OA//:RECOVERED_FILE_3857D: HELIOTROPE_ITERATION_27//
Sound comes through the darkness. Again.
Light fills the void. Again.
E.C. Gordo opens his eyes as strands of reality bend and sway around him. At first he is confused, but as time and space slice through him, he feels peace. He notices an electronic-like buzzing echoing through his surroundings. Without moving so much as a finger, Gordo lives countless lives. He glimpses segments of past and future through his helmet.
He is eating dinner with a family. He is the family.
He is dinner being eaten by a family. He is the family.
He is a wolf in a pack. He is the family still.
He is the whole pack. Why is he still the family?
He is a redwood, standing still for a hundred years. Is this his family?
He is every termite in every log in every forest. //
He is the will of the salmon. //
He is the earth’s magnetic field. //
He is every employee of an interstellar arms corporation. //
He is on a couch in a run-down, decrepit spaceship. The Pig bus.
Observing his surroundings, he notices a television screen. It is alite with an old film, jumping between dialogue as though speaking to him. E.C. tunes in, and slowly pieces together that the contraption is protesting the very idea of space travel. It says:
“Is it any better world than it used to be? I rebel against this progress. What has this progress, this world civilization done for us? Machines and marvels… They’ve built these great cities of theirs, yes. They’ve prolonged life, yes. They’ve conquered nature they say and made a great, white world.
Is it any jollier than the world used to be in the good old days? When life was short? This space gun business, because of this project to shoot human beings at the stars. People don’t like it, shooting humans away into hard, frozen darkness. They’ll murmur.
Now, suppose someone cried, “Halt, stop this progress!” Suppose I shouted to the world, “Make an end to this progress!” I can talk. Radio is everywhere, this modern world is full of voices. I’m a master craftsman I have the right to talk!
They’ll listen, trust them. If I shout, “Arise, awake! Stop this progress before it is too late!”
Slaveries they put upon themselves today, they will impose tomorrow upon the whole world! Is man never to rest? Never to be free? The time will come when you in your turn will be forced away to take your chance upon strange planets, and in dreary, abominable places beyond the stars.
An end to progress. Make an end to this progress now. Let this be the last day of the scientific age. Make the space gun the symbol of all that drives us, and destroy it!”
E.C. can not help but wonder if he too was forced away to take his chance upon strange planets. If humanity was forced to send him away out of necessity, or out of curiosity; out of opportunity. E.C. holds his head. The answer is yes.
27.028mk7 --- PROBLEMATIC
He notices something odd. He is not breathing, and the electronic-like sound coming from all around him is in fact coming from him. He feels panic, and the sound grows louder and louder. He feels the urge to breathe, but the capacity to do so has gone. Louder and louder. It is as if his lungs are no longer there. Louder and louder. The sound abruptly stops when he notices he is not alone.
A single cockroach skitters along the wall opposite him, and his mind is immediately taken over by the thought of himself occupying this bug. He is momentarily convinced not to kill it, but as it makes its way to a surface within arms reach, he lashes out, scared and confused.
In the split second between deciding to squash it and the act of squashing it, Gordo’s surroundings once again transform. A new face appears on the TV, and a voice suddenly resounds through E.C.’s head. It says:
I know that you’re smarter. Did your charter, Alma Mater, but do ponder on this monster and the lyrics that I offer:
I’m aware that you are given times to make your own decision, but I do highly suggest that you just give the R a listen.
You’ve been missing simple moments, honing cronies for the loaning, people owe you, you know younger-when you couldn’t feed your hunger. See, but I’ve got something greater, gain more knowledge than the papers, be unbiased, only knowledge-lawless chapters in Valhalla.
Tell me do you sing to suffer? Brothers, sisters eat their mothers. I’m the offer you must order so that you can spend your dollars. Caller one yes you’re a winner, caller two seems you’re a sinner, easy lying for beginners when I try to eat your innards.
So the life that you have entered spent a plenty under weather, not too pleasant it’s a shame that now your pool is often tethered. I don’t say to each the rich, but hey, a dollar tastes like fish and when you slice a benji frankie it is frankly quite delish.
These are words I do abhonder, ponder longer than the mongrel. Congress lies and so do you, so simmer down, your mind has wandered. Like I said just give a listen. Slipping slow so quit your pissin’, I’m the R, I see it all, and I’m the g that stops your bitchin’.
I’m not adamant of your arrogance. Bafflement from the flair of this. Radical, my righteousness. Advocate for my relatives. Adjectives upon adjectives. Problematic, the bastard, but rápido with that Spanish shit, so let’s go and let’s manage it.
Dammit, you just need to learn to speak your mind get your motives going out your way to learn your lessons, then forget them, then progress until we guess we never movin’ groovin’ backwards, manga chapters, digest stories till it’s boring cause it’s gory and just cliché on the replay, so you sit there and do nothing.
E.C. changes the channel. He is more confused than before. As if that isn’t enough, he then notices a severed human head on the floor.
the head speaks.
“What the fuck are you lookin’ at, fatass?”
“What the fuck are you lookin’ at, fatass?”
Taken aback, E.C. can only muster a quiet “eugh” sound.
“Oh great, you’re a vegetable.” The head takes a long inhale, much to E.C.’s further confusion, and slowly says, “Niiice tooo meet yooouu. IIII ammm Laaarry.”
Gordo responds again with a slightly louder “churf” noise.
