Sakura Sweet Chapter 4: Abacus Shumabacus.

He didn’t like where he was going. Not at all. The forest, the leaves, the sticks that crunched underneath his feet as he followed in the footsteps of the elf man dude. What was his name again? Elf man dude? Legolas? Maybe Johnathan should call him that from now on. Legolas. Oh hey, there, Legolas. Didn’t see you there. How’s it been going since you lost touch with your dwarf boyfriend Gimli? Did you guys have a fight or something?

Of course he wasn’t actually going to say that. Unless elves could read minds.

Which we can.

The voice broke into his head like a sudden deluge of hot chocolate poured over ice cream where the ice cream melted instantly and turned to ashes in his mouth. Oh. So is it true that you broke up with him?

The elf said nothing.

You’re not denying it?

The elf said nothing.

Johnathan rubbed his hands together, or at least, tried to do the best he could all bound by the hands and knees like he was, trailing behind the elf man dude with long hair attached to a rope that the elf man dude was dragging—maybe Johnathan really should call him Legolas—and soon he would be bound by the mouth as well, if he kept up his internal dialog like this. Shit. This was complicated. How was he communicating with the elf man dude?

“You’re not.”

Ah. Johnathan relaxed.

Then he realized what had happened. “Oh,” he said. “Oh.”

“Oh. Very nice words to describe what you’re feeling. Do explain.”

“I thought I was your captive.”

“You are. But I’m bored. What do you want to do with your free time before you get tossed into a dungeon for trespassing on Kireut land?”

Johnathan shrugged. “Anything, really. Wanna play shiritori?”

“Don’t know what that game is. Do explain it.”

“It’s Japanese where we—“

The elf tugged on Johnathan’s leash. “I hate Japanese. Don’t mention it in front of the king lest you die, your head chopped off and fed to the immortals.”

“The immortals?” Johnathan asked.

“Yeah,” said the elf man dude. “The immortals.” He paused. “What do you want me to explain about them?” he asked. “I mean, you’re probably going to end up there anyways whether or not I explain it to you. So I might as well explain how you’re going to die.”

Johnathan swallowed. “I,” he said. “I,” he paused. “I don’t know.”  He tried to scratch his nose but failed miserably. “What do you want to know about me? I have lots of things to talk about.” He sensed that the elf man dude was tensing up against him. His mental barrage was becoming more fragmented. Who was really behind that iron mental wall? Nobody? A real sentient being? Or were they all projections of Johnathan’s delusional mind?

He didn’t care. At least he could think straight now. All he wanted to do was to go home and watch his teakettle boil. Did that sound familiar? It must have.

Oh, right. The Hobbit. Or, otherwise known as, “There and Back Again.”

Was this that world? Did the one ring really exist here? Whose fault was it that it was created? Who built it—did Sauron really manage to create it by himself? Who was Sauron? Was he really the bad guy? Who was the bad guy? Did Sauron have any real reason to fight his enemies? What did Sauron want? What about Saruman? Did someone go and tell Saruman to do all the things he did? Where was Gandalf the Grey? Who was he? What happened to him? Where was he now? Was he still alive? As Gandalf the Grey, the White, the Purple? That sounded cool. Gandalf the Purple. Purple was a good color. A nice one. A good one for the ages. This is how he wanted it done—like this. Gandalf was real, wasn’t here?

The elf man dude looked uncomfortable. Had he been reading Johnathan’s mind? Who was he? Where did he come from? Too many questions! They were all pouring out at once. Then a voice popped into Johnathan’s mind.

He really is Legolas, you know.

Socrates vs Euclid: is the world flat or round?

Hey you all, I'm the moderator of this debate--the name's Zeppy Cheng don't forget it. Or forget it. Hell if I care. This shit (If you'll pardon my rough Germanic) is for real. Got them right here, Socrates and Euclid. Let's have a showdown.

The dice have been rolled. Socrates first. He chooses to argue--the world is flat!
Has he become the devil's advocate? Let's ask him!

Socrates: I still don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'd love to try. You can call me whatever is needed to get the job done.

All, right now! Let's talk this over with Euclid. Do you have any qualms before the game starts?

Euclid: Naw, no way brah. I got this shit covered. The world is round all the way through and ain't anybody denyin' it.

That's that! Let the games begin!

Socrates: Imagine the world as a diamond.  A big diamond--kind of like those diamonds in minecraft. I do like minecraft, by the way. It's very fun. Validates a lot of my methodology.

And how does that work?

Socrates: Aristotle came up with the idea of an atom--but I'm the one who made that idea popular.

Oh, look at Socrates! Trying to take the credit from someone else~!

