Fred and Alice walked hand in hand down the deserted street in the dawn's early glow, and Fred could not think of anything to say. It didn’t matter anyway. It was like Alice was deaf, and she could speak sign language, but the trouble was, Fred couldn't. It was time for more subtle means of communication, but Fred felt at a loss, and opted for the refuge of lull and the rhythm of the stroll which they had fallen into almost immediately when they started up the street thirty-six minutes before.
Fred thought about breakfast, and making coffee that morning before Alice got up. As usual, he had pulled the bag of coffee beans out of the freezer, and counted six scoopfuls of the dark oily French roasted beans into the grinder. He placed the plastic lid on the grinder and pressed the button, hearing the loud whir and crunch as the beans broke down into dust of a calculated size, releasing pungent coffee fumes that floated indiscreetly up both his right and left nostrils, triggering untold millions of olfactory sensors to crackle happily and speed tidings of impending pleasure along telegraphic neural lines to pleasure cues located somewhere in Fred's higher centers. Bandits and Injuns hid in the hills along the lonely stretches and crenellations, waiting for lapses in the cyber sheriff's watchful defense of the vulnerable synaptic telegraphic infrastructure, so vital to Fred's well-being. Meanwhile Fred continued to make coffee, dumping the pungent grind into the golden mesh basket, filling the machine with just the right amount of water, making sure the carafe was in place, flipping the switch, watching and listening as the machine began to wheeze and sputter, black brown liquid begin to dribble erratically into the shining carafe which mirrored the bright kitchen light above and Fred's left eye, that he could see blinking behind his glasses.
Fred and Alice kept up their steady pace down the gravely residential street (not an artery) as Fred continued his reverie, re-living the morning's caffinetic ritual. Where will this lead? He said out loud. Alice stared straight ahead in her silent cove, walking step by step. A squirrel in a nearby bush twisted toward them and froze, staring intently at Fred and Alice as they approached and passed. His nose twitched, drawing atoms of olfactory stimulation up his/her left and right nostrils, sending echoes of Fred's, then Alice's olfactorial signatures over his or her neural telegraph lines through the dusty plains of his/her higher sensors and on into the instinctive centers where they were analyzed, categorized, and filed. Freeze, said the command center, do not move, be watchful but keep your place. Simply observe the approach of these bipeds and be prepared to flee if necessary.
For some reason, he was remembering Warren Brewster, who was the guy who could do anything, and that included fixing his Dad’s TV when he was a kid. Fred pictured the time his Dad and him pulled into Warren’s driveway, and Dad pulled the TV out of the trunk. It was actually just the chassis of the TV, with its huge, and glassy mental patient eye staring straight out as he lugged it out of the trunk. Fred’s Dad wobbled a bit under the TV’s awkward weight as he slid and lifted its bulk off the lip of the car trunk, and held it in his big hairy arms against his chest, picture tube pointed out. It looked as though a huge eyeball had suddenly sprouted on his chest, like some strange glossy goiter. The eyeball stared straight out with its blank creamy gray-green gaze that sucked in every sight in its path like a whale seines seawater for plankton. But it was just Fred’s Dad, and he told Fred to open the door, so he did.
Then Fred blinked and found himself considering the infinite Universe, where they say your personality and your individuality is a myth and an illusion. He thought: It seems like you have more freedom and more space than in the finite West of the Judeo-Christian/Muslim world that old Joseph Campbell talked about, with its closed little umbrella canopy of stars and our puny 4000 year old universe, with a definite beginning and end to everything, except persons, personalities, individuals, which are supposed to go on forever and ever; those steamy little selves that stamp their feet and demand attention. “If that’s not Hell, what is?” Fred thought, “what difference would that make? What if you just have to give up the long suffering self? “ Fred started to consider the Self as a big lie; a huge bamboozle. MYSELF, YOUSELF, HIMSELF, HERSELF. What a load of crap, he thought. The BIG SELL: SELF.