“Me too, buddy. Me too. Aaaaanyway, that over there is Teevy... and we’re... uh, how you say, figments of your imagination.”
Gordo chokes, but manages to say “What?”
Surprised at the computerized sound of his own voice, he also lets out a small yelp.
“I said a few things mate, can you elaborate on what part you’re “what”ing?” Larry asks
“Where are we?” E.C. replies
“Dude I literally just told you I’m in ya damn head, how would I know about things outside your realm of thought?” Larry says
E.C. literally cannot argue with that logic, and there is a long pause.
Larry breaks the silence, “Can you remember anything?”
27.036mk9ver4 --- HELIOTROPE
Pacing through the ship, E.C. says he remembers that the word “Heliotrope” holds some significance, but he can’t remember any further information. He pictures the flower, and tries to create memories based upon it. Maybe one will seem correct. Was that his significant other’s favorite flower? Was it some sort of space thing? Gordo can barely keep his head up, but when his eyes close, he still sees what he would, were his eyes still open. It’s an infinite loop of imaginary realities.He gains no rest, and his mind cycles back to the flower.
E.C. - “I don’t know why it echoes in my head, but I can’t get it out, and the part of me that knew why is dead. Can’t get to sleep, can’t stay awake, can’t be alive, but I can’t be dead.”
Larry - “Oh, yes you can!”
E.C. argues with himself and Larry for hours. Teevy chimes in seemingly at random with strange distorted footage. It starts to become too much for Gordo to comprehend.
// IF IT CAN ALWAYS SEE THE SUN, IT IS ALWAYS TURNING
27.045mk21 --- LAX MODE PANIC
Finally overwhelmed, E.C. decides to hide in a closet, away from his two alleged “imaginary” friends. He grows anxious and afraid, the closet seems to close in on him, and he is taken to the darkest corners of his mind. He decides he cannot handle this, and the only option is suicide.
E.C. - “Reach into your mind, try to decide how to die.”
“How does it know I can only relax in panic mode?”
This last sentence is complete nonsense to him, further adding to his panic. If his own thoughts are not his own, how can he be certain he is still himself? His thoughts slowly turn from fearful to violent. Who is responsible for this? Where is he?
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27.054mk6ver5 --- HOLD ON
E.C. - “I can’t take it, I can’t take much more.”
“I forgot how to be myself”
He rounds up his friends, and an old e-piano, and goes out into the vacuum. He plays himself one last tune to set the mood, and hits himself in the head with a can of crab juice. He feels his eyes get sucked out. He feels the very skin on his very hands boil and freeze simultaneously. And he hears laughter coming from Larry.
Shocked and angered, E.C. does not die, and Larry finds this amusing. Gordo throws him into space in a fit of confused rage. He immediately regrets this decision, and dives after him, scared. His own fear and anxiety distort space and time around him once more, transporting him through moments of human history, past and future.
He finally catches Larry, and takes a moment to calm down. He starts to notice the beauty of his surroundings, colorful nebulas, the sheer size of it all would be breathtaking if he could breathe. He begins to have flashbacks of his life, remembering more and more of it the longer he stays motionless and calm, floating in space.
He recalls moments of his time spent on earth. His brain
With friends, out eating and drinking. brought back
Hiking through the woods. from death
Going to space several times. by the AI
And a peculiar image of a brain hooked up to electronics. in his helmet.
27.072mk1 --- DO IT AGAIN
Filled with determination, he returns to his ship. He is determined to find earth by any means necessary. He rips apart the ship searching for clues. He finds several documents: sketches of himself, tall tales of his adventures across the galaxy.
“Have these things happened?” He asks himself, “I have no memory of this one” he sets down a transcript of an apparent interaction with what the author calls “duckosaurs” and just as he does, the technology on his wrist begins to spark and glitch.
He is suddenly somewhere else, again and again and again. Sometimes he is in many places at once, and as his eyes begin to adjust to one (three), he is zapped to another. He is running.
“What am I running from?” Turning to look behind him, E.C. sees dozens of unimaginable creatures chasing after him.
“Maybe… maybe I’m imagining this, too?” He tries to imagine earth, and just as he does, the warping stops.
He opens his eyes, and he’s on the ship. Looking out the window, he sees earth. He imagines walking through a busy street, and just like that, he is on the planet. But it is not how he remembers it. Namely, the people are not people. They are a horrible combination of duck and dinosaur.
On the duckosaur planet, E.C. suddenly feels an immense pain in his head. The AI in his helmet has connected to an internet signal, and all at once E.C. knows the history of the duckosaur planet. He knows their customs, their way of life, and can understand their language. He asks around about “Earth” and comes to find that it has been destroyed by a black hole.
27.1mk2ver3 --- SLIGHTLY (COMPLETELY)
He imagines himself back on the ship, orbiting duckosaur world. He sits there, mortified, for what could have been months, years, or centuries. He can’t even maintain a coherent train of thought, as if several people are inhabiting his brain. But it’s just 2.
E.C. - “Everything I thought I was is gone.
Everyone I thought I knew was lying all along.
Everywhere I’ve been, and every time I go,
Just doesn’t seem to matter anymore”
// HIS AI AND HIS MIND AGREE TO COEXIST
He decides to go through the wormhole. He will find earth. Any earth. by any means necessary.
He closes his eyes and imagines the void.
OA//RECOVERED_FILE_3857D_S_REVERSIBLE_or_DISGUISED_TEXT//
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