KSI

Zone of Avoidance. A withered leaf falls. It comes fluttering through the broken window and settles softly on DR. PU's couch. ___________________________________________________

CHOIR: [Three Mothers]

The October winds lament

Around the castle of Dromore

Yet peace is in her lofty halls

My loving treasure store.

Though autumn vines may droop and die A bud of spring are You.

Ksi felt cold.

CHOIR:

Sing hush-a-bye low, lah, loo, lo lan Sing hush-a-bye low, lah loo

Always cold.

CHOIR:

Bring no ill wind to hinder us

My helpless babe and me

Dread spirit of the Blackwater Clan Eoan's wild banshee

And holy Mary pitying us in heaven For grace doth sue

Small veins. Slow blood.

CHOIR:

Sing hush-a-bye low, lah, loo, lo lan Sing hush-a-bye low, lah loo

Always in search of Her blanket.

CHOIR:

Take time to thrive my ray of hope

In the garden of Dromore

Take heed young eaglet till Your wings Are feathered fit to soar

A little rest and then our land

Is full of things to do

Soft, blue blanket.

CHOIR:

Sing hush-a-bye low, lah, loo, lo lan Sing hush-a-bye low, lah loo (1)

The color of sky and sleep.

DR. PU: [Leaning in fashion-forward manner.] Then what happened?

[An awful scraping at the door as if someone were being torn apart.]

JOYCE: Excuse me, DR.PU [Peeps in through the split.] There’s a situation on floor 5. DR. PU: Of course. Thank you, JOYCE. [Excuses himself.]

[Floor 5, vestibule.]

JAMES: Man. [Shaking his rattle.] I got this bird you ain’t even gonna’ believe. [Presents KSI’S database to DR. PU.]

THE SILENT WITNESS: A rare bird is in the land. A sacred thing, vowed and dedicated at Her own expense. (2, 3)

DR. PU: Thank you, JAMES. [Gently motions Ksi into the unit.] That will be all.

Then we took Her. We found where we were going to take Her, they did the intake, and I said, 'OK', and we said, 'Ok'. And they said, 'We'll walk You down the hall to where You're going', and the officer said, 'we'll take James; you go out the front door.'

DR.PU: Please, [Gestures to his newly designed coffin couch with elegant legs, plush button padding and hard to obtain permission.] join me. [But after the initial fall, DR. PU couldn't shock his patients in the same way again.] I want You to be rest assured Kah’see, that we hear...no. I. I here, at The Caring Facility for the Chronically Concerned aim to provide You, the in-firmed, with only the highest-quality, cost-effective, real-time, virtual-side-support and customized-care. [Powerful inhale.] Our prominent goal is to move You from hysterical suffering to common unhappiness by restoring Your function via a direct interaction of Your nervous system with our artificial devices. And, as a bonus just for stopping by, we'll throw in a value added measure to determine Your abilities. [Wink.] Don't look so concerned. You can be confident that accuracy is my subspecialty. But this isn’t about accuracy, is it? No. It’s about walking, tripping and falling apart.

KSI considered the room. DOUBT entered.

DOUBT: Come, come. Do You really think there’s adequate sound insulation to prevent Your confidential conversation from drifting beyond the magnetic zone? Don’t You think Big Sister just might be in earshot?

As a rule of thumb, others may not be present as an audience for private speech acts. These acts may only be recorded under supervisory control to be scrutinized later by professionals in the privy- lounging and laughing over drop dead biscuits and super sexy gravy.

DR.PU: Understand, Kah’see, that our deals are designed in full compliance with the Institute for Advancing an Organized Establishment. Only We can promise You that uniform shine and long- lasting like-new appearance You must crave and we all admire. [Plucks a misplaced thread from his stylishly embroidered jacket.]

She looks best, they say, with a taut seat cushion and fluffy pillows. With regularly scheduled treatments She will not develop a patina or suppleness nor otherwise improve with age. Although Her treated layer may crack and split free of its backing, She is easily cleaned with a soft damp sponge dipped in enhancement solution (water, salt, phosphate, and antimicrobial).

[Taking a moment to organize his thoughts and rehash his sentence, Dr. Pu eases himself into a naturally durable, hand-crafted, papasan chair finished with a rich brown stain and high-gloss liquor.]

