We continued to walk for dozens of hours, until finally the great towers of East Crown became visible in the distance. At one point, Talavera took a rectangular object out of a special compartment in their chest, and handed it to me. It was filled with layer upon layer of indecipherable text, and as I pondered the symbols, Talavera recited their meanings for me from memory.
“To the me of the future, in case you forget: You are here on Mars to bring the sound revolution to the interplanetary stage. This is only Step 1 in covering the whole galaxy with your harmonic tunes...and if by some horrific twist of fate you can’t even remember what that means, I’ll explain it later.
“You might be wondering why I’m even bothering risking my sanity like this...or maybe not, if you’re totally brainwashed. But I’ll tell you anyway— I don’t believe I can create music that will truly resonate with the people of the Martian colony unless I’m one of them. I want to fully absorb this new way of life, to find the frequencies that reflect the oppressive atmosphere of Syzygy’s so-called ‘Ordered World’…
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“Besides, after living for so long here on Earth, running out of new experiences to excite and inspire me, I think it’d be cool to become a new person; to restart my artistry from scratch. So yeah, read these notes, or skim them or whatever, but don’t be beholden to them. Always create what your soul feels. And if you need any help with anything, ask the person who gave you this book. You can trust them.
“P.S. I’ve already started saving a backup of my current mind to store here on Earth. So…if you ever find your way back here and want to try being ‘me’ again, I’ll be waiting for you.
You can totally do what you want, but, I hope that someday our essences can combine, like two notes of a chord. Complementing each other, informing each other; bringing the past and future together to develop a new understanding of the universe.”