The Stranger scowled. Then he turned to me and whispered:
‘I KNOW THAT THE ROCK IS ROCK, AND THAT THE WATER OF THE RIVER
FLEES FROM YOUR STARTLED WAIST, AND THAT THE BIRDS
USE THE LOFTY REFUGE OF THE HUMILIATED TREE
AS A PRECIPICE FOR THEIR SONG AND THEIR WINGS . . .
YOU ARE WITHIN ME WITH ALL YOUR BANNERS;
WITH YOUR LABOURER’S HONEST HANDS,
AND YOUR SMALL, IRREMEDIABLE MOON . . . ’
I did not understand his meaning, but my heart palpitated. It felt squeezed and released in one instant.
‘What did you say to her?’ **** asked.
‘I told her to be careful,’ The Stranger said, ‘not to be seduced by language. It can often be beguiling – seductive – beautiful, yet it is also unpredictable, dangerous, even lethal.’
Shortly afterwards, they left together.
My hand was now almost healed. And the carpet was clean. And the window. I walked over to stand beside it.
My Sensor suddenly flashed:
‘IRREMEDIABLE’ it barked, pinkening. ‘Definition: IMPOSSIBLE TO CURE OR PUT RIGHT.’
My eye lifted to a point just above where the window had been restored. There was a mark remaining. The imprint of a bird. Its feathers etched in a light, whitish grease. Its wing, its neck, its chest.
How might that be possible? I wondered. I glanced around the room for the dog, Tuck. There was no sign of him. His basket, his toys, everything was gone.
As if he had never been there in the first place.
Turn away, Mira A, I murmured, pushing all thoughts of this from my mind.
Let it go, Mira A. Let it go. Turn away. Turn away. Turn away.
This written account of Mira A’s activities has been downloaded directly from her Information Stream and then mechanically filtered.
This written account of Mira A’s activities is available to everyone.
This written account of Mira A’s activities has been automatically edited to improve legibility and avoid unnecessary repetition.
The particular time-frame has been specifically requested.
All the above information will, as a matter of course, be forwarded to Mira A herself.
Everything is Open.
Everything is Pure.
Everything is Clean.
Mira A is working diligently. Mira A’s Graph has not greened or purpled now for many weeks. Mira A asks no questions. Mira A’s skin-tone is much more healthy-looking. Mira A is no longer faded. Mira A exudes a quiet radiance. Mira A’s clamps are now fully embedded. Every morning Mira A runs for fifteen minutes on her Power Spot. The energy Mira A generates she applies to altruistic causes.
Mira A is eating sensibly. Mira A sleeps peacefully at night. Mira A actively seeks out the dreams provided by The System and follows them readily.
Mira A seems H A P P Y. Mira A is H A P P Y.
Mira A is Whole. Mira A is Complete. Mira A is In Balance.
Several tests have been set for Mira A and Mira A has passed them all.
If Mira A’s Stream fluctuates – as it sometimes does, because there is a flaw – Mira A sits quietly and waits for the fluctuation to pass. Mira A has taken to occupying herself with mechanical puzzles. Mira A seems to find an increased level of satisfaction in them.
Mira A has lost all interest in traditional forms of music. Mira A no longer plays her guitar. Mira A has taken up a new hobby.
In detail:
Several days after Mira A forced her hand through her window, Mira A could be found sitting idly at her table. Mira A’s thoughts were as follows:
I wonder . . . ?
No. Turn away.
But do . . . ?
No. Turn away.
But did **** actually . . . ?
No. Turn away.
Turn away, Mira A. Stay Pure. Stay innocent. Live in This Moment. Yes. Here. In This Moment.
The tuning fork is . . .
The tuning fork . . .
Uh . . .
Mira A’s eyes suddenly scan the room. Mira A stands up. Mira A walks over to her kora case. Mira A opens it. Mira A removes the kora from within the case.
How can I rest, Mira A murmurs, astonished, when the kora is still . . . still imperfect?
Mira A begins to pull at the leather rings that have been affixed to the kora’s neck. One by one Mira A carefully removes them. Mira A hunts around in the bottom of the kora case for the original, perfected kora pegs. Mira A carefully screws the original, perfected kora pegs back into place again and gently attaches the individual strings to them.
