Thinking was a bad avalanche.
What could show The Nothing (or keep him from seeing) that his thoughts were automatic shots with dead ammo?
He watched or missed himself remembering more and more of a dead language long unspoken and no longer even studied.
His eyes would not leave the little bag, transfixed by every alien detail—by tiny white crystals that aligned with the green where thick brownish orange grew out in hairy clusters like little lobster legs; it seemed so still and ordinary a vessel.
Beyond wishing for nothing left to lose, now loss of life and sanity appeared as steps toward clarity and control.
Compelled only by how inconsequential it all might be made in but a moment, he half-watched his current thought click and roll automatically to the next.
Bing.
The recognizable essence flickered like a transparent image.
But why might Bing be being lifted anew now from that old revolving cast of characters?
Bing . . . the awkward behemoth who had seemed to get better all on his own.
A refreshing case, if any then were.
Confusing.
Had Bing not been an impossible merge existing somewhere undefinable between The Psychologist’s Normals and Outliers?
Bing . . . the pretend addict who had gone on to become—
The Nothing felt his thinking lift and carry (or drop) him again, playing out in rigid machine sweeps running off of deeper blueprint sets, forming words never quite sufficient for describing enormous, ever-shifting displays.
When had he last seen Bing?
But that was where things always went fuzzy.
Had Bing been at that big group session with Ray and all the rest?
So long ago now . . . but the answer must be there, somewhere . . . a hidden picture left to locate by letting his mind either complete or kill its wandering loops (or both).
Expressionless and silent, The Nothing watched The Psychologist’s Method feel around in the dark for a child’s toy beneath a bed.
He knew he would find it too, not that it could matter.
As more thoughts teemed, his eyes never strayed from Old Dan’s puzzling gift.
Marijuana had always struck him as mostly harmless and unimportant.
But staring into whatever unknown bendings of reality might lay beyond such simple actions as a flame and continued breath…
Still, what good reason could The Nothing possibly find to try drugs now for the first time?
Then trickling magma touched waters deep to force a heavy geyser.
Bing.
Had Bing not come up with all his bits while high?
For an instant, The Nothing stared The Psychologist’s Method right in the face; it looked ordinary, like an iun screen or carpet floor.
As he considered Bing’s fate, the machines proceeded to plaster up their next projection, this one a humdrum doozy.
And The Nothing was hardly surprised to find his other major persona waiting, teeth bared, eager as a drooling wolf…
Makes sense.
Unsure as ever, he knew what he would do.
More words popped up finished and fresh just in time to answer the very questions their noise of construction had helped spur.
From clients, to books, to borrowed stories run dry…
And now the offer of a new and viable source . . . Bing’s source.
The Nothing’s eyes remained on the bag.
If The Psychologist’s Method were to be trusted, then might this all (still) somehow be the intended result of some other-worldly, unknown cause or plan?
What did The Nothing really believe?
He almost laughed again.
Gravity tugged at every inward jigsaw piece, suggesting hints of grenades about to blast all puzzles apart.
Yes, Sticking Points were known to cancel out whole sides of equations, but Breaking Points too?
So, it didn’t matter what The Nothing thought or wanted?
It never had mattered?
He could see the dead Author licking his chops at the prospect of being reborn via the sustenance of his other’s carcass yet once more.
He saw and winked at it (there in the bag) . . . his same choice, but never any choice at all.
Calm now, The Nothing had nothing further to show or tell himself of his boring, predictable, age-old Siamese tryst.
FLASH
Another billboard failed to quite be captured in text.
Unless…
So it was decided?
I don't know anything 