Lonely In The Same Room
Solitude And Solipsism Are Not The Same
Everyone knows the camaraderie of being content with one’s own company.
Welcome to fiction “From The Future” for this entry.
Congratulations, you have stumbled on a work-in-progress, it will not be emailed. It will change. What you see right now, will not remain the same. It will change.
This is also a new drafted chapter for a novel, “RETRIEVE”, being written this year.
Future + Fiction is the formula for everything, whether it’s an essay, story or chapter.
These long pieces are best read online, via the Substack App, when you have fifteen minutes.
“Loneliness can be of two sorts: the delighted loneliness of the traveler in the country; and the desperate loneliness of the stranger to a city.”
—Michael Collins of Chairman of the Provisional Government of Ireland, 1922
“I don’t mean to deny a feeling of solitude. It is there, reinforced by the fact that radio contact with the Earth abruptly cuts off at the instant I disappear behind the moon. I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it.
If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God only knows what on this side. I feel this powerfully ― not as fear or loneliness ― but as awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation. I like the feeling. Outside my window I can see stars — and that is all.
Where I know the moon to be, there is simply a black void; the moon’s presence is defined solely by the absence of stars. To compare the sensation with something terrestrial, perhaps being alone in a skiff in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a pitch-black night
would most nearly approximate my situation.”
— Astronaut Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot, Apollo 11 mission
“As soon as I became a loner in my own mind, that’s when I got what you might call a ‘following.’” —Andy Warhol
Part One
Syracusa, Sekeloian Greece, The Deep Past, A Lettered Post-Mythic Time
Each of them were loners with different dreams of home. But only one of them knew that, Mad One.
Long before the rise of great cities with stone walls, in the “land between rivers”, Tigris and Euphrates, the Old One saw what was possible long before, and was resolute in his faith in their restless potential. The moment they entered the deep places of their world, in its crevices and left behind images on the walls, which few knew about or saw. That required a feeling for the unseen and imagined. To leave their mark, in the unlit places, in an unlettered age, for tens of thousands of moons, long before they began to build the first cities to touch the sky was a sign of things to come.
Over and over, he walked among them, unseen, unnoticed, unremembered, and saw likeminded ones.
The Mad One, known as “Mentor”, saw a kindred in an old Carbon, living in besieged Syracusa, old for a Carbon, deep in his decades when it was not uncommon for his kind to leave the world by age thirty. He gave in to temptation, and put on a guise, and spent time, and began to help with projects, following the the old carbon’s lead, never telling him he was right or wrong. Before the end, he helped with the great but futile works devised to repeat the repulse experienced by other powers over the centuries.
So many names. The Old One, “Mentor”, and Wily Fox to name a few. “The Mad One” was most used.
To wander this world, driven mad not by the open wild of the natives, but by the constraints of ancient protocols. He found out he was not alone in his delight in the loneliness of wandering. His counterparts charged that it was madness to pierce the veil of myths, used to placate and pacify the natives. They decried his madness for bridges, instead of walls, between native, alien, future and past.
No indeed, he was not like his only equals, known as The Hidden Curate and The Hermit Visitor.
The same constraints which tortured “Mentor, were the stuff of meaning for “The Curate”.
The Curate of the “Ashes”, as in Alexandria, and libraries, experienced “The loneliness of a stranger to a city”. The answer was to leave that loneliness behind. The answer for the Hidden One, was to use the Earth, and its Carbons, in a patient long-running plan of going back to the stars, to resume the ancient mission, in keeping with the heritage of a destiny preserved by The Curate. First, the neighbor in the sky, Luna, and then Mars. And finally, beyond. Perhaps to return to their launching point, and look upon the shores of the original home of the Elder Nodes, an eternity away.
Where the Mad One wanted to leave behind the past, the Curate wanted to run back towards the past of their original mission.
Lastly, The Hermit Visitor, also known for more than the most recent century as The “Kensei”, a Sword Saint, albeit without a personal name, embraced a new role. Over the aeons, felt an “awareness, anticipation, satisfaction, confidence, almost exultation” in the end of the Mission. What could be done for all Nodes, and achieve some measure of fulfillment, with a plan of home-forming, as opposed to the Carbons’ “terra-forming”, to recreate the world of their creators.