Mira A sits quietly and breathes deeply. Then Mira A locates her A chord 440Hz tuning fork and softly strikes it. Mira A commences retuning the kora. Mira A spends almost an hour trying to retune the kora, but for some reason Mira A seems incapable of finding satisfaction in the sound of the notes. Every so often Mira A strikes the tuning fork on her knee, lifts the tuning fork to her ear and listens to it gently resonating. Mira A frowns.
The following day, Mira A returns to the kora once again. Mira A tries to retune the kora. Every so often Mira A murmurs:
The tuning fork is in your . . .
The tuning fork is . . .
The tuning . . .
Then Mira A scowls. Mira A strikes her A chord 440Hz tuning fork on her knee and hums the sound it produces gently under her breath. Mira A repeats this process several times but on the last strike Mira A hums at a slightly different pitch to the A chord 440Hz fork. Several times Mira A checks her Sensor to see if the A chord 440Hz tuning fork is sounding accurately. Mira A’s Sensor confirms that it is. Mira A has spent almost an hour sounding the A chord 440Hz tuning fork. It is now time for Mira A to attend a lecture on Clouds which she has been keenly anticipating for several weeks.
After Mira A’s lecture on Clouds (gaze here for attendance figures, mean temperature, general reception etc.) Mira A returns to her room where – rather than eating a small meal, which her Graph tells her she is in need of – Mira A goes over to her printer and painstakingly produces a new A chord 440Hz tuning fork. But this fork is at 435Hz. After the printer has produced Mira A’s new fork, Mira A takes it and sits down with the kora and sounds it. Once again Mira A commences an attempt at retuning the kora. Once again Mira A fails. The following day Mira A returns to the kora, but she appears to have lost all interest in the instrument now. Instead Mira A’s attention is focused entirely on her new 435Hz tuning fork. Mira A strikes it and listens to it carefully. Mira A frowns. Mira A places it aside. Mira A returns to her printer and checks its Resource Levels. Low. Mira A grimaces. Mira A walks over to her Power Spot and commences running on it. Mira A runs on her Power Spot for the best part of an hour. Mira A then waits for ten minutes, drinks a glass of water and eats a very small meal. After eating, Mira A lies down for fifteen minutes. Mira A’s thoughts are as follows:
Will there be . . . ?
Don’t ask.
But have I done enough to . . . ?
It’s immaterial. Turn away.
Oh. If I could only . . .
Live here. Now. In This Moment, Mira A. Don’t be led by desire.
Mira A suddenly lifts her left hand and softly touches the knuckles of her right hand with her fingertips. Mira A lifts up her right hand and inspects how well it has healed since . . . since . . . Mira A thinks:
Barely a scar.
Then her consciousness is permeated with the scent of . . .
Old sweat
Mira A shudders. Her eyes turn to the window. Mira A sits up. She grabs the coverlet from her bed, walks over to the window and painstakingly polishes all the individual panes of glass with it. Mira A inspects the window and then carefully polishes it for a second time. Mira A returns the coverlet to her bed. The coverlet has self-cleaned before Mira A’s even had the chance to spread it out again. The coverlet is Perfect. Mira A murmurs:
Pristine
This word pinkens slightly – just very slightly – o
n Mira A’s Graph. Mira A scowls.
Turn away . . . Mira A mutters.
Turn away, Mira A.
Mira A goes to sit at her table and starts to try and solve a new puzzle, but after only a few minutes Mira A places the puzzle down and returns to her printer. Mira A inspects the Resource Levels. Low/Medium.
Mira A thinks hard for a minute and then starts to instruct the Printer. Mira A pauses, mid-way. Mira A reconsiders. Mira A offers a new set of instructions. As Mira A offers them – and as the Printer accepts them – Mira A is startled to notice her Information Screen – her Graph – her Sensor – all beginning to oscillate. Mira A goes to sit down. Mira A closes her eyes for a moment. Mira A opens her eyes again. Mira A quietly sits the oscillation out. Mira A does not look at her Information Screen as a series of words jump and spiral around on it. Mira A just stares towards the window, blankly.
I am Innocent.
I am Clean and Unencumbered.