REASON: He is an avid practitioner of the gentlemanly arts and accustomed to sitting in the lap of luxury.

DR.PU: There are only two things, Kah’see, that fill my mind with an ever increasing awe and admiration: body language and mathematics. Everything else is just words. [Hand waving.] You see. Anyone can say anything and mean quite the other! It’s senseless really. Most of these actors spend their whole lives being someone else. How can I ever be sure of who is actually speaking? Hiccup But the body, Kah’see. [Leans into a lush, well-arranged cashmere cushion; hands clasped behind the head, elbows menacingly pointed outward.] The body does not lie. Hiccup It moves in subtle, very subtle and wise ways by means of an unconscious effort that even the most moral agent is unaware. Hiccup And Nature does not lie. [Crossing his ankles in a set-square pose.] For if She did, Hiccup then we two are a lie.

REASON: There's a logical hiccup in there...

But DR. PU was lost in his hiccups.

DR.PU: [Abrubtly stands up, pinches his nose, and spins in a clockwise direction singing]:Row, row, row, your boat. Gently down the stream! Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream.

DR. PU: [Stops and immediately begins spinning in a counter-clockwise direction singing]: Mary had a little lamb Little lamb, little lamb Mary had a little lamb It’s fleece was white as snow.

Dr. Pu’s white cotton tunic, except for its exaggerated width, might be mistaken for a pair of bathing breeches. His coarse and curly leggings are of a large, white-faced, homeless sheep’s wool, but his legs, from the middle of the thigh to his socks, are shaven bare. His feet sport blue silk brocade detachable gentleman’s shoes with lace-up fronts and fancily fastened buckles. (Minor scuffs and scrapes may be seen especially at the heel.) His head is wound gaily with a colored kerchief- fringed and hassled. Strapped to the front of his wonton waste, a capricious leather pouch containing his personal effects: one sharp scimitar, two personalized Carry-On Travel Chopsticks and three tins of imported Imperial Skruf. Last, but not least, slung casually over one shoulder, his evolutionary pièce de résistance: a 40 meter long proper Polish plaited beard. The result of years of unbridled genetic growth.

CHOIR:

Go Gallants to the Barbers, go Bid them your hairy Bushes mow. God in a Bush did once appeare, But there is nothing of him here.

INGRID: [Licking and nibbling.] Adorns the beard to the detriment of the chin.

CHOIR:

Have you not been inform' o'th' hand

Of God on Poland lately laid;

Enough to make all Lands afraid,

And your long dangles stand an end? Feare him that did that Plica send,

And those sad Crawlers: and hath more Unheard of Judgements still in store.

DR. PU: Now then, [Reaches for his safety goggles.] let us begin.

Licking and nibbling are part of normal grooming behavior. They are elements of an unconscious body language and only give cause for concern when done in excess. When licking and fretting are performed excessively, it is likely due to an irritation OR as a way of managing ones boredom and distress. Fortunately, some cases are quite easy to solve; for example, the prelude to a generalized itchy skin problem which may never progress beyond the big toe. Unfortunately, many cases are complicated and exasperating.

ξ: [Clutches Her puffy white titanium fleece.]

DR. PU: Splendid. Splendid. [Adopts a dandiacal pose.] So then, where were You born?

THE SILENT WITNESS: And behold, the blanket of Her temple was torn asunder. And the earth shook, and the rocks split. (5)

ξ: I...[Crosses legs.] don’t remember.

THE SILENT WITNESS: Try not to reveal the secrets of Her past.

ξ: I was only a small displacement then.

Certain breeds seem to suffer a bit more than others. Why? Well, things indoors may be the culprit: an ingrown toenail, a thorn or splinter, a burr lodged between the toes.

[Shades of Grey emerge into the carefully vacuumed room and cast the initial value problem.] SHADES OF GREY: [Whispering.] S-s-s-s-someone. They're looking at you.

DR. PU: Kah’see, have You considered that perhaps Your troubling interpersonal function is directly mapped to Your partially paranoid state?

ξ: [To SHADES] Stop whispering. Nobody's listening. [To Self]: Pondering....please wait... [To DR. PU]: No. That’s not it.

SHADES OF GREY: Oh, but there’s a noise on Your wires.

DR. PU: Kah’see? Can You hear me?

MEANIES: Kah’see?! That’s not a name, that’s a noiz! [Wild laughter.]

