The Observer

///

Midnight cerulean emerges from the dark. Spasmodically, pigment seeps into form, smothering the vacancy with structure and relation. In boisterous, jocund harmony, matter collaborates into organism. From nothingness, arrives life.

Light opens my eyes, and the sound of a muffled voice fills my ears. The voice becomes lucid.

“Welcome to the Neutral Space, Observer G5220.” I look around the rudimentary room- empty and filled with warm nude tones, and humble in size and decor. “I am the Midwife who has helped rear your body into the Neutral Space, which is where you are presently.” The Midwife’s face is macabre, buried in profound wrinkles. She rummages through her pockets.

Clearing her throat, she explains, “Before you start living, it is required that you select a core. There are three available- the Blissful, the Island, and the Historian. You are to observe all three core states and then determine one that you find palatable as your own.”

Extracting three marbles from her pocket, the Midwife proceeds, “You will be given these three notions. The first is Value, the second is Sense, and the third is Reason. These notions will allow you to interact in the world during your trial period of three days. Upon its conclusion, you will immediately enter the core of your choice. Any questions?”

She places the marbles into my palm. “Will I be traveling alone?”

“Yes, you will have to navigate on your own.” There is a knowing, glimmer in her deep azure blue eyes.

“How will I navigate between the different cores?”

“You will use your marbles. It is important to note that their navigation property will only be functional when they are used in tandem. If there are no other questions, I shall send you into the core environment of your choice.” After a brief pause, she inquires, “So, what will it be? The Blissful, the Islands, or the Historians?”

I take a moment and then respond. “The Blissful sounds pleasant enough. I’ll start there.”

///

The dark rescinds slightly into a subsuming gray. Barren, magnificent buildings fill my view like a panoramic tableau. My vision follows the structures up until they are swallowed in clouds of airborne ash. Gleaming lights freckle the streets like stars against an inimical night.

Abruptly, I am struck by a mass and knocked off my feet. Repeatedly, I am almost trampled by the indifferent tumult of people. They are all sprinting and reaching down frantically, picking up black books off the street. I realize that every face is obscured with a raven blindfold. I attempt to grab the attention of a few, but to no avail.

As an escape, I jump into the nearest alleyway. Dozens of black, worn books scatter the ground. I unearth a few, and all of them are titled, “The Blissful.” Flipping through them, they all follow the same general motif, filled with abstract, unidentifiable shapes and scrawled out numbers.

As I search for alterity, a man emerging from the darkness. He wears a sparse, white beard that straggles down his emaciated torso, and his eyes are midnight cerulean, surrounded by purple aureoles. “You look mighty confused, young one.”

“Do you know what these books are? And why is everyone wearing a blindfold?”

“Ah, those books are actually personal journals. They are worth a hefty amount on the market. -” He is interrupted by a violent cough that overtakes him. “Err… The blindfolds are prescribed by doctors to treat debilitating sickness. They call it cognitive dissonance. I call it willful ignorance.” He pauses to accommodate another violent coughing fit. “What the Blissful, those people you see walking around here, see isn’t lining up to their personal realities, so they can either change their reality or, well, stop seeing.”

“Why aren’t you wearing one?”

“Err, when I came here, I ended up losing everything I had by a rotten stroke of luck… I had nothing left to lose, so I removed my blindfold. I must admit- I feel much better than I did when I was walking with that group blindfolded. The loneliness was crippling.”

“Sir, you look much more sickly than the Blissful running down the street.”

“Ha, my sickness is on the outside; theirs is on the inside. Pick your poison, kid.”

I thanked the man for his insight, and then prepared my notion marbles for navigation.

///

A melancholic periwinkle fills my view. Clouds appear overhead and a great ocean surrounds the small island. The empty solitude is disheveling. I notice a black book at the center; I open up the journal.

As I read through the pages, the island begins to tremble. A booming voice reverberates, as if seeping through the very sand, grit beneath my feet. The voice is a clap of thunder.

“Excuse me! It is quite intrusive to read through another’s journal! But you see, I was expecting eyes to be laid on its pages, so I ripped out a few of the pages and threw them into the sea!”

“My sincerest apologies.” I yell in an unspecific direction on the vacant island. The island itself was speaking. “I was just wondering why you decided to be an island.”

“So you’re an Observer? Very well, I’ll tell you. I spent my trial days with the Blissful, consumed by wealth, and with the Historians, consumed in their obsession for knowledge. All of it is a hopeless attempt to satiate desire. It is a corrupt system with these marble exchanges, so I resolved for my own peace of mind.Thus commenced my life as an island.”

Recalling a few thoughts from the Island’s journal, I recite, “‘I cannot help but feel my life of solitude is half-lived.’”

