Kiyakotari (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kiyakotari) wrote2008-03-04 08:49 pm
kiyakotari) wrote2008-03-04 08:49 pm
Entry tags:
Exquisite Binary
Written in my ENG 525 (Cybernetic Fiction) class, back in...Spring 2007? Winter 2007? Something like that. About a year ago. I don't think I've ever posted it here. I could be wrong. If I have, please don't hit me.
If you're confused, don't feel bad. I think there are only two people (aside from myself) out there who will understand this. In addition, it was written in response to the style of Pynchon in Gravity's Rainbow, which among other things means it's something of a mindfuck purely by default.
Trembles, a sinking up, descending ascent, a falling into, endless crashing silent. Opening, sliding aside, inside/into, within. Intention visible, destination/method/vehicle sketched out, defined in/by exquisite binary. On the cusp of, dimensionless.
“Tell me what you see.”
Voice in his ear, his mind, his mouth. Liquid steel under velvet and satin.
Cerebral silk-smile. Tell?
No. Show.
010011000110111101101111011010110010110000100000010101000110000101101100011011110110111000101110001000000010000001001100011011110110111101101011001000000110000101110100001000000111010001101000011010010111001100100001–
No. That’s not right. He won’t understand. Try-
みせて、ターロン。これはみせてよ!
Mind opening, thoughts, code of existence. Lotus petals have nothing on this, this moment, this blossoming.
Sharp intake, reversing the bellows, breath short and crisp in his mind, on his skin, somewhere. “What is it, Darryl? What does it mean?”
Machine language stretching into eternity, on-off/yes-no/go-stop, transmission unending. There’s too much of it for the other set of mind/eyes/mind’s-eyes, and he moves back a layer, then two. Zoom out on fast-forward like the lens of a microscope, electrons and molecules breaking beneath the view.
モルヒーオスです。
Morpheus. The Grail. The death-sleep of the world is coming, and Morpheus is the viral cure.
Viral enough?
He looks.
Talon pulls him up out of the computer slowly, carefully. No tearing wrench here. Code-world giving way to the physical – code but different – in increments, minutiae, moments passing unhindered. When he finally realizes his eyes are closed, it is because Talon’s fingertips have brushed over his eyelids. He does not know how much time has passed.
Talon’s eyes are worried, emotion displayed uncharacteristically. The emotion itself is normal enough, not common but not rare either. This showing of it, though, this visible perception of what normally only his mind would see...the other man must be tired, stressed.
“Well?” Concerned, but also aware of the urgency of the situation, which is good. Talon can’t afford, now, to succumb to distraction.
Darryl opens his mouth, lips parting to try to explain, to convey the vastness of Morpheus, the sprawling, never-static ingenuity of it.
Ones and zeros. So simple. Simplicity complex.
“Wren,” when he finally finds his voice. It is hoarse, more rasp and file than word. How long…?
“Your sister?”
Sister. Clone. Altered self same and other. Alien known. “We need her.”
Talon nods, curt movement, acceptance without question. Gives Darryl a cup, straw poking up from the depths of it like Tokyo tower, and then is gone.
Darryl shifts, feels stinging pull in the crook of his elbow, and looks in some surprise to the IV line there. He was in the coded fields for a long time, then. A day at least, maybe more, if Talon felt the need to feed him that way.
Muscles stiff, but not sore. The cup yields water, and he sips it without sound, staring into nothing.
Wren will be able to see it, the sprawl of it, the entirety. He can show her, and where he can only look, she may – may! – be able to comprehend. May be able to see the inertia, the pattern, irresistible destiny-pull.
Darryl is not much given to hope or faith. But Morpheus is science, written by humans to combat the creation of humans, and it was science that created Wren. Created him. Chance gave way to manipulation, to nudge/guide/tug/push. Faith and hope have nothing to do with it.
Wren may be able to lay it all out in her mind and let it – however she does it, he’s watched and still doesn’t really understand – accrete into something more than information/data. If she does, then they move on to whatever the next step ends up being. Puppets dancing to the discovery of strings.
If she doesn’t, if she can’t, they die.
Simple complexity. Dualities quenched. Exquisite binary.
Darryl sets down the empty cup, removes the needle from his arm – liquid drips to the floor – rolls out of the bed, and goes in search of the shower.
