Storm Nexus 1 (unfinished)

Gray.1

The tail of his dream slips away, tickling his nose as it goes. He lets it disperse into the datasea, wishing, in a sleepy semi-conscious way that he could follow it. Growing more alert, he shakes off the impulse, as he always does. Still, he hovers on the edge between sleep-awareness and moving-awareness as long as possible, for it seems that only from that perspective, for those few precious instants, can he perceive the truth of the datasea, the quantum foam, the basement subreality from which all matter and energy emanate... 2

He remembers the Moralists, from his old life. His matter life. They spoke of black and white, of darkness and light, of color and sound. Yet, freed of matter-limitations, his perception is blinded by the grayness of it. It is an intense fractal opalescence, yes, full of all those things; but perceived all at once, everything as all that it is, as it truly is, infinite transcending direction and dimension, it was indisputably, to his "eye", a perfect, magnificent, cosmic gray. He had always known they were full of it, anyway. 3

Effortlessly, he calls up their data, sees them prosletyzing, slivers of spacetime turning like fine jewels in his awareness. Far away and wee, like the Balloon Man. Amusing nonetheless. 4

The conscious act is enough to dispel the half-state, however. For a jerky instant, as always, he is suspended in a limbo of unmanifest potential, nothing and everything all at once. The iridescent grays of the holographic mandala twist and writhe, the ultimate animated fractal. 5

Then, percolating up through the totality of his "personal" data, he feels data flowing through his quarks, feels the deepest Self select, irresistably, a matter-blueprint, a body-plan. Rippling against his little-self's awareness, he feels the consequences of that decision flow outward, uncertainty woven neatly into manifestation.6

Then, abruptly, he feels his Self coalesce. It is a heavy feeling, like being crushed -- but as time comes into subjective existence simultaneously, it seemed to not last for long. 7

Falling back into timespace is something like being an astronaut returning to Earth after having been to the Moon, he reflected, sitting up. No, it really was -- he feels the data from astronaut-quarks even as the thought crosses his awareness. Or, more accurately, that data -is- the thought. As his quarks had once been atoms that constructed a human sentience, that data was "close by", easy to access, despite having long since shed that matter-configuration. 8

It would not be accurate to say that he did not remember when he first came to this quasi-real nonplace. Rather, he did not bother to focus his awareness upon that information anymore, and so it had ceased to consciously exist to him. 9

Discovering that his new body was animal, that it had eyes, he promptly squeezed them shut, not willing to return to the matter-energy illusion-blanket completely... not just yet. A few more minutes. Give me a few more minutes...10

Even as he had the thought, he knew it was too late, futile -- he was already using time-based thinking.11

He chose to think about the nature of the Storm Nexus, his home, as a way of stubbornly refusing to concede material reality its victory. It was, after all, quite a beautiful thing, pleasurable to think about. Even liberated from the constraints of flesh, he could not entirely wrap his awareness around the entirety of the Storm Nexus, so immense and wonderful was this concept and its accumulation of data. As best as his limited self was able to discern, the Storm Nexus was the result of part of a 'brane being twisted about on itself and 'sticking' that way - literally, a Mobius strip in the fabric of reality. The Self, of course, understands the Storm Nexus fully, and when he sleeps, his limited self returns to The Self. He wished that his limited self were not too small to contain the fullness of the Storm Nexus when awake. Perhaps he will grow that large someday. 12

Perhaps then he will find out if these Mobius 'brane loops were perhaps manifest in matter-reality as black holes. He has often speculated.13

His desire to see what the Self has manifested for him to experience this time matured. He opened his new eyes. 14

A cool breath of air playfully tosses a handful of crimson-velvet petals against his face, tugging at his long, human-style hair. He lifts his head, discovering a canine muzzle to identify and enjoy the multitudinous chemical signatures borne by the wind. His other senses have manifested similarly, so the scene around him blazes into his new brain with ruthless, ecstatic intensity for a few moments before he fully adjusts to this degree of physical awareness.