The Pool

“The future is open and we are writing it moment to moment.”
Pema Chödrön, Buddhist nun, teacher and author

<< What if I asked you not to return home right now?

Lim
Who…?

<< If I made myself visible, you would go blind from the sheer stress on your visual cortex. The surge of energy would obliterate your neural pathways.

Lim
I can hear you. I can’t understand you. What language are you speaking?

<< I know. Hmmm… My brother and I are playing a game. He said that if I asked nicely, you would swim around for three more hours. He’s said I’m full of scorn for your species. I’m trying to reform.

Lim
Fraum? This is a trick. Pom!!! Stop. Come out.

<< He’s left you behind. He hasn’t gone to a better place, though. Well, not yet, at any rate.

Lim
First of all, I can’t see who is talking.

<< Please don’t go home now or else you will surely be killed.

Lim
Nonsense. No one can see the future. The Feast is over, Pom. No more festival tricks. Come out now.

<< You’re right. No one can see the future because there isn’t just one. We precisely calculate and see outcomes, in what you call the future, on any given string of intent.

Lim
String up in tent? That’s stupid! You’re stupid. Go away.

<< So be it. Ingracious beast.

The female twin pulls back to mull the situation over with her brother.

> You did not try hard enough.

<< His helical proteins fail to synchronise with this biosphere’s regenerative frequencies. That is consistent with his passive attempt at self erasure by swimming in that bottomless pool. Appropriate and amusing. I think we’ve made our point.

> His is not a significant loss. The data contained in his proteins do not contribute to evolutionary gains nor does it appear at any further point in the alternate timelines.

<< Good riddance. Let us leave him be.