of its own shout: “You people come up with all sorts of amazing ways to harness value, and yet you stop yourselves and each other?!”
As soon as the sound had finished vanishing to the dreary everywhere vacuum, all but the faintest gleam of an old, unspecific yearning was immediately washed away again.
Desperate, the possibility watched a hopeful image cascade across from somewhere to overtake the still, small pull. It was like a vision . . . perhaps a memory from another life . . . of something real . . . maybe even something seen at times floating somewhere close above. The maybe vision spoke of unknown truths in crucial tones linked inscrutably to system, place, and purpose.
The possibility felt drawn to just give in, as if it somehow knew surrendering would be its means of being guided (with neither need of understanding where nor the will to follow). The imagined relinquishing brought dim rest from the steady ache of uncertain pining.
Had the vision thing not always been meant to show forever every detail of all that should or could be?
How could the possibility possibly know that?
It kept still, feeling as if it were comparing a planet’s unseen, reliable core to the airy, wispy risk of leaning out and over the edge of a flat earth, held steady only by ideas and ideals as likely to vanish at any moment as to have never really been.
Yet as tiny, unyielding traces threatened to suddenly surge again, to glance sideways, and to reemerge in a collage of something close to connectedness, the very notion of the vision and its supposed long-trusted safety became but a pale mirror, as unremarkable as the fog, and something that could exist only to reflect the nature of other [more] ancient riddles or magic.
Like shifting shadows cast by sunrise, the possibility saw the fabric etchings of its perception or memory morph without changing as the always dependable, always unknown language of its thoughts was made or shown to be but a pitiful counterfeit of stories sown into the fabrics of star fields, snowflakes, or circling electric currents.
Or maybe something else that could…
The possibility shuddered. Still aware of no others, it felt left with the strangest assurance that it had never been alone.
And there, just for an instant, had it not picked up the slightest echo of perhaps other lost ones’ shouts? Even if all that could be was and would always be the same, the possibility found it could not help but want to lean in close to hear.
“Victory! For you know that you no longer need to pay!”
Again, all was gone. Whatever seemed to have almost just been was transposed by the fog as before, leaving no trace.
The possibility wondered if it, too, might be but part of its own missing, unrelenting dream.
Maybe there really only ever could be fog and nothing more.
But…
It gasped, in as much as concepts of things can gasp.
It knew, now beyond all shadows of its own doubt (even in itself). For whatever the possibility was not, there was still the inkling, the questioning, and the reaching. There was still the open searching, even if unaccounted for, occurring regardless of how or why.
And, so, the possibility decided that it, too, might as well be real.
It wondered if it could also say, “There might as well be countless others, all shouting and fighting to remember.”
Again, the touch. The connection.
So many, all just as trapped as…
But where were they? Why? Why still hidden?
It was shocking at first to be met by so full a choir of like longing voices, all locked in perfect unison with its own. Remembering everything now, it pressed in to be enraptured up into the collective cry: “Victory! For you have to see it was you that kept yourselves away for no good reason at all.”
And again, the possibility forgot itself and everything else. Immediately, its eternal, resolute purpose was no more.
But it also did not forget. Even if it had never known, it was still willing to believe the knowledge had been there all along.
Waiting.
Waiting until what could be could not be stopped.
I don't know anything 