Socrates: Can I continue?

Go ahead. Sorry for interrupting you.

Socrates: My basic idea is that the world is flat because it is possible to simulate it as being flat inside of a game.  The idea is that, inside a game, things only work which are in the "event horizon," or rather to put it in a more logical format: you can't imagine something that is not true on some level.

Let's see how Euclid responds to that!

Euclid: you're a dick, Socrates. A really preposterous one. That ain't nothing compared to the evidence that the world is round. Chris Colombia is my brah.

Isn't that last name pronounced "Columbus?"

Euclid: He's my brah and that's what I call him, bro.

So what is your rebuttal against Socrates's argument?

Euclid. Ain't got one cept for the information that's out there. I mean, just look at it. From space. Lot'sa stuff orbitin' around it and such and that can't happen unless it's spherical. Spherical, brah.

That's it for today! Socrates has won this round--will Euclid recover in the next?

Euclid: Hey!  Why do you say I lost?

Because Socrates made an argument that was stronger than yours.

Euclid: what do you mean?

Oh, look at the time! It's time to start packing up. Next time, Euclid, I'm sure you'll do better.

Euclid: stop patronizing me. *Sticks out tongue.*

Sakura Sweet chapter 3 part 2

Chapter 3 part 2

Johnathan did not need to think about that one. “Yes.” He stepped through the door. The door did not look to him like a real door; rather, it felt like a portal through which he was passed hand to hand between two gods at large who both wanted to keep his soul intact. Both were kept intact. Both of his souls. How did he know? He didn’t. He just wanted to understand what was happening to him.

Why was he doing this? What kind of energy did it take to send his body into an alternate dimension? He didn’t know. He still didn’t know. He knew nothing. Nothing at all about where he was going. Land, fire, water, trees, big rocks and boulders and a river with a waterfall attached to its end, flowing over the pebbles and the rocks that made up the body of the streambed with which he was having sex right now. That’s it. It was all a metaphor for sex. Everything was a metaphor for sex. Sex, sex, sex, it was all sex. Was that what was leading him astray? Perhaps. Indeed. It was. Sex was the fault with which humanity was given its last chance to prove that it was not indeed like any of the other species what with the flies and the fruits and such as did not matter to him who looked at them.

He lit them on fire. He lit all of it on fire. With a flick of his wrist. All gone. All gone and dead. The streambed had disappeared and in its place was a massive crater the size of two men together having sex with each other without protection—was that even a bad thing? Johnathan didn’t know shit about any of it. He didn’t want to know shit. No shit was his policy. He didn’t take any shit. No shit at all, neither did he take crap or fuckery or any of those other four-letter words which implied weakness in both the speaker and the listener with which he was about to engage amidst the crime of hallucination. Because that’s all it was. Hallucination. Hallucination, Hallucination, Hallucination. Definite hallucination. That’s all it really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really was. All a hallucination. All of it. Then why was he here. Why am I here? He asked that question of himself. Had he really destroyed anything with his powers? Had he really done anything magnificent like he had been told he would do? What were his powers like? What were they? Whose were they? They weren’t his—they weren’t his! Where did they come from?! Italics. He liked to think of it in terms of italics. Why did he think that way? He didn’t know. What were italics, anyways? Something to show that a sentence was imaginary? All in his head? Whose italics were they?

And then they spoke to him. “We are here for you to enjoy. We are your presence.” His eyes were opened. It really was a waterfall. A beautiful waterfall. Rainbows. There was no crater. He had imagined it. Where was he now? He didn’t care. Not at all. In no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way, no way was he going to believe any of it—but he did. It was all in his mind where he kept the rest of the stuff.

And there he had it. The perfect peace. White space. White space everywhere. He was clean.

He decided to take a bath in the river. It was cold. Sharply cold. Deathly cold. Did he die? He hoped not. Perhaps he did. Perhaps. But for now he looked out at the world as it was and saw nothing—or did he see—

“You!” An arrow struck a rock behind his head and bounced off, hitting his skull, giving him sharp pain. The voice came from the underbrush in front of him. It was all underbrush but in a specific place was what was—was it?—it was—a duck blind. But not a duck blind in the modern sense. An old fashioned one. Arrows. Of course there would be arrows. He knew where he was now. Krackotoa. The realm of the beast, the sword, the magic, the system and the happiness with which he was blessed. Krackotoa. The land of the fighter and the dreamer, where good and evil came together to join forces against the power of boredom.

So, what was his mission? His mission was simple. Become king. And how would he do that?

By making friends. He lifted up his hand. “Hello there!”

The voice behind the bush responded. “You, there. You move and we shoot.”

