Cephelobuk
Chapter One
Guru, the silver artificial crow, swooped through the shimmering portal and landed on the rail of the wooden boat that seemed beached on the baking sands of the desert planet Pangolin.
"Hurry, Milton! Into the boat!"
Milton looked up from the Orange Book, reluctant to move from the umbrella of shade that surrounded his table. He grabbed a few books from the top of the table and trudged out to the incongruously placed boat, hauling himself over the side. Guru nodded. Milton frowned. The sunlight was very bright.
The boat lifted smoothly into the air and then, accelerating with invisable power, slid through the shimmering blue portal. They emerged above an expanse of cool tundra and flew silently over the grassland.
"where are we going, Guru?"
"This is the planet Kesteel. I think we have to pick up a passenger called Matilda."
"Can you tell me why?"
"Ah, well, we are in the process of creating a new story, a bit of fiction, you see. I have some of the rough ideas. The theme of the story is transformation, and we start with a few conversations in a boat. You are going to talk to Matilda while I take a message to the Demonlord Drishnu."
"In other words it follows on from the previous fiction, using the same world and characters."
"Matilda is a new character. Now, did you bring the cat book?"
"The cat book?"
"Does one of those books have a fluffy white cat on the cover?"
"Ah, yes, how did you know?"
"That's the cat book. In there are the rough ideas for this new book we are going to be in. Hold it up and I will find the right page by telekenisis."
"The book is opening. Yes, you found it. These are notes about the story. The conversation with Matilda is about trust, obligation, honesty...and other things that have to be written in later."
Milton was quiet while he read the notes. A mournful wind blew over the tundra, ruffling Guru's feathers and Milton's hair.
"This is strange. I swap names with Drishnu."
"That's going to make it interesting."
"What about the story we are in now?"
"This is the Darsan. What we have here is not so much the book but all the plans for how another book is to be written. This conversation is happening in chapter three of the head book. Other passages can be written in the heart book, perhaps the kind of descriptions that would go directly into the new book."
"What's this bottle?"
"Bottle?"
"In the bottom of the boat."
"Oh, just a cherry-flavoured spirit. By the time you drink it with Matilda you can talk about how what you paid for it is all tax."
"I'm not sure how this all hangs together."
"These are just the minor details that are part of a good story."
"It says that I take Matilda to Dalurth and then pick up Karen and take her to Earth, like I'm some kind of taxi driver."
"Well, I suppose that on the way to the Earth portal you can have a conversation with Karen."
"Frankly I don't think much of this new book so far. It just repeats a previously used devise of conversations in boats."
"Well, the devise must be a good one. The theme is transformation."
"Yes, that's what it says. Drishnu who is then calling himself Milton wants to change from a Demonlord back into a human. The whole system is changing following the death of Myron. The trade portal network has been disrupted."
"There," said Guru, "a passage has been written in the heart book."
"Not much else is in these notes."
"That is the problem we face, these were just the few starting ideas for a book."
"There's something about writing letters."
"Yes, but the rest of the material will have to come from us."
"Look, there's some kind of house."
"Ah, yes. Matilda lives there. Now according to the notes I fly off and find Drishnu at this point, but the real story has not yet begun. We are only planning for it. Perhaps Matilda can help."
The wooden boat slowed down and stopped at the door of the cottage. Guru pecked on the door. Presently the door opened. A girl with a pale oval face and confused muti-coloured hair peered out.
"Matilda? We can take you to Dalurth."
"Dalurth? How did you know that I want to go there?"
"It's written into the scripts that we have."
"But how can I trust you?"
"Because I am a bird of honour, and my friend Drishnu desires only to be human."
"Wait while I pack a bag."
"We'll meet you in the Heart book."
Chapter Two
"What did you mean about the heart book?" asked Milton.
"Well, if we continue here that's just a way to make things interesting."
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"We are now the authors of the story. You can have any kind of conversation with Matilda. Who will know the difference? But here you get a second chance if you want to improve on the trust and obligation."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, Milton, have you forgotten again?"
"Forgotten? I don't think so."
"But you don't recall the conversation with Matilda? That first one went into the heart book. Then we went through a portal to the tail book in Dalurth. Again more conversation in the boat was recorded. Now we are back here again, and as I recall you were not happy with the first conversation in the boat so here you have a chance to do it again."
"Well, I don't remember any of that. We have only just met Matilda. As far as I know the conversation has not begun."