I have been released from The Past – from the Tight Bonds of History.
After several minutes the oscillation passes. Mira A inhales several times in quick succession. Mira A picks up her puzzle again. Mira A spends the next thirty-seven minutes and thirty-five seconds concentrating on her puzzle.
Once the puzzle has been completed, Mira A places it down gently on the table and gets up to go and inspect her printer. A tuning fork has been produced. Mira A picks up the tuning fork. The tuning fork strikes an A chord at 432Hz. Mira A strikes the fork. The fork resonates. Mira A listens to the resonating 432Hz A chord tuning fork and quietly nods, then slowly begins to smile.
An hour passes. During this time Mira A sounds the fork over and over again. Mira A conducts a series of experiments with the fork. Mira A holds it at different angles to her head and to her body. Mira A touches either end of the vibrating fork to random segments of her torso. Mira A places the resonating fork in a glass of water, studies the water for a while and then drinks some of it. Mira A repeats this process for a second time and then uses the remaining liquid on a small orchid she has planted in a pot on her windowsill. Finally, Mira A sits quietly, in her chair, her eyes closed, sounds the 432Hz fork and listens to it, apparently searching for a similar resonance within her own body. As Mira A does this her Sensor becomes . . .
Temporary Loss of Transmission.
I am not speaking. There are no words, as such. I am simply vibrating. It is not wrong – surely? It is not illicit. It is just a quiet oscillation. A call and response. A little earlier, while I was printing up the 432Hz tuning fork, when my Stream began spewing out information, I turned away from it (as I had determined to do). I looked towards the window – newly polished and clean – a marker, surely, of all my good intentions? And then, as I gazed over there, I noticed that the Stream was reflecting into the shining window pane. The Stream was flashing, in green. A number and two digits:
8Hz.
Then it said:
Schumann Resonance. 1952. The vibration of the planet. A global electromagnetic resonance originating in the electrical discharges of lightning between the earth and the ionosphere:
8Hz.
When both hemispheres of the human brain are synchronised with each other at –
8Hz
they operate in much greater harmony and experience a more productive exchange of information.
There then followed an illustration – which rapidly oscillated – of a circle (possibly an egg) that had been divided in half:
An egg divided, I mused – split in half – like the two hemispheres of the brain, or like when twins are conceived, I thought –
A and B
‘ . . . the first soul is called the egg . . . ’
The Sensor kept on spewing out information, possibly spurred on by my musings:
Stop thinking, Mira A! Stop thinking! Stop thinking!
‘ . . . Then comes the little soul, located in the centre. Completely surrounding the egg is the shell or hide: the vatjeche . . . ’
My Graph began flashing:
This is random information.
All connections are arbitrary.
There is no overall plan.
This is random information.
There is no unity here.
All unity is in The System.
This is random information.
Any attempt to form these random facts into a narrative will meet with chaos.
All Order, all Unity, all Purity is encoded into The System.
This is random information . . .
I drew a deep breath and returned my attention to the puzzle as it lay before me on the table. I tried not to think. I tried not to feel.
I am Innocent.
I am Clean and Unencumbered.
I have been released from The Past – from the Tight Bonds of History.
Yes. These were my thoughts. But they did not feel like my thoughts. They felt mechanical. They felt . . . they felt flat – unreal. But I completed the puzzle. I even took some satisfaction in it. Then, when everything was quiet again, when the oscillation had abated, I walked over to my printer. I gazed down at the new tuning fork. I reached out my hand and I picked it up. I held it. Then I struck it.
Oh, the pleasure it afforded my ears! The ring of it! The tone! The resonance! So perfect! So right! So whole! I struck it again and again and again and again. I didn’t think. I just heard. I just . . . I just felt. Until eventually just hearing it, just feeling it, didn’t seem quite enough. I now longed to enter the vibration utterly, completely. So I sat down quietly and I tried to find an answer within myself. I tried to find my own response. I walked around inside the darkness of my mind, searching for it, hunting for it. I crouched in a corner of my eardrum and held my breath. I listened. I waited for the throb. And then, when I had almost given up hope, it sounded (but very slightly, very vaguely). Had I simply imagined it? I listened again. I knew that the vibration couldn’t be heard only once – it was a vibration, after all, it would ring and echo, it would pulse and quake, because it was alive. So I listened . . . I listened, and, after a brief interval, I heard it again. And I called it to me. And it came, uncertain at first, nervously, but soon, with increasing confidence, in gentle ripples, and then in waves, lapping against the edges of my consciousness.