Fred felt floaty just thinking about no-self, but oddly he weighed a thousand pounds when he thought about our flat little old world, where each individual matters to Father God and therefore must in some way be controlled by dear old Dad, whether by religious micro-control or the control of the State (in totalitarian societies) or the control of marketers in the market economy. What’s the difference, really? The individual is all, the individual is nothing. It's a matter of emphasis, he said with sigh and a slight smile, just a twist of the dial, a flick of the wrist. It wouldn’t make sense to anybody else, he knew, but somehow he got that old feeling that came once in a rare while, and he found himself saying out loud, “It’s like that set shot you used to shoot.” Alice had stopped walking about then, and she was staring at something, standing stock still a few paces back. It might have been a bird in the big Western Red Cedar tree that grew in one of their neighbor’s yards. She was always stopping to look at stuff that Fred, with his head stuck firmly in a thick puffy cloud, had missed. Anyway, Alice was intently observing something up in that big old tree a few paces back. Of course she hadn’t noticed Fred’s lips moving. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
Fred thought about breakfast, and making coffee that morning before Alice got up. As usual, he had pulled the bag of coffee beans out of the freezer, and counted six scoopfuls of the dark oily French roasted beans into the grinder. He placed the plastic lid on the grinder and pressed the button, hearing the loud whir and crunch as the beans broke down into dust of a calculated size, releasing pungent coffee fumes that floated indiscreetly up both his right and left nostrils, triggering untold millions of olfactory sensors to crackle happily and speed tidings of impending pleasure along telegraphic neural lines to pleasure cues located somewhere in Fred's higher centers. Bandits and Injuns hid in the hills along the lonely stretches and crenellations, waiting for lapses in the cyber sheriff's watchful defense of the vulnerable synaptic telegraphic infrastructure, so vital to Fred's well-being. Meanwhile Fred continued to make coffee, dumping the pungent grind into the golden mesh basket, filling the machine with just the right amount of water, making sure the carafe was in place, flipping the switch, watching and listening as the machine began to wheeze and sputter, black brown liquid begin to dribble erratically into the shining carafe which mirrored the bright kitchen light above and Fred's left eye, that he could see blinking behind his glasses.
Fred and Alice kept up their steady pace down the gravely residential street (not an artery) as Fred continued his reverie, re-living the morning's caffinetic ritual. Where will this lead? He said out loud. Alice stared straight ahead in her silent cove, walking step by step. A squirrel in a nearby bush twisted toward them and froze, staring intently at Fred and Alice as they approached and passed. His nose twitched, drawing atoms of olfactory stimulation up his/her left and right nostrils, sending echoes of Fred's, then Alice's olfactorial signatures over his or her neural telegraph lines through the dusty plains of his/her higher sensors and on into the instinctive centers where they were analyzed, categorized, and filed. Freeze, said the command center, do not move, be watchful but keep your place. Simply observe the approach of these bipeds and be prepared to flee if necessary.
For some reason, he was remembering Warren Brewster, who was the guy who could do anything, and that included fixing his Dad’s TV when he was a kid. Fred pictured the time his Dad and him pulled into Warren’s driveway, and Dad pulled the TV out of the trunk. It was actually just the chassis of the TV, with its huge, and glassy mental patient eye staring straight out as he lugged it out of the trunk. Fred’s Dad wobbled a bit under the TV’s awkward weight as he slid and lifted its bulk off the lip of the car trunk, and held it in his big hairy arms against his chest, picture tube pointed out. It looked as though a huge eyeball had suddenly sprouted on his chest, like some strange glossy goiter. The eyeball stared straight out with its blank creamy gray-green gaze that sucked in every sight in its path like a whale seines seawater for plankton. But it was just Fred’s Dad, and he told Fred to open the door, so he did.
Then Fred blinked and found himself considering the infinite Universe, where they say your personality and your individuality is a myth and an illusion. He thought: It seems like you have more freedom and more space than in the finite West of the Judeo-Christian/Muslim world that old Joseph Campbell talked about, with its closed little umbrella canopy of stars and our puny 4000 year old universe, with a definite beginning and end to everything, except persons, personalities, individuals, which are supposed to go on forever and ever; those steamy little selves that stamp their feet and demand attention. “If that’s not Hell, what is?” Fred thought, “what difference would that make? What if you just have to give up the long suffering self? “ Fred started to consider the Self as a big lie; a huge bamboozle. MYSELF, YOUSELF, HIMSELF, HERSELF. What a load of crap, he thought. The BIG SELL: SELF.
Fred felt floaty just thinking about no-self, but oddly he weighed a thousand pounds when he thought about our flat little old world, where each individual matters to Father God and therefore must in some way be controlled by dear old Dad, whether by religious micro-control or the control of the State (in totalitarian societies) or the control of marketers in the market economy. What’s the difference, really? The individual is all, the individual is nothing. It's a matter of emphasis, he said with sigh and a slight smile, just a twist of the dial, a flick of the wrist. It wouldn’t make sense to anybody else, he knew, but somehow he got that old feeling that came once in a rare while, and he found himself saying out loud, “It’s like that set shot you used to shoot.” Alice had stopped walking about then, and she was staring at something, standing stock still a few paces back. It might have been a bird in the big Western Red Cedar tree that grew in one of their neighbor’s yards. She was always stopping to look at stuff that Fred, with his head stuck firmly in a thick puffy cloud, had missed. Anyway, Alice was intently observing something up in that big old tree a few paces back. Of course she hadn’t noticed Fred’s lips moving. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway.