Wick and the Cricket

[Wick]

"Perhaps you have found a quantum computer in your love, Cricket! You're mind is sharp as a quantum dot tonight! You're particular locality of the universe must be passing through the background of resting light faster than the rest of us. Amazing."

Wick was feeling a bit worn out from the long and draining conversation with the love-struck cricket. He was also feeling just a little bit envious...and tired. The sun was spreading out on the horizon like a sweet tear of joy!

Caramel was now nestled in the grass, as she had come to understand that Wick was only kidding about all the cow tipping nonsense. Wick felt envious of Caramel, too, but he couldn't sleep... There was so much he wanted to learn. When he closed his eyes, he found himself dreaming about cloven globes of wire and spinning sphere's. He couldn't help thinking that somehow everyone had misunderstood what the universe was trying to say.

Quietly, Wick reached into his coat and pulled out a bottle wrapped up tightly in brown paper--Austrailian Shiraz. He leaned it against the horses neck and stroked the horses mane with calm compassion.

Behind him, the cricket was singing to the dying moon so passionately, Wick wondered if the little insects heart might tremble and burst. Such love...
He thought he could sense someone coming up the path, so he left the overpowered cricket to his seranade and began his descent down the path towards the city and the Pub in search of the creature he thought might be coming...

[labelwench]

The rider hunched her shoulders against the wind and drifting snow. The beam of her headlamp revealed little of the established path and she stepped off, filling her boot with snow and nearly upsetting the buckets of warm water she was carrying. No northern lights tonight.

All of the horses were accounted for except Caramel. By day, Caramel delighted in cavorting along the front fenceline, putting on a show for her appreciative audience. Many neighbours had called to ask permission to feed the friendly chestnut mare either carrots or apples, which Caramel took very gently when they were proffered. She was an excellent ambassador for her species.

"Probably had her fill of handouts today, and now sleeping it off." The rider wasn't concerned, knowing that Caramel, more than any other being, was quite capable of looking after herself.

By the time she was returned from working the graveyard shift, she was quite certain that the jaunty red mare would be waiting for her.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Crickets have fours songs, all about love and/or the insuring and protection of it. Tonight they sang the serenade song of love to be consummated.

They sunk snug into the soft bed of the fallen rotted tree and showed up math and arithmetic when they two became one, this synergy actually making them more than the sum of two.

Rounded life was the symmetry of yin and yang together blending and swirling about each other and so they made the world go ‘round.

We all know how this is so we’ll skip ahead to some of their later conversations. Crick had related his conversations with Wick to her and that he had gone down the road, also telling of the graceful red mare, its rider and the northern lights.

“The mind is a limited quantum computer,” she told Crick. “It uses all we know and anything that it can beyond that to almost instantly surmise the most probable thought or action to finally surface out of all the superimposed scenarios of consequences, going down every path of thought to action to thought to action as best it can, not knowing, of course, the respondent actions of the external minds reached out to.”

“That’s a heck of a lot of traversals of one hundred billion brain neuron connections!”

“Yes, and it even reaches beyond the brain proper to the nerve spindles all over the body.”

“That would makes sense, for they are as an extension of the brain proper, being connected and reporting to it.”

“That’s a good way to look at it. We can prepare to actionize all over, yet not be thrown into spasms of actual movement that might not amount to anything sensible.”

“We can mirror many possible events, even learn from them, such as when a gymnast mentally reviews her moves when she is sidelined by a sore ankle or something like that.”

“We become what we envision or sometimes even what we see in others’ doings, as a monkey learns by seeing another dig up a potato, simulating that sequence of moves.”

“That could be dangerous to mirror learn about bad behavior observed, such as in TV wrestling shows.”

“As so they say that learning is a dangerous thing.”

“The good thing about learning is that is strengthens the brain’s wirings and winkings, whether the learning is good or bad.”

“Yes, but imagine if we could see through skulls into the semi-permanent rewirings of bad behavior and then the subsequent building upon that unto incorrigibility.”

“It would be a real shock and quite a wake-up call.”

“We can replace this notion, as we have to, with some deep thinking, for we are not made off of the bat to think about what underlies reality, but more to deal with it at a higher life-living level.”

“We often react to the whole, not needing to care so much about the details within or below.”

“And so ToeQuest is the answer, for it has us face the deeper reality, although this is still sometimes hard to reconcile with our wishes that arise in the macro world.”

“We sometimes want and state things at the level of the whole regardless of what the universe is at its base.”

“Yes, and that’s a whole ‘nother story that ToeQuest also gets into.”

“There is a super quantum computer at the TOE Center in Honolulu on Oahu, Hawaii. Oops, I shouldn’t have old you.”

“Wish I could have been there to see it if I could see.”

“Well, Austin took me there once, and we were in the same boat as you would be, for most of the computer extended deep underground into the bedrock, that helping to shield it from disturbances, but we did see its tip protruding.”

“The thing must be massive and expensive and probably has about 50 millions processors, many of them having actual qubits.”

“Hey, that’s about right; how did you know?”

“That’s what it wold take to model Everything.”

“Hey, that’s a secret; don't’ tell anyone!”

“I won’t. Did they succeed?”

“Yes, finally, but not by identifying every present particle and interaction, a hopeless task, but by identifying all of the Cosmic Background Microwave Radiation of long ago and projecting and extrapolating it into the present, still an enormous task, but a much lessor one.”

“The universe is deterministic?”

“Yes, to enough extent that they could foresee the happenings that mattered. They saved the world and humanity from destruction.”

“They undetermined the determined?”

“Yes, although I suppose that one could say that was determined also.”

“Was it?”

“No one knows.”

“Might not the projections from the CMBR go way off after billions of years from a very slight mistake?”

“Yes, but they have the landmark happenings of history to use to recorrect back to the right path, such as the extinctions and the happening of Hitler’s birth and so forth. That’s the brilliance of the scheme.”

“What about from here on out?”

“Well, that is up in the air, as we are on a new course, going on whence we were not heading for from the initial CMBR configuration.”

“Hope they can work it out. What else do they use it for?”

“They can break any code within a few minutes or so and learn the bad guys’ plans of evil upon us. This is another big secret.”

“To keep a secret, tell no one.”

“Uh, oh, I am a blabbermouth.”

“Well, of course, I’ll keep it, for it benefits the world.”

“Some of the keys to the codes involve the factors of very large prime numbers that would stump classical computers forever?”

“Yes, the classical computers must test every odd number for being prime up to its square root in a linear one-by-one fashion, whereas the quantum computer does it all at once.”

“This is the beauty of the mysterious happenings of the quantum realm.”

“Don’t the bad guys wonder how we so often catch on to them?”

“They might, but then they do succeed sometimes. The rest of the time we try to manipulate their failings, making them out to be just some bad luck, so they don’t get too suspicious.”

“Well, that’s ingenious, and at least a good organization is looking out for us!”

“They are like guardian angels, being above and beyond all nations and politics. They don't’ even have a country of their own.”

“What are they called?”

“I can’t tell any more secrets.”

“Here’s a kiss for you.”

“Thanks. Well, they are called the Ninja Empire, as they were formed from those dedicated to the martial arts and the honor and such that goes with that. Many ToeQuestors are members. In fact, Rascal is now the new GrandMaster of the Western region.”

“Is all this kind of talk better than love and the celebration of it?”

“Well, almost, but it’s not really a case of any one thing being better, but of all things relating and boosting each other in a really aware state of life. Wick showed me that.”

“Come to me, lover!”

[austintorn@aol.com]

The Pentagon’s main computer had just taken in a virus or a worm, reporting:

*** S O U L virus active ***

16 minutes to completion

Enter 28 character password prevent destruction

The system operators didn’t know what to do, so they entered ‘SOUL’ seven times:

SOULSOULSOULSOULSOULSOULSOUL

The virus reported:

*** Wrong answer ***

The destruction speed has just been quadrupled

4 minutes to completion

“What if we just turn off the computer? We have a back-up of the data.”

“It’s not meant to be turned off that easily—it supports worldwide operations. Besides, someone has to go down four stories underground to turn it off and that takes a really high level clearance. There’s no time.”

“Well, anyway, call the General.”

“He’s off playing golf; he’ll never get here in time.”

“Hey, the virus is not destroying our data, but is removing our security layers one by one.”

“That’s good.”

“No it isn’t good; the entire world will soon have access to all of our secret data.”

“Ah, true, and there’s no time to enter all combinations of 28 character passwords.”

“Yes, and the virus will only quadruple its speed each time a wrong one is entered.”

“We’re doomed.”

“We’ll have to guess it right. It’s probably concerning the definition of the soul.”

“But the soul is defined such that it has no definition!”

“Well, there are still many suppositions such as that it is the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal or a person's moral or emotional nature or sense of identity—the spirit, psyche, (inner) self, inner being, life force, vital force; individuality, makeup, subconscious, anima, pneuma, or atman.”

“So, then, what could be the embodiment, personification, incarnation, epitome, quintessence, essence; model, exemplification, exemplar, image, or manifestation?”

“Forget it. We’re ill-fated, ill-starred, cursed, jinxed, foredoomed, damned and star-crossed. It’s impossible!”

2 minutes to completion

“We have only one layer of security left!”

“Call TOE Oversight.”

“Wick here; I’ve been following; hold on. I have a good source for these types of things.”

Wick had remembered that the cricket had really been in the zone lately, an effect of being in love—and had dialed him up.

“Crick, there’s no time for social talk. We need the password to stop a worm virus that’s attacked the Pentagon computer. Quick, what is a 28 character representation of ‘S O U L’—this clue is all caps and there is a blank after ‘S’, ‘O’ and ‘U’.”

“It’s all in caps because the soul is thought to be extremely absolute; the blanks indicate that the capitals stand for separate words.”

1 minute to completion

“Quick, Crick, we need the trick of the pick in the nick of time for the sick!” pleaded Wick in a lick.

“It will be a wild guess.”

“Guesses can have intuition behind them.”

“OK, give me a minute.”

“We don’t have a minute; you have 30 seconds; I need time to transmit the answer.”

“Ah, the pressure.”

The line fell silent. 20 seconds of eternity passed.

…

“Crick?”

“Try this, Wick:”

Spirit Of Unconditional Love

The operators entered it, now willing to try anything.

*** SOUL virus aborted ***

“Hurray! Reload the rest of the security layers.”

…

“Wick, the 6 star General just called and would like to meet and congratulate your crypto source at the golf club restaurant over drinks and dinner.”

“OK, I’ll bring him right over. He’ll have the house salad.”

[austintorn@aol.com]

So, then once upon a time they lived happily everafter?

[labelwench]

Having come to terms with Wick on the subject of cow-tipping, Caramel decided it would be a shame to allow the beckoning grass and soft turf to go to waste.

She sampled a few nibbles of alfalfa mixed with some yarrow, loving the herbal minty taste it left. She loved to waft her breath over her rider, who found this scent quite attractive, and would sometimes blow back into Caramel's nostrils gently; a human who observed and understood the gestures of equine affection.

Then a small sip from the nearby stream, cool and refreshing. Returning to the grass, she selected her bed, lowering herself gently for a creature of her size. She remained on her sternum, legs gracefully tucked under and to the left, to give her the most advantageous position for a hasty departure.

Satisfied that Wick and the Cricket were still engrossed in solving the mysteries of the universe, she lowered her head and breathed deeply of the smells of this place. Better get used to it. It might be home for some time....

Her eyelids began to close over her wide-spaced luminous brown eyes.

[Wick]

Wick was certain someone was coming. He sat upon a stump near the head of the trail and waited. He could hear the cricket singing brilliantly to the dawning sun. But as the sun climbed higher in the sky, he began to doubt...and his doubt comforted him. Afterall, the very idea that a person might have a premonition of the future implied (somehow) that the future might indeed be determinate. And Wick did not believe in a determinate future. He smiled to himself, pulled on a blade of grass until it gently gave way revealing a sweet juicey white core. He nipped the white part off with his teeth, crossed his legs on the stump, closed his eyes and began to think deeply.

[austintorn@aol.com]

I could never forget this description of horses by RascalPuff, a ToeQuest member who is still around sometimes:

The crimson robed disembarkee is contrasted in standing and waving profile against the outside of his arrived Victorian carriage. Winter is unabated and the holy man’s ethereal breath appears starch white in whirling translucency’s cast against the opaquely shining, black antique enamel framed phaeton carriage, contrasted with a bright, slate colored sky.

