CHAPTER 8, The Other: Archetypes and Pookahs.
Hand in hand, we stepped into the inky nothingness.
…There were mirrors, thousands of them. Each image they reflected was reflected in every other, but each image was distorted, no two were the same. All possibilities were laid out, then rejected; accepted, then thrown aside. There was no clear path; all choices were the same choice, a False one. A step in one direction was a step in all directions; progress was impossible. Progress was just another illusion. Nothing was True.
Quiet snickering trickled into our ears.
“Close your eyes,” I said, and kicked out. One mirror shattered; all mirrors shattered. Shards of glass filled the air, and then were gone. We were out of the Kingdom, past the World.
There was a Universe of books. A Borges nightmare, all letters, all languages, all words, the sum of knowledge, dusty leather tomes extending forever. Everything was True. The quiet wars of knowledge raged all around us, contradictions battling over assuredness. Confident in their Truth, the tomes swelled with certainty, the pure cold truth of logic constantly proving their points, reaching conclusions that clashed with the ones around them. They were locked in cold ivory towers, and poured boiling vats of thought upon their neighbors. The air was still. Nothing moved.
The pattering of dozens of tiny feet intruded.
“Turn left. Towards the East.” Scrolls and parchment and vellum and paper and stone parted, revealing the constant dawn, the never-ending noon, the eternal sunset. Nurturing killer, beginner and ender, illuminator and blinder. The Foundation was established, and abandoned. Onward to Glory.
Raphael stood, beautiful man-woman, eight swords held in eight hands. The books of the Foundation came alive in the mind, the idealistic wars of history reenacting inside the confines of a skull, the recreations becoming new creations, an orgy of ideas and a morass of concepts. Thoughts and phrases mingled, met for drinks, had shameless one-night-stands, pulled on their pants, smoothed their skirts, and went back to the bar. Scores of orphaned ideas wept for shame and cried for nurturing. The fabric was too thin. The thought of a Unicorn. The thought of a Unicorn. THE THOUGHT OF A UNICORN. Raphael lowered hir swords. Eight crows flew north. We followed, chased by frustrated mutterings.
The gang was all here. Wotan, Jesus, Dionysus, Mithras, Inanna… Countless mothers, and endless fathers. Knowing smile, a secret learned through sacrifice, a barter of knowledge for pain. Limbless, drowned, eyeless, withered, full of peace, and light. The broken bodies abandoned for clarity and inner reward. There was spiritual self-mutilation, inner struggles between desire and commitment. They pointed north, towards strife.
Five Seraphim, Five wands, Five Chariots, Five Warrior-Kings, Five more minutes of waiting… Get it over with, already. Fuck! How long do I have to deal with this bullshit? Are we there yet? All this work, just to get literally nowhere. Why do I even bother? I haven’t got all day… How long have I been awake, anyway? I gotta take a piss. Are we done here?
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Go gently. Body-surf. Follow the stream as it flows. Embrace. Change. Khamael stood to the left. We went right. Severity was left behind.
Darkness. Absence. Nothing. A universe-shaped hole where the Universe was supposed to be. Nothing, that is, except me.
And Erin.
And thousands of rabbits.
~~~
“They’re here!”
“Are they toys?”
“Food?”
The rabbits surrounded us, noses twitching, shifting ever closer in the blackness. But it wasn’t dark, there was just… nothing there. Except the rabbits, and Erin’s hand in mine. “Hi kids. How are things?”
“It talks! How do you think it tastes?”
I coughed. “Hey now, let’s not be hasty here. So, what, have you taken over Choronzon’s job or something?”
“The squirrel ate him. We’re just here because we want to be.”
“Let’s play with him!”
“Now, now…” I held up the carrots Malaul had given me. “I have a treat.”
“Oooh! Carrots!”
“Shut up, silly. There’s no way there are enough for all of us.”
“Yeah, tough guy. This isn’t the Open Bar. You can’t just make more appear out of thin air.”
The rabbits moved closer. In parallel, Erin also moved closer, and I could feel her warm body press against me, trembling slightly. “Oh, these aren’t for you.” Angry muttering filled the non-air. “These are for your mother. Any idea where she is?”
The brood settled down quickly.
“Mom? It wants Mom?”
“Go get her!”
One lone bunny scampered off into the void. The rest of the brood sat back on their haunches, and waited. Erin said, “L, what in fuck’s sake is going on here? What was… all that back there? The words, the mirrors, the books…” Her face looked distressed. You could tell the hysteria was only one more weirdness away. I better settle her down before fluffy gets here, I thought.
“Ok, you know how I said that we were going to have to more or less give up the Quantum theories in order to see the Oracle? Well, that’s because they usually like to hang out in the Void. That’s where we are now.”
“It certainly is aptly named.”