The island shakes so violently, I collapse to the ground. “Ha, so you already had the opportunity to read my black book, now did you? How intrusive! Anyway, living half-way seems better to me than living dead— to live a continuous death in every sense of the term, apart from its kind finality. Half-way sounds pretty alright to me!” Its voice exploded in overcompensated assurance.

I wondered what use it was to be an Island. “Do you count your life as something of consequence?”

“Of course I do! I’m of consequence to my own life and my life alone, so alone I shall be better off than not.”

I thank the Island for its insight and prepare my marbles for navigation.

///

The gruesome gray of smog drowns beneath soft clouds of rose pink and royal purple. Through the clearing, I see rows of telescopes on puffs of clouds, pointing toward the earth, below. I peer through a lens and to my dismay, the happenings of the Blissful City are once again in my view. There is a tap on my shoulder.

“You must be an Observer. We use those telescopes to record and study events that occur. You must have many questions. Lucky for you, as Historians, inquiry is our specialty.” The person appears to be neither male nor female, with round wireframe glasses and a black book in their hand.

“Where are all these black journals coming from? Everywhere I go, everyone seems to have a black book.”

“A black book is not given to you. The journal develops as your thoughts, experiences, and beliefs evolve, and then the ideas are recorded, almost subconsciously. In the case of the Blissful, they have exchanged their Reason notion for more Value marbles; however, having more than one of each notion creates Desire, an insatiable hunger for the multiplied notion. Value becomes so abstracted that it will never truly fill them. Consequently, their journals are riddled with abstraction.”

A peculiarity of the Island comes to mind. “In the case of the Island, it ripped pages out in fear of its journal being read by another. It seemed bizarre for it to choose a life of solitude but still be wary toward prying eyes.”

“Perhaps, he was not afraid; rather, he was hoping. The journal of the Island is also filled with Desire, but for what it has lost. The Island was once a woman, but she forfeited her Sense marble because the notion burdened her compassion for a people she was not able to help. Interactions with others became too painful for her, and so she opted for a life of solitude.”

Looking around, I see a cadre of Historians looking through the lens of telescopes while simultaneously scribbling through their black books in a frantic manner. All of them appear thin and atrophied. “Haven’t the Historians also exchanged marbles?”

“Unfortunately, yes. In order to gain Knowledge, we forfeited Value. It is quite crippling, because although we have the wisdom that comes from studying and recording the history of the different cores, we lack the resources to dwell amongst them. The predicament of the cores is quite puzzling.”

As the clouds drift from glorious rose and purple into midnight cerulean, the Sun sets on my trial, and the darkness overtakes my vision.

///

I open my eyes in the Neutral Space. A familiar voice speaks.

“The moment has arrived. Which core do you find to your liking? The Blissful, the Island, the Historians?” The Midwife begins gathering her belongings impatiently.

“Midwife, I can’t choose any of these cores. They are all quite terrible and lonesome. Is there no other option?”

“There is one other possibility, but you see, it is of the loneliest kind. Each core requires a particular exchange in marbles; however, there is a fourth option to keep the marbles you have presently in your possession. Like an island, you will be the only of your kind, like a city monger, blinded and uninformed by the experiences of others, and like the Historian, crippled by the lack of valuable contribution.”

I consider for a moment, and then I inquire, “What if I give all of my marbles away?”

The Midwife’s haste vanishes for a moment. “How do you mean?”

“What if I give a Blissful my Reason marble, the Island my Sense marble, and a Historian my Value marble? Then they would become their own community?” The Midwife seems bewildered at my suggestion. She considers for a moment and then replies hesitantly.

“I suppose so. However, the transition for recipients of your marbles will be very difficult, and I am unsure of your capabilities of survival in any environment after losing all your marbles.”

I reflect for a moment. “I am willing to try it.” The Midwife takes my marbles and prepares to deliver them. Suddenly, chthonic darkness surrounds me. The restraints holding my soul within its form release and the pressure feels as if my soul will implode. Then I am numb.

The fey darkness rescinds into a cosmopolis. Acacia adorns the city with emerald and umber. In one hand, I find a white journal with, “The Free,” inscribed on the cover. In the other, there is a bag of marbles of all notions. I open the book and there is a pen inside. The golden city is breathtaking, with splashes of vibrant color and filled with redivivus geist. I take out four marbles and navigate to the Blissful.

The wallowing gray consumes the gold and I return the dreary, blinded city. Here, I write my first entry: To be free is to forfeit desire for the good of others. I close the book and begin handing out Reason marbles to the frantic, blind Blissful cores, with the golden city a reality inside me.