Johnathan didn’t move. The voice spoke again.

“You there. Come out of the river. Slowly so that we can watch you. Don’t dress yourself. Come with us and we’ll promise to not shoot.”

“Sounds good to me,” he said. He climbed out of the river—it was cold outside—and stopped in front of the bush. A man’s head popped out of the blind. He was grizzled, old, but not too old, perhaps aged by the sun rather than by time. Johnathan’s guess put him at late forties. An old, wise late forties. Perhaps this man really was a kind man at heart. He seemed it. Johnathan held out his hand. The man stared at it. Stared at it some more. Two more men stepped out from behind trees. But they weren’t men.

Elves? They were elves? With the pointy ears—their ears were pointy! Pointy ears! Holy shit! Johnathan’s eyes went wide. Very wide. Wide enough so that he could see what he missed. The river wasn’t regular water. It was holy water! Where had he gone to get something like that?! He put his hands on top of his head. “Take me where you will. I will accompany you.”

The chief elf guy stood all the way up. He was tall. Very tall. Like a mushroom had been ingested at some point and then never faded away into oblivion. A Mario mushroom, of course. Except this one stretched the main elf guy up into the stratosphere. Though, not really. All Johnathan had to do to look into his eyes was tilt his head a little bit. Upwards. Tilt his head upwards.

“Six feet four inches,” said Johnathan. “You’re six feet four inches.”

The main elf dude narrowed his vision. His eyelids scrunched up together at the bridge of his nose. In a strange way. Did elves have sideways eyelids? It seems as though they did. Hm, thought Johnathan. Interesting. He held out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

The main elf dude narrowed his vision some more. “Who are you,” he said. “And what do you want with me?” Johnathan shrugged and then shook his head. “I don’t know.” He looked at his hand. There was a ring. The one ring to rule them all, of course. But it wasn’t. Was it gold? It was gold. Real gold. So he had bought the real stuff indeed. The elf man dude snarled as he caught sight of what Johnathan had on his pinky finger. The ring. Always worn there because the size had been too small but the ring had been so beautiful. That is why he had bought it. Because it was pretty. Pretty for Emile. Too pretty for her apparently.

“You,” said the elf. “Take that ring off.” Johnathan sensed danger. So he took it off and handed it to the elf dude man. The elf dude man examined it in his palm like it was a hot coal. And perhaps as if his hands were covered in asbestos. Perhaps.

Johnathan—he smiled, a lot, big—he liked to smile like that. Well, now he did. He didn’t know if he had before. Perhaps he had at one point before he met Emile. His grin was stupid silly and he knew it. The elf dude man was on guard. Johnathan could see it. The elf dude man was very much suspicious of him.

Why was he suspicious? Johnathan didn’t know. He didn’t know at all whether or not to trust this man. He wasn’t a man, though. He was an elf. With sideways eyelids. And maybe even two layers. Like a cat squid. Evil but not evil. True neutral. That’s what these elves were. True neutral. So perhaps they would respond to objective truth.

Johnathan said: “Take my ring and give it to your queen.” He then reached into the river and washed his hands. He said: “I now wash my hands of the responsibility of taking care of that piece of metal.”

The elf dude man sighed, closed his hands around the ring, and turned to his followers. “Let him get dressed,” he said. “We’re going to take him to Galadriel.” Which meant that he really was in the Tolkien universe. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed. Johnathan rubbed his hands together. Very, very interesting.

Interesting indeed. 

Sakura Sweet Chapter 3 part 1: Fish Sticks

Done. Done with the world. That’s what he was; done. Done with the world. All the way done. Where was he now? All he could see were the trees of the Fangorn Forest. How did he knew which forest it was? He didn’t. But it looks like the Fangorn forest. All creepy and viney and full of Tolkeinesque evils. Like the giant spiders. He hated those giant spiders as they were described in Tolkien’s books. None of them. He didn’t want to see any of them. Any of them—if he were to see them he would crap his pants then, there, no matter where he was; in the bathroom included.

Hah. In the bathroom. As if such pleasures existed in this world. Where was he? He didn’t know.

Grass. Grass everywhere. The Fangorn forest in the distance. Mist. Mist that covered the ground and made his feet hard to see—but it did not go above his ankles—he could still see the tips of the long green shards which he assumed was grass but in reality did not know the true nature of in any conceivable way. He could be hallucinating. Probably was. He decided not to test it.

