Konsk: The Great Takeover of the Place

43. Home Sweet Hippo.

"Definitions:

All definitions are limited abstractions of ultimately undefinable concepts whose illusory boundaries merge and flow with the undivided wholeness here labelled Konsk. Concepts are patterns in flow; definitions are patterns in flow; all things and all not-things are patterns in flow; ought beyond that, we have made up."

From the Book of Konsk: Appendices. Bald facts no.42

"Gorra mek it a tractive cover!" Trueman found he had to smile, remembering Learner's insistence. He'd overheard the conversation back at The Little Big Farm , oh, so long ago, or so it felt. He'd been seeking out that recalcitrant motorbiker, Spicer, who once again had been dodging his allotted duties, no doubt hiding out somewhere and smoking one of his ridiculously large marijuana cigars, whatever he called them, junks or joints was it?

The voices came from behind the Implement Shed.

"Bit over the top, innit?" From the Biker, "Pretty fuckin' good, though!"

He sounded impressed. Trueman had waited at the corner.

"Why all the effort?"

"Gorra 'tract the intelly one, intel genty one! Da gentle won! Dey'll suss it art fer sure!"

Was that madman talking about him? The intelligent one? Of course, who else! But what was he on about?

"Hey, you wanna use a K, 'stead of a C," that from the biker, "Sells more stuff, apparently; saw it on the telly, a documentary."

Trueman had pounced on them, his sudden, dramatic appearance somewhat marred by him tripping over a rake, left lying about, no doubt by that biker! Learner had been sitting in the propped up wheelbarrow that Spicer had so painstakingly renovated, wastefully in Trueman's opinion, soaking up considerable time and resources; after all that misdirected effort it had still squeaked!

Now the book, the very book that Spicer had been examining, hung before him, Trueman, in the virtual studio. The cover was indeed attractive with its flickering complexity, the fractal boundaries shimmering with reflected light. They'd gone overboard with the K's though, Trueman thought; typical Spicer, if one was good, why not two?

Enough of that, it was immaterial, the cover, the name; more to the point, what on earth was it about? What did he really know? He knew he had somehow entered into another space, another medium, through this book, on at least two previous occasions, once to get into this new body and then more recently in the virtual studio when he had encountered the golden band, although his recollections of that event were vague indeed.

Not surprising, he thought, considering the change in consciousness required on entering this space. It was not unlike the way childhood memories were largely inaccessible, he mused. The growth of individuality and particularly the increasing use of language resulted in specific storage patterns for memories, in particular, there was more of an “I” to do the experiencing. As a baby and in the hippo space, there was very little in the way of an I, thus the format of the storage pattern would differ greatly from ego memories.

He tried to remember what he could of the earlier experiences. It was like recalling dream fragments, images bubbling upwards to surface in his conscious mind. There was that glowing equation that continually rewrote itself and that peeping, squeaking golden band. He could identify with the equation, so what of the golden band?

It was only a moment before the connection appeared, unbidden and the image of himself pulling that rather grand but still squeaking wheelbarrow. Of course! Back at the farm, he'd used Spicer's rebuilt wheelbarrow to retrieve the catatonic Learner when he had first found him. So the golden band was probably the madman, who wasn't mad after all, Leaner, the time traveller!

Trueman was delighted with himself but it soon paled as he considered the fate of his one time patient, descending into the maelstrom of that terrible hippo thing.

So what were they then? Not solid, no clearly defined boundaries, they might merge with one another or engulf another. What then did they represent? Something intangible, hard to grasp, something that flowed and changed, like thoughts or feelings maybe. Trueman was excited; he felt sure now that this bizarre hippo space was a representation of something to do with consciousness. Could these hippos represent something like states of mind? Emotional wells? Belief systems?

He nodded to himself; if you adopted a particular belief system, then you interpreted everything through the lens of that system. They were like cages then, like gravity wells, like traps, difficult to escape from. Then what? You were plugged into time and space through those tubes, to continue your individual identity, unaware that you were still bound to a hippo, possessed by a hippo, your perspective crushingly limited, circumscribed.

Enough! Time presses, he thought, time to get on and just do it. He opened the book and began to turn its pages, reading parts, chuckling at illustrations. He came to a familiar sequence and read more carefully. It described a very logical, rational deconstruction of the individual identity, thus well suited to his current dominant hippo, which is why he chose it.

It was easier this time, as if he was more familiar with the process. There was the sense of suddenly letting go, of falling through the space/time surface, the matter horizon, then the mad rush amongst the many coiling tubes, or toobs as Learner had insisted on calling them. The little sense of self that remained noticing its own representation, the gleaming equation, scribbling itself into being as it simultaneously faded to nothing.