Preceding the quietly parked spoke wheeled apparition are the stout legged, hoof stamping bodies of six huge, white gray dappled, snorting equestrian engines. Three matching pairs of team harnessed Sicilian mares and geldings side by side. The entire and especially forward quarters of which massive dapple gray tandem bodies, continuously emit enormous, semi-sweet hay scented wafts of vertically curl spinning, upright sweltering vapor. Quiescently gentle, velvet cushion nostriled beasts at ease; generating steam into the chill winter afternoon, from a half dozen equine furnaces - projecting rising columns of horizontally wind swept, opaquely sun-lighted and white capped aerial engravings sailing over a background of cobble stones, awash in near and distant ripe grass and clover.

The warm confluence of six horses rides a corridor of convectional air current, to finally snap its own gossamer whip; thereupon the featured will o’wisp is thermospherically absorbed, so as to completely and abruptly disappear altogether. Looking and behaving as, what - at higher altitudes - meteorologists call ‘mare’s tails’. High and nimbus gossamer tendrils originating from and leading back to their own alternately snorting, head and mane shaking, hoof stomping equine charges.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Wick awaited the future, and of course it came with every rolling ‘now’, but it was the further future that could tell of determination if it arrived. Not just anyone coming done the path would mean that, for that was what paths were for; but, if a certain someone…

The cricket hopped aboard the sitting Wick, chewing some blades of grass as well. The future awaited them as they awaited it. They had just returned from a five-star restaurant dinner with a six-star General as now they rested their light-forms beneath a million-star sky.

“We are the stars of this reality show”, Crick remarked.

“From the stars cometh our help.”

They soon encountered a young man walking toward them. “He looks just like you, Wick,” Crick noted, “though he’s much younger.”

“He sure does! Ho, it is me! It is my younger self. The past has arrived!”

“How do you know this? Maybe we’re imagining it.”

“Because, once, when I was his age, I met my older self, although I didn’t believe anything that he told me at the time. I was stubborn, I just wouldn’t listen, even though he knew my name, my history, and my future.”

“And this future played out?”

“Yes, in general, but there was a more or lessness about it.”

“Holy cripes! Look, Wick, your younger self is walking right up to us. He’s real!”

Wick, the older self of the present said to his past younger self, “Hello, my younger-self-same! Do you know my name?”

Said the younger self, “I know you not!”

“I told you” he said to Crick, “that he wouldn’t know me.”

“Well,” Crick said, “at least you’re older and wiser now than he.”

They rested and bit off some more roots of grass for a while.

“Crimeny, Wick, uh oh! A very old man is now walking toward us. Don’t tell me! He looks just like you, Wick, although he’s much older than you.”

“It is me, of course. He is my older self!”

“How do you know this?”

“I just have a feeling. Remember, I am wiser now.”

The older self of the future said to the younger self of the present, “Hello, Wick, my younger-self-same! Do you know my name?”

Said Wick the younger self, “I know you, yes, I know you very well; you’re my older selfsame! I thought you’d be coming along.”

The old man smiled and walked on, rejoicing. “He knows me. He knows me!” They could hear him saying this over and over to himself as he went down the trail.

[Wick]

Wick fell off the stump. He hadn't slept for nearly 24 hours, and so he drifted off and fell.

He laughed as he lifted himself from a clump of columbine.

Stupid dream! Younger self! Older self!? Impossible.

The present point is where all things unfold, where horses named Caramel sleep, where would-be consciences look like crickets and fall in love. It is true I recognize my past self. It is precisely who I am today. And I recognize my future self as well. It, too is precisely who I am at this moment.

This moment is where we are...all of us. This moment is our universe, our eternity. And it just keep moving, on and on, at the velocity of universal free fall. And that's alright.

Every moment is a new configuration...a configuration of matter and energy that has never existed in this precise way before. The old configurations are neither stored nor preserved in spacetime. Spacetime belongs on the shelf with the Brothers Grimm. There are no paradoxes. There is only life and learning and a continuation of the shifting configurations that will happen forever on this moving 3-space we call the Present.

The cricket was still singing, high on the hill. He was starting to sound a bit gruff.

"He's going to wear his wings and legs away if he's not careful!" Wick whispered.

He crawled back onto the stump and waited...