DR. PU: ...I said I’d like to be Your ally through this story. Someone You can trust, in order to minimize any further disruptions.

Increasing trust and empathy may sound pious, noble and true, but, like mathematical relations Humans are not always explicit in their intentions. A healthy dose of suspicion and fear are there to protect you from real world dangers.

ξ: Ok. [Her blood shifted, flowing more quickly with hopeful resignation.] Thank you, DR.PU.

CHOIR: [Three Mothers] A fool,

A fool,

We smell a fool

in this room,

A psycho-pompous fool.

KSI observes DR. PU’s wandering blue eye. Ku-ku. Ku-ku. Ku-ku.

The clock mocked.

The clock in the office is something DR.PU synchronizes several times a day, and is one of the most unsound devices in want of his fixation.

REASON: A structure of unknown substance and purpose; fluctuating on the appearance of change.

B6: Shifty bastard.

*

In 7CD V.E., Mark Vincent Rogers re-introduced the hexclock. This clock runs on hexadecimal time, and is an agent friendly representation giving the time of day divided into 16 hexadecimal hours. One hexadecimal digit represents a nibble; one nibble is half a byte. Hexadecimal is also commonly used to represent computer memory addresses.

ξ: Well. . . I don’t remember. [Eyes drift upward.] It's been so long.

DR. PU: Yes, of course. [Adjusts safety goggles.] I understand. The past is the past. And what happened, happened.

ξ: Excuse me?

DR. PU: So. Let’s have a little chat now about Your animal friends.

ξ: [Mouth unfolds into a gentle half-smile.]

DR. PU: Go on.

ξ: First there was Kitty, and then there was Juice, and then [Head hangs low.] Herman.

B6: Poor Herman-

An Indian Star Tortoise with a shell made imperfect by a hit-and-run motorist. ξ: Divided from himself and his good timing.

The accident had made his future righting response...well, not so righting. And balance recovery in high traffic areas is crucial.

ξ: It's not the case that all motorists run red lights. Is it? I mean, there must be at least one motorist that doesn’t run red lights.

Let's see...

(P1) At the beginning, the motorist is at point x0, and Herman is at point x1, where x0 is to the left of x1.

(P2) For all n>1, when the motorist is at xn, Herman is at xn+1, where xn is to the left of xn+1, and the motorist does not hit Herman at any point between xn-1 and xn.

(P3) If P1 and P2 are the case, then the motorist does not run a red light hitting Herman at any of x1, x2, ... nor at any points in between.

CONCLUSION: Your apparent experience of change, KSI, is merely apparent. There really is no change. No red lights or green lights at all.

DOUBT: Sounds menacing.

DR. PU: That's good. [Removes safety goggles.] The key is that we’re all dead together.

ξ: Hmm?

DR. PU: Dead Kah'see. D-E-A-D. Dead. Life presents You. Me. Them. Everyone! With something we don't even want to have happen. [Sigh] But the past is the past. And what happened happened.

*

If a body were continuous, then should an ant attempt to cross the Event Horizon, it would first need to reach the halfway point; but before it could reach the halfway point, it would need to reach the halfway point of the halfway point. And so on ad infinitum. Thus, the ants may never get to the other side.

ξ: Maybe the ants have figured out intergalactic travel.

[DR. PU watches ξ and smiles; the impression She had made on him filled him with hunger.] DR. PU: Just one more question before we finish here today, Kah’see. [Leaning back self- satisfied, fingers steepled and raised to cover his munching lips.] Why did You deceive to come see me today?

B6: [Behind-the-scenes.] Oh, his beastly questions.

REASON: Just tell him You deceive Yourself in order to deceive others more effectively; AND to make him more socially acceptable and successful.

ξ: But is it safe to assume I have a self to deceive?

B6:[Knitting in a nearby hole-in-corner.]

CONCLUSION: Apply the law of self-inverse.

ξ: [Immediately indulges Dr. Pu's weakness for questions.] Did you know that sometimes a river will flow into the ground just before reaching another body of water?

DR. PU: Hmmm... [Thoughtfully caresses his beard.] Would you like a chocolate?

ξ: Is this the proper time?

Dr. Pu consults his gentleman's timepiece, quickly taps his forehead with his left index finger, and silently anchors himself to victory, Oh yeah

∎