"Mmm, perhaps you represent the perspective of the reader."
"I don't represent anything."
Matilda appeared from the doorway. She wore a long dress of blue cotton and carried a large yellow bag over one shoulder. This she threw up into the boat. Milton gave her a hand and she scrambled aboard, taking a seat between Milton and Guru.
"Now Matilda," said Guru seriously, "we are engaged in the production of literature. At this point the script says that I fly away and you have a conversation with Milton about trust, obligation and honesty."
"Oh how dull," complained Matilda.
"Well that's in the notes. I meet you on Dalurth after you go through the portal. This boat is set on automatic, it takes you to and through the portal by itself. On Dalurth we can discuss how the book is developing."
The boat had begun moving east. Guru took off and flapped into the sky heading in the same direction, but faster.
"What's that bottle?"
"Cherry vodka. What I paid for it was all tax."
"Well, I have a corkscrew and glasses in my bag. Let's drink."
"What about this conversation about trust and so on?"
"Just forget it. Here, here's the corkscrew."
"I used to drink too much in the past."
"Well this is just one bottle."
"At least I know how to use one of these."
"It's not fizzy, it didn't come out with a pop. Here, fill these up."
"There you go."
"So how did you get into these stories?"
"I don't really know. I just started as a depressed pilot. Cheers!"
"Cheers!"
"Overcoming the depression is what I did in the previous story. I don't know what is going to happen in this one."
"How did you overcome depression? It sounds like major work."
"Ooh, this is strong! Depression? Well I went through several phases over a few years, learning mind control and other things, but I think one of the important turning points was a realisation of acceptance."
"Sounds far out. What was that?"
"Well, in the depression i used to focus on all the negatives in my situation, all that I did not have in my life and think that it was this bad situation that made me unhappy.I could do little to change my general situation in a hurry, you know, my lifestyle and the things that had gone wrong in the past. But then I began to look at the larger picture, and tried to just accept my situation for what it was and just appreciate what was already good in my life. I had a realisation of acceptance, and with it I was really happy for several days. Nothing in my circumstances had changed. I realised that it was not my situation that made me unhappy, it was my negative patterns of thought, and these could change. After that I was on the way up. I worked on changing my negative mental habits and stopped blaming my situation."
"Wow, that's really full on."
"You think so? I think most people who recover from depression have to go through something like that, and millions of people must recover."
"It was still a major breakthrough, you have to give yourself the credit. I didn't imagine that acceptance could make such a difference, but then I havn't been through that one."
"Yes, it is powerful. The thing is that it really brings the control back to you and what you can do in your mind. To be depressed you can sort of blame yourself, but you must also be a victim and blame the outside situation. It feels like the depression is beyond your own control, and caused by things that you just can't do anything about. This realisation is giving the power back to the individual."
"Power to the people, right on!"
"I think it is an important point. This makes happiness more of an individual choice. We live in a society that teaches us to chase happiness through some material things. So much advertizing gives this same message; the happy people have the products and so on. In one way this put too much emphasis on the value of money and the material things that it can buy, but more importantly it sets up happiness as some kind of goal that is distanced from the individual by time and money. If you learn to accept the lifestyle that you have already you can be happy now. You don't need to get anything else to reach it. If you appreciate fully what you already have then you don't crave more. I think the philosophy of Epicurus was based on similar values. Buddha said that suffering is caused by craving. It's all part of a similar picture. Once the individual claims back the power to accept and appreciate what is here and now then the mind has a chance to focus on what is already good. If you can build up a habit of this positive thinking then you can be happy. This is like the opposite of depression where the mind has a habit of negative focus and thinking, which goes to empower the negative mood and the craving for that which you don't have or can't control."
"Are you like a philosopher or something, Milton?"
"What, me? Not really, this is just something that I've done and learned through experience."
"Well, it seems to be a sort of crucial understanding. I think it pretty much makes you a philosopher of some kind. Not what I was expecting. Guru first told me you were a demon."
"Yes, well that was my role in the story. And we were supposed to talk about trust and obligation."
"I don't think that it matters. The story has a theme of transformation, right? You just told me about one of the most vital transformations a person can make. It should keep the Darsan happy."
"The Darsan is a mythical creature."
"I think it must be more than just that. Can I have a refill?"
Chapter three
"So what do we talk about?"
"I don't know."
"Then we may as well work on trust and obligation."
"Oh that sounds dry and boring. Let's talk about death. I have various plans for my own death. Sometimes I think I should die in some public place so my body could hang around as an inconvenience, but that wouldn't last long. An ambulence would be sent for. Then I think of being cut up and the parts posted all over the planet. If there were false addresses then some of me would end up in the dead letter office as a kind of joke. But that's not very artistic, so I think of the parts of me being made into musical instruments. My voice box could make some kind of instrument and my long bones could be made into flutes and so on. Do you have any plans like that?"
"Well, my thought tends to go in two ways. Sometimes I just want my remains to be recyled directly back into nature. In that way I should just decompose naturally and feed the soil and the plants. At other times I think of an elaborate kind of tomb. I could have my body encased in a huge block of perspex, and then long after it broke down there would be a cast of my body shape that would exist like a fossil for millions of years. But I doubt that would happen."
"I can see what's happening to these conversations."
"What do you mean?"
"They reduce to a strict dialogue and we as characters become secondary. I think these conversations might have belonged to other people."
"That is possible. Perhaps we should use names more, Matilda."
"That could help, Drishnu, I don't want to loose identity or be speaking the lines of someone else."
"But these dialogues could be used in Future Story and changed to suit other characters there. Editing can remove our names, Matilda."
"I was thinking that it had already happened, Drishnu, that our conversations are partly taken from real life and worked into the fictitious dialogue. In one way any dialogue material will do if it seems in some way interesting."
"Then can we ever know when our words belong to us, Matilda?"
"We may never know, Drishnu. Let's have another drink."
"I find my speach a bit restrained now."
"That's to be expected. It should get easier over time."
"I can search around in my mind and just not find a topic."
"Ask me some questions."
"It's hard to think of any questions."
"What do you think of me?"
"Actually you remind me of someone."
"Who is that?"
"An old girlfriend. Something about your face, and other things. The perfume, the mascara and the tatoos. I mean she was different, but there's an impression."
"I'm not sure that I like that idea."
"You asked me, Matilda."
"I know. I just wanted to get you talking."
"We don't have to say anything."
"But then it's even more boring. Is Guru going to find us again?"
"That's hard to say. He does in Future Story."
"Guru is artificial, it can't be a he or a she."
"Traditionally Guru has always been a he."
"What do you think he represents?"
"He could be the voice of wisdom, the higher self or something like that."
"With a name like Guru I assumed he must be some kind of teacher."
"Yes, he could be a teacher."
"But here we are without him, just left to our own conversation."
"Perhaps he was a match-maker and this should be a romance."
"I don't think so, there's none of that chemistry."
"It was just one idea. Wow, how can you drink so fast?"
"Oh, I'm used to it."
"I've been thinking. You say there's no chemistry for romance, and I can accept that, but we could also see this situation in a different way. There may be no romance yet we have a kind of intimate setting in a boat and then some kind of relationship developing between a male and a female, even if purely in terms of dialogue."
"So you want me to flash my tits or something?"
"What?!"
"You might talk me into it, but I think you need to apply a bit more charm."
"Are you crazy? I specifically chose my words to steer away from anything romantic or insinuating, then you completely ignore my actual words and insinuate that I'm encouraging not just a romantic angle but something virtually pornographic. Where on Dalurth do you get your ideas from?"
"Well, I'm not sure that we are on Dalurth. If you don't even want to see my body there's not much I can do about it, but since you were the one who first mentioned the word romantic I think the ideas came from you."
"This is really strange. How can we have a conversation if you ignore my actual words in their original context? I mean I never said that I didn't want to see your body, as such, I was arguing a different point."
"You have an unusual way of chatting up, so I'm not sure if I can respond to it."
"Chatting up? Why can't you understand? Who gave you the idea that I was ever chatting up?"
"You did. First you said the word romantic and then you talked about developments between male and female. After that we discussed the possibilities of tit flashing. Now where I come from if a man says anything along those lines he must have chatting up in mind. Perhaps you are a completely different kind of creature, but I don't think so, since you did mention in your funny way that you wanted to see my body."
"Listen carefully, I have a kind of agnostic attitude. I was never directly chatting you up, but nor did I actually signal rejection. I don't feel as if I have made any move or decision on this matter while you have rushed ahead and then confused me with these accusations that I have already made one decision or the other when it all seems entirely futuristic to me."
"Are you saying that our romance belongs in Future Story and we are still just working out the script?"
"Not exactly, although I suppose that is one possibility."
"Why do you have to be so vague and indecisive? If we work on Future Story the situation is all rather different. So do we get around to romance in the story or just beat around the bush?"
"How should I know? I mean it's hard to decide. Whatever is decided will have an impact on the dynamics of this reality, you know, and I have not really given the matter much thought."
"You seem over-cautious to me, but perhaps we should discuss it first."
"Yes, that's a good idea. In one way it seems positive to include a romance in Future Story, but you know it is not exactly a Mills and Boon kind of book. It may be much more meaningful to avoid the direct romance yet keep the possibility sort of hovering while we talk about other matters and do other things."
"What other things are we going to do?"
"I don't know exactly, but they may be of a spiritual nature."
"Oh, look, another portal has opened up in front of us."
Chapter four
Guru swooped through the little portal and landed neatly on the side of the boat.
“How are the conversations developing?”
“This is nothing like the plan.”
“Plans need not be followed too exactly, the main point is to be inspired into action of some kind. I’ve been visiting the other books and several lines of interesting fiction develop. You two go through spiritual growth of a freaky kind in a temple on the planet Duskavin and we get directly involved with the Demonlords in other books. There have even been some ideas about the developing functions of the four book structure. The tail or coda can be a code book and we can have a glossary and an index for the fadrigoish lexicons used in the body of the text.”
“That sounds dry and boring.”
“You have a negative attitude, Matilda.”
“I just want to change it into a proper romance, but this Milton Drishnu just won’t get the hint.”
“Listen, you two can get into intimate relationship mode in the Temple, there’s nothing wrong with it in the Darsan religion, but there won’t be direct romance beyond these conversations in the floating boat.”
“I really don’t see what can stop us getting into romance now, in this Head book.”
“Romance would be in the heart book if anywhere.”
“logic can’t come to the party.”
“You insist on romance?”
“Yes, and you are just the chaperone for the job, Guru. I don’t care about anything you have to teach us and I don’t plan to learn any more in this life. I just want to party and start a romance with this stupid man.”
“Drishnu is a demon, not a man.”
“Oh come on, you even twist the meaning of demon to something else that’s not much like a demon at all. I call this specimin a man, and I should recognise them by now, at this stage in my life.”
“Thanks a lot,” said Drishnu with bitter sarcasm.
“Your life will have more stages and you really crave more learning, Matilda,” said Guru.
Matilda gazed at the scenery beyond the boat for two minutes, then she looked pointedly at Milton just as Guru flapped off into the sky.
“Are you a demon or a real man, Milton?”
“Call me the demon Drishnu from now on.”
“No way, Milton. Then I’d have to be a complete bitch just to keep in sync.”
“Listen, I don’t really feel romantic at the moment.”
“I didn’t mention romance, that was all your idea.”
“So now you want to avoid it? Are you trying to confuse me on purpose?”
“I don’t have to try.”
“I think we need to work on the issues of trust and obligation here. I mean you were trying to start a romance just a few minutes ago when Guru was our chaperone.”
“Well if the chaperone has gone we can forget the romance. We both want to forget it.”
“You are just confusing.”
“And you are not??”
“Well, I don’t mean to be, I was never changing position like you do.”
“So now you’re talking of sexual positions?”
“Oh I give up. I can’t talk to you.” Said Milton as he turned away to face the horizon. For three minites they glided silently along without speaking.
Chapter Five
“Listen, I don’t think or talk like a man, but I don’t mean to confuse you. I mean it’s not the words that count for a woman. Forget my words, but listen to the tone of my voice. That’s where I put the meaning that I really mean, and if you hear it there’s no confusion.”
“There is confusion. How do expect to communicate if you ignore the actual words? I mean it’s just a fact of the English language and all human languages that the words carry the meaning.”
“That’s male English. I only speak female,” said Matilda in a low, thrilling tone.
“Oh how can there be gender different languages? How can you not mean the words? It’s not female English it’s just mad philosophy.”
“You didn’t notice my tone or even belive me.”
“How can I trust you at all if we don’t even agree about language, let alone develop proper communication. How can I belive a mad philosophy?”
“I’m sure you believe a mad philosophy already, being a man, Milton.”
“I’m Drishnu now and I’m a kind of demon, not a man.”
“We can discuss it all later in another book if you get another bottle.”
“We have an obligation to converse in this boat.”
“I don’t trust that and I’m not going to talk any more now.”
They travelled in silence until eventually the boat slipped through a yellow portal.