Bend down. Touch the grass. One, two, three, five and a dime and it’s done. He picked a blade of grass—it separated from its roots and pulled up a clod of dirt up with it. So it was grass after all. It really was grass. Grass was green. This stuff was green. He could touch it, feel it, breathe in its scent—he had it up against his nose. Grassy. The stuff of magic. Of course it would be the stuff of magic—but what did that matter to him? He wasn’t JRR Tolkien. He wasn’t anybody. Nobody at all. Just Johnathan the schizophrenic. No longer loved by Emile. No longer loved by everyone.

He sat down. He looked at his hands. He felt the cold touch of dew grass against his Golutius maximus shumaxiomus. His butt. But he was wearing pants. Was the grass really that wet? He picked another blade and sniffed it.

I should be going now. He got up and looked around. Where should I go from here? Help was probably on the way. Probably. Unless he had entered another universe. From there he could see the stars, see the night sky as it rotated above him. He looked and he sighed at the beauty of it all. Maybe he wasn’t crazy after all. Maybe it was his own fault for doing something so stupid in the first place—did he really do it? Or was it thrust onto him? Maybe both. A little of both.

He didn’t like to think about it hat way. He liked to think about it in his own way. The way that he had always been taught—the way it was supposed to be done, the way that people had always done to him—the way that he hated which included mental hospitals and shock treatment and the stench of grey death on the hardware with which they killed people and treated schizophrenics—all the same chair. Just different doses of electricity. Different doses. Did they kill him? They might have. He might be dead. This might be—

Heaven. Maybe he was in heaven. It certainly looked like heaven. But it was very open, happy, a nice place to be in. Not at all like the heaven he imagined. Full of rude people who thought they deserved to be there. You don’t deserve to be there either. Shut up. No you shut up. Begone.

He listened. Was he gone? The voice in his head? Maybe. I think so. What made him think so? He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know.

Things stayed the same. He had let everything go. Hadn’t he? A long time ago. He had given up. That’s why he didn’t take his medicine. Not because he forgot. But because he was tired. So tired. Tired to the bones—chilled to the bones. All the way down to his innermost being—the marrow, the place where his blood cells were created and the place from which everything else grew, his body, his head, his mind—all of it was blood.

Good going. You got through it. He thought. They were definitely his own thoughts. His own thoughts. He had control. Control over what he would do with his life. Where was he now? Where was this place? What was this place? How did this place come into being? Was it all in his head?

No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t in his head. He could feel the grass. Smell the glue that held the world together—was it the fog? What was it?

“Hello there.” A traveler. Dressed in a black clockwork metal suit with night-like absorptive properties and the sheen of a carrot given all its peel removed. Or something like that. Johnathan had no meter with which to judge this man’s craziness. “Good morning.” The man spoke. He also lifted his arm at the same time with a gun in the palm of his hand. Not aimed at Johnathan. Not aimed at all. Nowhere did Johnathan see any probable thing which might occur at this moment of a consequence of his contact with this man. In other words, he felt as if this man could be given a trusting spirit without the fear of its abusive relationship becoming snarled with hope. Hope was the real word here. Hope was the thing which Jonathan most desired. Did he have hope that this man would be friendly? Would be an ally? He looked at his feet—they were bare. He spoke.

“Who are you?”

The man in the black suit gave no reply for a long moment. Then he moved. Click, clack, his armor went. Clickety clack like an insect train on horse racing day. Shumorse racing day. Who was it? Who could they be? Johnathan needed to find out. He spoke.

“Can you please—“ he was cut off.

“My name is Arl,” said the man in the black armor suit. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“What do you mean?” Johnathan asked. He continued to stare at the ground on which his feet stood, the place where they resided when he wasn’t looking at them—what kind of a place was that? Was it a good place? Did his feet like it? I think they do. My feel like gold, I don’t want them to fall off. Will they fall off? He shook his head. They wouldn’t. They love me as I love them. Nice feet. He had nice feet. They were very warm and nice feet. Even though it was cold. How could that be?

A sword. The gun in the black suited man’s hand turned into a sword. His name is Arl. His name was Arl.

“Arl?” Johnathan said. “Is that you name?”

Arl simply tilted his head. “It is if you want it to be.”

Johnathan shook his head twice, then three times. “I don’t know. Do you know what I want from life?”

Arl did not respond for a very long time. Then he shifted on his feet. “Come,” he said. “I will show you the true nature of your being.”

Come? What kind of come did this person expect from him? A sexual come? That would have been nice in the moment. Jonathan couldn’t remember the last time he had a sexual come. Was it ten years ago? Twenty? With whom, Emile? Definitely not her. They were all out to get him. All of them. But not. Not anymore. He was safe. How did he know that? He didn’t. Not at all did he know what was going to happen from here on out—but he had the intuitive feeling that he was safe.