I opened my eyes. I don’t know why. Perhaps to try and see if I could keep the vibration humming even when I was fully sentient, but as I opened my eyes I saw that the oscillation had returned to my Sensor, my Graph, my Stream, and with it, a slew of information, disgorging itself with greater and greater urgency, with greater and greater levels of pinkening and purpling:
JUST INTONATION
– The Sensor barked – = PURE INTERVALS BETWEEN EACH NOTE, MATHEMATICALLY RELATED BY RATIOS OF SMALL WHOLE NUMBERS. TWELVE-TONE EQUAL TEMPERAMENT = UNIVERSALLY ADOPTED IN 18 . . . IN 18 . . . IN 1953 . . . IN 18 . . . IN 1953 . . . MISTUNES ALL CONSONANT INTERVALS EXCEPT THE OCTAVE.
And then it sang – it literally began to sing – in a new harmony:
The Sensor now began to produce an extraordinary variety of different tunings – in the chord of A – a selection of possibilities – and whenever the 432Hz tuning was sounded, a vibration would fill the air, and bounce from –
New tunings – different frequencies – pure sound. And as they played:
8Hz
would begin to resonate, like a powerful jet of water at the heart of a giant fountain, and all the other notes would cascade from it, forming themselves into a sequence of inexplicable numbers and equations and symbols, sometimes interrupted by explanatory headings, and sometimes not –
In Lacanian algebra upper-case phi stands for the symbolic phallus, lower-case phi for the imaginary phallus, and minus phi for castration
A = THE BIG OTHER
D = DEMAND
D = DESIRE
E = THE STATEMENT
E = THE ENUNCIATION
M = THE EGO
S = THE SYMBOLIC ORDER
R = THE FIELD OF R
EALITY
V = THE WILL TO ENJOY
WE ARE THE POSITIVE AND THE NEGATIVE POLES – A AND B!
A voice suddenly whispered –
THE SYSTEM WANTS TO CONTROL YOU WITH ITS IRRATIONAL TUNING!
It warned:
THE SYSTEM IS DISCORDANT! IT IS NOT PURE! ITS TUNING IS NOT PURE! ITS 440HZ TUNING IS IRRATIONAL! IT CANNOT CORRESPOND TO THE BEAT OF THE PLANET
THEY ARE AFRAID OF TRUE CLARITY!
8Hz.
LISTEN!
8Hz.
THIS IS YOUR OSCILLATION! THEY HAVE TRIED TO DESTROY IT WITH THEIR SURGERIES AND THEIR CLAMPS, BUT YOU HAVE FOUND IT ANYWAY, IN SPITE OF THEIR BEST EFFORTS!
Who are you?
I demanded.
YOU KNOW WHO I AM. I AM THE NEGATIVE POLE. I AM THE SECOND STAR. WE HAVE BEEN REUNITED BY PHI – BY THE
8Hz RESONANCE. I AM YOUR DESIRE.
‘My desire,’ I whispered, ‘is to turn away from these thoughts. My . . . my . . . ’
8Hz.
LISTEN!
8Hz THE FREQUENCY OF THE DOUBLE HELIX IN DNA REPLICATION. WE ARE TWO. WE ARE ONE!
I must not indulge this voice, I told myself firmly. This voice is just another, random part of the narrative that I have invented – I don’t know why – to tell the wrong story of myself. I must turn away from this voice. I must turn away from it.
But the oscillation was very deep now. Furniture was starting to move about. The walls shook.
This is random information.
All connections are arbitrary.
There is no overall plan.
This is random information.
There is no unity here.
All unity is in The System.
This is random information.
Any attempt to form these random facts into a narrative will meet with chaos.
All Order, all Unity, all Purity is encoded into The System. This is random information . . .
The Graph, The Sensor, all tried to call out. But the fountain of notes and equations were filling the room. Even the voice of Mira B was now losing its clarity.
H(A)PPY Page 13
