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Behold! The Harbinger of Doom [Fiction]
Chapter 82: Be Chairful What You Wish For

Chapter 82: Be Chairful What You Wish For

"Well, what do you say?" Agent 42 gestured to his popped open transport pod, his unitard sparkling in what looked to be the diffused light of the sun from thinning clouds in the sky, and smiled as wide as he could with his slick, stiff living wooden face.

"I don't know." Kahli looked at the pod with suspicion. "Do we have to?"

"Have to?" Agent 42 looked confused and offended. "Miss, I simply want to offer my services. It's not safe out here for you, your friend, or even myself, honestly. That being said, I am trained in the ways of dealing with bad situations such as this, and certain anomalies that-"

"You mean perforations, Agent 42," said Kahli matter-of-factly. "It's a perforation."

"How do you know what the anomaly is or isn't, miss?"

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Kahli was in the void again.

Kahli, Kahli, Kahli. Welcome back. Welcome back to the vast expanse of timelessness. Welcome back to nothing, and to everything - to everywhere and indeed to nowhere. This is where we are thusly positioned, and in such position we are in - and also not in, as we are not in any position. You see, Kahli, just as time is immaterial, and irrelevant, and overall just conjecture more than it is a real thing, and my new goal is to prove to you that not only is this the case for time, but indeed it is the same for space. That is to say, both time AND space are, really, just a wash. They're nothing, they're everything, they're something but they're not, they're not a thing and they're the only thing.

Space, Kahli, is a state of being, and a state of the mind. Say that you think you are somewhere right now - well, you would be right. And of course, you may counter me with, well, the fact that in your time-ridden realm that you so oft consider 'reality' it appears to you that space is very separate. However, I posit to you this - does time have a meaning here in this void? Of course it does not, we've established that time and time again (hah, my own little joke) and I'm sure we'll establish it many other times - which by definition would of course actually be happening all at once in tandem along with everything else all at once.

But that's beside my point. My point is that, well, my point is that here, there's no space. Now, you may say to me, why exactly would this entity disguising itself as a large jellyfish think-speak such a thing to me while at the same time being apparently in a different location than myself, but my point is that it only appears that I am in a different position relative to you because it is easier for your own mind to understand. See, this is the void, an infinite void that is endless as it is timeless, and as it has no end, it also has no beginning, and as we all know, something without any end or any beginning is doomed to fold in on itself over and over agian until it condenses into one point. So, what you're seeing right now it actually me, on the same point of 'space' that you yourself are on, only while at the same time I am technically on a different fold of the same point. Regardless, it is irrelevant what fold one of us may be on, and how your mind's eye may perceive it, because functionally were are in the same location, on the same point, at the same one time.

Of course this, as you may have already guess, goes back around and keys in to the same concept that we've already addressed a number of times regarding time being immaterial. You see, here in the void space folds into itself, and is infinite and indeed also finite. That's right, it invalidates itself in its infinity by being confined to one endless point. As there is only one point, while all space is one, there can only be one, so in that state its infinity is now limited. How does this relate to time? Well, for one, you seem to have a limited amount of mortal life, for example. And, when we consider this limited mortal coil, we must understand time as a series of folded moments collapsing in on itself into one point. That one point, of course, is your point, and it is my point too. The point of this whole thing is, all the moments you experience in sequence as timed events are actually occurring all at once, along with all other kinds of countless events, some of which you will never, ever even conceive of in your wildest dreams while at the same time others so terrible do exist that it would give you infinite (hah) nightmares. But, in this, it is limited. It is all in one spot, the entire time. Which is why your [skill] works. Do you understand what I'm telling you, Kahli?

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Kahli sighed inwardly. Not this stupid, big jellyfish again.

I'm not stupid. I hold knowledge of the great aeons, Kahli. You would be wise to heed my advice - be careful of what you wish for.

Kahli could only really move her eyes in this strange, timeless void, so she rolled them as hard as possible. Careful? I believe the saying you're trying to say is, 'Be chairful what you wish for.'

I'm sorry, what? The big jellyfish seemed genuinely confused.

Be chairful what you wish for, Kahli repeated mentally. It's an adage. It means that you should always, whatever you hope or pray for, hold rest and relaxation as an ultimate goal. It's kind of like a way of saying, chill out, relax, and don't take everything so seriously.

Obviously, 'be chairful what you wish for' was not an adage in Nomachiato. No, the adage was 'be careful what you wish for,' just as the big jellyfish had thought-spoke. That being said, nobody had ever bothered to correct Kahli on her false assumption that the saying was actually 'be chairful what you wish for.'

It had all started when she was just a little girl. Kahli's parents had been trying to explain to her that if she ate another spool of cotton candy, she would feel sick and need to lie down, or otherwise risk spilling her stomach. She'd been eating a lot of candy that day. They'd handed the cotton candy to her reluctantly after she'd cried her face off, but chided her and told her to be careful what she wished for. Kahli immediately started repeating this incorrectly as 'be chariful what you wish for.' Her parents were immediately amused, and said nothing to correct her. They found shortly afterwards that Kahli had invented her own meaning for it, and interpreted it as a statement of the importance of rest and relaxation as she had felt too sick to move after eating the cotton candy and had sat on a small wooden chair and promptly fallen asleep only mere moments after consuming it.

Now, normally when someone in Nomachiatio, especially someone in Gifflenberg, was schooled around similarly aged youths, they would get any false impressions such as this promptly bullied - either physically or psychologically - out of them. This was, generally, considered to be a good and necessary evil. That being said, everyone Kahli came into contact with thought that her saying chairful was so funny and indeed so absurd that they just couldn't bear to correct her, especially when they noted how happy it made her, as well as how happy it made them to laugh at her behind her back. There was a close call back in her post-post-secondary-pre-post-primary-advanced-third-dary years wherein an instructor had almost corrected her, almost, when Kahli had mentioned to a fellow group assignment member that they should be chairful what they wished for while lusting after yet another group assigment member who was known as the class heartthrob. However, the intructor had immediately stopped trying to correct her when they had realized that what Kahli had intended to imply to her group member was that they ought to relax on a chair and enjoy carnal pleasures with said class heartthrob, which the instructor interpreted as a good sign of team building behavior and worthy of commendation instead of correction. After that, though, she was off to the races - and this was, indeed, the first time Kahli had even come upon a risk of having her strange, misinterpretation of a saying come into question in a couple decades.

The jellyfish was so, so terribly close to bursting her bubble. And, indeed, it had already tried. However, after thought-hearing the explanation Kahli had provided, along with immediately probing her mind and absorbing all of the aforementioned memories which were to it incredibly entertaining and humorous, the jellyfish, too, could not bear to correct her. In fact, it found itself, in spite of its own convictions and provocations, apologizing to Kahli and telling her that it had been terribly wrong and misinformed, and that she did know the correct meaning of the saying. And so, it was that jellyfish agreed that it ought to be chairful what it wished for. Kahli found its original, misunderstood impression to be quite a negative a foreboding take, and she didn't want or need that energy in her life, she continued, and she hoped for the jellyfish's own sake and mental health that it would look inwardly to surmize why it had been in such a negative headspace so as to misinterpret such a pleasant and common adage in such a negative way.

Well, alright. The jellyfish's mind-voice sounded at the same time shameful and almost jovial, as if it were working hard to hold in laughter. So, do you want to look at your timeline options, Kahli?

And of course she did. So Kahli looked down at her big, left foot, and she saw three scenarios. It was time to understand what exactly what was going on with Agent 42.

[First scenario]