The computer sits next to the bed, fans stilled.
Endless crashing silent.
If you're confused, don't feel bad. I think there are only two people (aside from myself) out there who will understand this. In addition, it was written in response to the style of Pynchon in Gravity's Rainbow, which among other things means it's something of a mindfuck purely by default.
Exquisite Binary
Trembles, a sinking up, descending ascent, a falling into, endless crashing silent. Opening, sliding aside, inside/into, within. Intention visible, destination/method/vehicle sketched out, defined in/by exquisite binary. On the cusp of, dimensionless.
“Tell me what you see.”
Voice in his ear, his mind, his mouth. Liquid steel under velvet and satin.
Cerebral silk-smile. Tell?
No. Show.
010011000110111101101111011010110010110000100000010101000110000101101100011011110110111000101110001000000010000001001100011011110110111101101011001000000110000101110100001000000111010001101000011010010111001100100001–
No. That’s not right. He won’t understand. Try-
みせて、ターロン。これはみせてよ!
Mind opening, thoughts, code of existence. Lotus petals have nothing on this, this moment, this blossoming.
Sharp intake, reversing the bellows, breath short and crisp in his mind, on his skin, somewhere. “What is it, Darryl? What does it mean?”
Machine language stretching into eternity, on-off/yes-no/go-stop, transmission unending. There’s too much of it for the other set of mind/eyes/mind’s-eyes, and he moves back a layer, then two. Zoom out on fast-forward like the lens of a microscope, electrons and molecules breaking beneath the view.
モルヒーオスです。
Morpheus. The Grail. The death-sleep of the world is coming, and Morpheus is the viral cure.
Viral enough?
He looks.
Talon pulls him up out of the computer slowly, carefully. No tearing wrench here. Code-world giving way to the physical – code but different – in increments, minutiae, moments passing unhindered. When he finally realizes his eyes are closed, it is because Talon’s fingertips have brushed over his eyelids. He does not know how much time has passed.
Talon’s eyes are worried, emotion displayed uncharacteristically. The emotion itself is normal enough, not common but not rare either. This showing of it, though, this visible perception of what normally only his mind would see...the other man must be tired, stressed.
“Well?” Concerned, but also aware of the urgency of the situation, which is good. Talon can’t afford, now, to succumb to distraction.
Darryl opens his mouth, lips parting to try to explain, to convey the vastness of Morpheus, the sprawling, never-static ingenuity of it.
Ones and zeros. So simple. Simplicity complex.
“Wren,” when he finally finds his voice. It is hoarse, more rasp and file than word. How long…?
“Your sister?”
Sister. Clone. Altered self same and other. Alien known. “We need her.”
Talon nods, curt movement, acceptance without question. Gives Darryl a cup, straw poking up from the depths of it like Tokyo tower, and then is gone.
Darryl shifts, feels stinging pull in the crook of his elbow, and looks in some surprise to the IV line there. He was in the coded fields for a long time, then. A day at least, maybe more, if Talon felt the need to feed him that way.
Muscles stiff, but not sore. The cup yields water, and he sips it without sound, staring into nothing.
Wren will be able to see it, the sprawl of it, the entirety. He can show her, and where he can only look, she may – may! – be able to comprehend. May be able to see the inertia, the pattern, irresistible destiny-pull.
Darryl is not much given to hope or faith. But Morpheus is science, written by humans to combat the creation of humans, and it was science that created Wren. Created him. Chance gave way to manipulation, to nudge/guide/tug/push. Faith and hope have nothing to do with it.
Wren may be able to lay it all out in her mind and let it – however she does it, he’s watched and still doesn’t really understand – accrete into something more than information/data. If she does, then they move on to whatever the next step ends up being. Puppets dancing to the discovery of strings.
If she doesn’t, if she can’t, they die.
Simple complexity. Dualities quenched. Exquisite binary.
Darryl sets down the empty cup, removes the needle from his arm – liquid drips to the floor – rolls out of the bed, and goes in search of the shower.
The computer sits next to the bed, fans stilled.
Endless crashing silent.
no subject
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Beautiful shapes to the sentences, gradual pattern recognition and rhythm that come out almost in retrospect. And the last line magnificent writing.
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I have no doubt Wren would know if it looked back into her.
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