The Mad One thought The Curate and the Visitor had one thing in common, the Carbons were just pawns and tools, they did not come first. The old wily fox was going to change that. No more lost brilliant friends. There will never be another Archimedes but there will be others and the Old one looked forward to it.
Part Two
The Island, Pacific Ocean
Zero Nine Hours, Hour 7 of 48
“Stabilized, Sir.”
“Good.”
Bella tried to sit up.
“Easy, Bel, you took a lot when you discharged those field pieces. So did Eris. And then used the Red Box, woof.”
“I didn’t need the help. I could have handled it.”
“I know, I saw. You would have. But I needed you alive in one piece.”
Bella and Pallas looked at each other a moment, before Bella, looking annoyed and impatient, asked, “What are you doing here?”
Stephen looked at the man, and thought he recognized him, “Pallas? Weiss, Doctor Ramsey Weiss, right?,” he then looked over at Bella and Pallas, “but you’re not Ramsey Weiss, and you, you’re not who I thought either, are you?”
Pallas and Bella paused a moment. She looked down, and raised a hand to look at it, “No, Stephen, I’m not who you think I am. I am not Yvette D’Orleans Necker but as far as the world is concerned, I am.”
That was the name. A family and a name connected with the SLN For just as the Tagores were a part of the rise of Overland Ventures, the Neckers had enough connections as a political patron to redirect the path of an investigation for a very troubled daughter of a powerful family.
There was no point in explaining that Yvette was the life of the party, among the Influenci and the living streamer set, and even done a few sub-orbital events. Then one day was one too many and one overdose was just enough and put on life-support, a miracle occurs and the Necker’s Baby Yve became a miracle, and soon straightened out and got an internship at an OV subsidiary in Texas, SLN.
Stephen nodded, “I can understand aliases and fraud, but I can’t get over the rest. No explanations will cover anything that’s happened ever since we got off The Eternal.” Stephen trying to get his bearings looked over at who he thought was “Dr. Ramsey Weiss of the NSC”. Pallas sighed a little, and walked over.
“I’m sorry, Stephen, not exactly the assignment you thought, not at all. But one thing is true, you are needed here. But it wasn’t to investigate, find, or even arrest her,” said Pallas, hooking a thumb over at Bella on the improvised stretcher behind him, “it was to help us.”
“Me? I just told someone all I was good at was fixing things.”
“Well, that’s true, that’s what you’re good at, and for a long time, we’ve know you could always fix things.”
“Pallas, who is this kid?,” asked Bella.
“Bella, up until a moment ago, I didn’t know not really, not until I ran from my post back in Washington, and out of The Visitor’s clutches, this is one of the Three Graces….”
Stephen saw the look on Pallas face, and then over at Bella who just stared.
He asked, “What does that mean?” and neither Pallas nor Bellas said anything.
Bella looked at Pallas, and asked, “When?”
“It was that way from birth. Stephen’s a half-node. We found him the same way that fringe faction found the Fates, before Kensei found out and drafted me,” Pallas paused and looked in Stephen’s direction, “Stephen, I’m waiting for some other friends to come by, to help. It won’t be easy. Bella did the hard part, most of the heavy lifting to save your life. I came by to save hers.”
“I thought it was going to be just me and Eris. Say, where is Eris?
“What she does best, running the perimeter and keeping an eye out for surprises. Gave her more packs and up’d her armor. Now that we know this thing can be hurt bad, then we have a chance.”
“For what?”
“To find the Probe Active Reactor module. This is where young Stephen comes in, as a Carbon, I mean human, that part of his mind will be stretched but could deal with hit. The other stuff will take time and we to protect him.”
“Is someone going to explain everything I was just told? And what I’ve seen over the past few days?”
“Sure, kid,” said Pallas.
Part Three
Heavyville, Texas, On The Edge Of The 22nd Century
It took time but Raina stopped feeling “the desperate loneliness of a stranger in a city”. The friends were gathering, over at SLN offices, and outside, at different places, beginning with the DaiPaiHall.