I can come out now. I can do this myelf. I no longer need my shield. My shield has come off. It is me. I am this world’s king. Are I not? You are.

“I am,” he said, and looked the black-shouldered man in the eyes. “Arl. You said that was your name, correct?”

Arl simply gave a single nod and did not say a word. “And who are you to say it isn’t?”

“It is.”

“Very well. My name is Arl to you, then.” Arl shifted on his feet again. “And you may still call me what you wish. I will call you master.”

“From now on?”

“From now on until the end of that which has no end. Until the end of time.”

Arl tilted his head to the left. “Will you come?”

“I will come. With you. To wherever you are going, I will come with you.”

Arl bowed his head and his shoulders. “Very well. You may come with me if you wish.”

He didn’t move an inch. Neither did Johnathan. They stayed in that position for a very long eternity momentarily transfixed by each other. Who was he? Thought Johnathan. To himself. No proxies needed. Who was this man who stood in front of him in full black armor, so much armor that he could not see his eyes. Who was he then, that he could imagine someone like Johnathan to be the ruler of the world? Why did Johnathan need to think that way? What happened to his life? His old life? Emile? Where was she? Was she gone? . . . Help me and you will find peace. That is what Gerald said to him as he died in the mental hospital of a drug overdose—they overdosed him with lithium and then as a punishment for an unrelated “crime” put him in solitary with no food or water for three days. And lithium does not play nice with the dehydrated. Not nice at all because of who it is and who it represents. Not that Johnathan knew much about brain chemistry. All he knew is that Gerald had died. All the way. Dead. Never to be seen again. Because he trusted the doctors.

You can’t trust doctors.

And why can’t I?

Johnathan looked the black-suited man in the eyes through his eye slits. He could see them. They were green. Quite feminine as a matter of fact. Why were they feminine? Was there a reason? Or was it just another delusion. Another delusion? Johnathan had had enough of those in his lifetime. Not just one too many but thousands to many. The first one was the worst. The last one was the biggest. And now he was trapped in a strange blank world with a man in a black suit of armor at his side who called himself Arl but whose real name he did not know—perhaps the man really was named Arl. Perhaps. Did it matter—no, it did not. Johnathan took a step forwards. “What are you doing?” He said. The man looking at him bowed his head to the ground. He then looked up from his position and hung his head in a statement of humility.

“You are my king.”

Johnathan said nothing. He only knew in his bones that the man in the black suit was right. Arl. He would be called Arl from now on. “I christen you Arl.” Arl shifted and looked at his hands.

“I suppose you can call me that after all. It’s not what people usually call me but I think it’s worth it to at least try. Keep going with it and you might find something useful to come out of it. Keep going and then you will see what kind of a place you have entered. You do know where are, right?”

Johnathan answered: “No, I don’t.” He really didn’t know where he was. Why was he here? Where was he. He asked that question of himself again, and then again. Where was he?

Arl abruptly turned around. He began to walk away. Johnathan reached out his arm—Arl stopped. He turned around.

“Come. That is all I can tell you at this moment.”

Johnathan began to walk, slowly at first, and then quicker as Arl increased his step.

“Are you okay with an information dump?” Arl said.

“Dump?” Johnathan asked. “What do you mean by that.”

“You’re the king. You need to know some things before you go on your quest.”

Johnathan said: “Quest? What Quest?” He paused and waited for an answer.

The answer came. “You will see.” Arl quickened his pace some more as if he were in a hurry to get to the place he needed to be at that moment. However, Johnathan didn’t sense any impatience seeping out of Arl’s body. He was calm. Strangely calm. As if his armor were blocking Johnathan from getting a read on his emotions. Was it even true? Was it even possible for things to be this way? Arl stopped. Johnathan stopped with him.

“Where are you taking me?” Johnathan asked.

Arl answered: “Your quest begins here.” A door shot up from out of a trench in the ground and filled with a shiny liquid bubble that pulsated orange, red, orange, purple, orange, orange orange and sunshine and little bits of darkness swirling around in their complicated dance patterns—the patterns which for some reason Johnathan found oddly appealing. “I will now let you in. Step forth. Johnathan. I now christen you Christ.”

Johnathan—Christ—stepped forwards. He took off his hat. Had he been wearing a hat before? He didn’t know. Actually, he most likely wasn’t. Because the hat was made of gold and he would have noticed if it were there—gold was heavy. Very heavy.

Arl motioned towards the door. “I am the gatekeeper,” he said. “I will protect you in this realm. I cannot guarantee you anything else. Do you wish to put your life in danger for the sake of an unkown amount of people you have never met?”

Johnathan did not need to think about that one. “Yes.” He stepped through the door.