“Well, the Void doesn’t really exist in the Quantum Idea. It’s more of a symbol, a meta-archetype.”
“You mean like, the complete absence of anything. If there’s nothing, there can’t be any thing that behaves in a quantum manner.”
“Well, no. The Void is here. Absolute Nothingness is still a few paths away. You can almost see where it all begins, the three levels of Nothingness… Wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. For now, think of it this way. The Tajikistani Interpretation of Quantum Theory posits the Void, but so far, no one’s been able to actually come up with any working equations. So the best way to get here is the Old Fashioned way: We just climbed the double helix ladder of Tarot and Kaballah.”
“Excuse me?”
“One of the places where the Void has been thoroughly explored and defined is in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Now’s not the time for metaphysics, but some say it lies between the Archetype World and the Mystical world. However, considering the Tree itself is a metaphor itself, and also filled with archetypes, this gets a bit tricky. Let’s just say that the Void is sort of like the space between a beam of light and a prism. Everything above the prism is a singular, unified event, and everything below the prism has the illusion of differences. Anyway, at the bottom of the Tree, things sort of collapse together again to create the Universe we move about it. Apparently, Hoshiko pointed us to an opening into the base of the Tree, and we had to move up it, using the symbols of the Tree, and the symbols of the Tarot to move in between.”
“…I thought you said it wasn’t the time for metaphysics.”
“Hey, you asked, right?”
“Right now, I just want to know what’s up with all the rabbits.”
“You’ve heard of a Pookah?”
“…Irish trickster sprit, right?”
“You bet. Well, this one’s name is fluffy, and she has a lot of kids.”
“But what is she, uh, they doing here?”
“Whatever she wants, I suppose.”
Then, from out of the not-darkness, there was a sound, that grew with each passing second. That’s her, I thought. The unmistakable sound of fluffy.
“pphhhhhhffffffffffftttttttt!”
A small, dangerous-looking rabbit appeared in front of us, twitching it’s nose with suspicion. The brood of bunnies started hopping up and down at the sight of fluffy.
“Mom! Mom!”
“Look, mom, food!”
“Toys!”
“Food toys!”
“Can we keep them?”
fluffy stood there, looking at us, standing in the Abyss. I finally spoke up. “Hi, fluffy. How are tricks? You look… different.” That was a bit of an understatement. Out here, the pookah was much larger. Much larger. Her nose twitched in amusement, and not with out a slight hint of malevolence.
“Well, well. If it isn’t LMNO. And… guest.”
“fluffy, this is Erin. She’s a client of mine—“
“Looks more like dinner.”
“Yeah!”
“I told you it was food!”
“Ssshhh!”
“Oh, fluffy, you aren’t still mad about that… incident…”
“Ppppfffftt! You were talking about bunny suicide. That makes you fair game.”
“You tell him, mom!”
“When do we eat?”
“Why all the talking?”
Erin grabbed the carrots from my hand, and stepped forward. “Look,” she said, “things between you two might not be rock solid right now, but L promised me answers, and he’s a long way off from giving them to me. I have been not only all over the City, but apparently though different dimensions and realities as well, not to mention I was accosted by a face-raping bat to start the whole day off!”
“Face raping bat? Pffft!”
“It’s true,” I piped in. “Came out of a cell phone.”
“So why are you here?” fluffy eyed us suspiciously. “This is why,” Erin said, thrusting the Tarot card at fluffy.
“Down two levels, past Tiphareth. Can’t miss it."
I sighed. “What we need, fluffy, is deeper interpretation, someone who knows the Tarot better than I do.”
“Which is anybody.”
Erin stamped her foot, which was weird to see, considering there was actually nothing for her to stamp upon. “Dammit! We want to see this Oracle LMNO dragged me through hallucinations to get to, and Malaul gave us these carrots warning us about you! Now will you please let us through?” “Malaul? Carrots?” fluffy grabbed them out of Erin’s hand. “Did you know that I once spent several months living in her corset?”
“…I don’t even know how to begin to answer that.”
“Wise choice. I suppose, for Mal’s sake… Come on, children. Back to the hutch.”
“Aw, c’mon, mom!”
“We found them fair and square!”
“If you’re good, I’ll feed you all a nice piece of Troll pie. As for me,” fluffy said, winking at Erin, “These carrots are going into a laaarge margarita. Give my best to Mal. Oh, and L, you do know what the answer is going to be, right?”
"Yeah, I know. Doom.”
“Well, good luck anyway.”
Softly, and silently, the rabbits faded away, and we were left alone, in the epitome of alone. Eventually, Erin spoke up. “Now what?”
“Now we wait. Knowing them, they’re playing ninja, or sculpting obscene topiary.”
Erin shook her head slowly. “This has been the absolute strangest day…”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
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