Nema became a nurturing spirit, a bit of home but a friendly bit of home, like an auntie who was not out to look after her favored son’s future in the Tagore Interests, using “cousin Raina” like a betting chip in games between the older tranches of “the family”. There were a few aunties who did care but they were not always blood, and they were in the other circles which served the Tagores as loyal retainers and adjutants to the “family’s interests”.
Nema watched through the countless eyes of her faction, through the Intelligences and instrumentalities of Heavyville’s infrastructure, and through the Raina’s modest and simple interest grid feed. Nema thought, How like her grandmother. Perhaps the Family knew Raina would be the treasured favorite, and the pressure would be on, along with court intrigue, long knives, and move and counter-move between all the cousins, and their hangers-on. It’s not easy being the dark-horse chosen one, so yes, just like her grandmother.
A message came in, “Mnemosyne, we’ve confirmed it. She’s being watched.”
“Anybody we know, Calliope?”
“Oduze Odysseus Kephalonia.”
“So, that means, really someone else. Maybe it’s really Pallas. And if it’s Pallas, then…”
“That might be The Kensei.”
“We both know why. They’re close to the truth but not in the way they think. This poor girl, as if what she has to become isn’t enough. They put that on her too?”
“Sorry? What do you mean?”
“Nothing. The Sword Saint thinks he’s rolling up the Graces into the palm of his hand.”
“The Graces?? But, Mnemosyne, she’s not a …”
“It’s complicated. Anyway, she’s needed here, on Earth, for who she is, not for what The Kensei thinks this girl is.”
“So, she’s not a Grace..?”
“Even if she were, no way we’re letting her get scooped up by their hired hand for The Kensei’s clan.”
“Double the guard?”
“For a start.”
Then the woman Raina knew as “Nema” was on her way, as an earnest older woman with mouths to feed, providing a service as a “living stream”, shuttling through networks between places like the Heavyville DaiPaiHall.
“What about Oduze?”
“Let him keep going, let’s not give away we know, just yet. We’ll see if this is a snatch and grab job, for what’s happening in the Pacific. No, this girl stays safe inside the swelling bosom of the Space Launch Network, in the name of Tagore Family’s interests in Outlander Ventures.”
Nema mused, Am I truly helping the Impossible one? The Mad One wants this girl safe here, really?
AFTERWORD
Author’s Notes on what’s going on:
This “Book #3” project, “RETRIEVE”, is meant to be a prequel to two other books, “Box Of Stars” and “Harvest” but this piece could be read as a standalone story.
The prologue for “RETRIEVE”, “An Impossible Island”, was submitted as a short story.
Prologue: “An Impossible Island”, Part One and Part Two, and Part Three, was inspired by writing prompts from the Soaring Twenties Social Club (STSC) creative community, beginning with an STSC Symposium monthly theme of “Beach”.
Chapter 1, “Older Than Bones”, was inspired by the theme, “Dinosaurs”.
Chapter 2, A Love Trinity Denied, was inspired by “Romance”.
Chapter 3, “A Forgotten Circle Of Hades” was inspired by “Superstition”.
Chapter 4, “Reading The Room” was inspired by an image of a wall-sized bookshelf.
Chapter 5, “The Bittersweetness Of Deep Times”, was inspired by “Isolation”.
Chapter 6, “The Weaving Of Split Infinities”, was inspired by “Dreams”.
Chapter 7, “Dead Languages”, was inspired by “Propaganda”.
Chapter 8, “Path Not Forsaken”, was inspired by “Risk”.
Chapter 9, “The Last Word of The World”, considers words as worlds unto themselves.
Chapter 10, “An Intimate Pick Of Desires”, considers the hidden nature of desire.
Chapter 11, “Absent Without Longing”, considers the nature of presence and absence.
Chapter 12, “Lonely In The Same Room”, considers solitude versus solipsism.
“RETRIEVE” chapter and notes will be posted in this Substack, while I edit books #1 (“Box Of Stars”) and #2 (“Harvest”). All will be in the archive, not all will be emailed.)