The gleaming equation enters the region of the hippos, first the minor entities, then the greater. They swirl and boil, passing through one another, rolling within the coiled tubes. There is the vague awareness of something else, something mildly interesting; what is that? Something maintaining a frail semblance of solidity, a pale, golden band in a smudge of smoke, a trailing gleaming equation.

Almost there's humour and a recognition, that in this representation of Konsk, everything is present at once. An extension of awareness reveals other travellers, including itself; some of the others provoke a sense of recognition. One manifests as a pair of silver tubes that blast out twin plumes of blue smoke with each jet of sudden motion.

The great, dark cloud takes on more form, following the golden ring, glowing and pulsating with an inner light, like flashes of lightning from the interior of a growing storm. The equation can sense something of the fear it inspires, the suppressed violence it exudes. Not nice indeed.

And here is the boulder with its bound captive, gibbering as it tumbles into the maw of the behemoth. Yet also, the thinnest strand of silver, from equation down to the captive, stretching, stretching, almost infinitely thin, yet still there, that connection, the hope of escape.

The equation rewrites itself, becomes self referential, producing a bifurcation curve, with a characteristic three phase window; it is the equations equivalent of delight, as the twin silver pipes appear beside it. Together they hurtle after the boulder and its wailing captive, chained to the rock. Their close approach is enough to still the bound figure, who now begins to laugh.

The twin silver pipes direct jets of blue fire at the chains and they dissolve! The little figure falls away from the boulder, morphing once more into its familiar form of a golden band; a little smudge of smoke forms within the circle.

The boulder becomes less solid, is drawn back into the great boiling cloud, now groaning and moaning it's huge disappointment. It glows and rages, spits like molten tar and angry, green snot, as it fades to a distant, diminished whimper.

Oh the three travellers fairly dance, whirling about each other quite madly! The equation draws spirals of itself through which the silver pipes blast repeatedly, leaving twin trails of blue smoke and what might be the smell of burnt oil. The golden band expands and spins around them both, squeaking as if with excitement, flashing mightily, then contracts and pops itself about one of the pipes, shrinking to a nice fit.

There's something like a parting of ways, the twin pipes with the clasping gold band doing a last twirl before blasting away towards the inner realms, the blue vapour trails fading slowly, along with the joyful squeaking. Leaving the equation, still for moment, gently drifting.

Then, the equation manifests a sense of purpose, an intention; there is a desire and need, for home.

Within this representation of Konsk, a particular pattern begins to roll up from a great distance, attracted by the intent though not yet clearly labelled, another hippo. Trueman might have called it a concept or perhaps an archetype, maybe a meme. Now its a swirl of illumination, like an ancient sea creature looming up from out of the depths, green and warm and somehow lovely.

The equation writes itself closer and experiences a more precise sense of home; the more attention he gives to the feeling of home, the more the coherence increases and movement takes place towards the slowly rotating form of the vast hippo until the gleaming equation is drawn inexorably to it.

It is the home hippo, comes a realisation, containing all conscious experiences of home, or rather, the access routes, the tubes, leading to all the possible home events on the time/space horizon. His individuality begins to refocus about him. He just has to allow the pattern to become more clearly defined and he will be drawn into the appropriate tube.

He conjures more detail, that of other characters, Learner, Spicer, his daughter Catti and Dawn, yes, Dawn. The equation re-writes itself yet fails to produce an equality. It tries again. A place, an image, the little Big farm; What is this feeling that washes through it? Homesickness? Love?

It is enough.

There’s a rushing, engulfing sensation as the glowing equation passes through the tenuous surface of the home hippo and into a whirl of sensory data, barely conceived of as sights, sounds, smells, textures, of places and people and thoughts and feelings as his individual pattern of home seeks out the appropriate tube. Then he’s in, hurtling, along? Up? Down? He doesn’t know and it matters not. The walls of the tube that are not walls at all, flash past and he is still aware that he could retreat, even now, could pull out and away. But he does not.

The chaotic swirl coalesces, becomes ordered into separate and distinct sensory streams as he nears the time and space horizon and then he is back, with a final snap, he’s back, in his old body, seated at his table in the Little Big Farm, Learner’s book propped open before him, the morning light spilling through the window to the sound of birds singing. He was back.

He was home!

Thanks for reading. The drawings here are all by me, the book is a composite I made from images in the Public Domain. More Konsk to come. Welcome to new subscribers and thanks for your recent comments and likes- comments are always gratefully received. Hwyl! Chris.