Here I was, listening in, and me said: “Sorry, the text auto-changed your name.” was me giving me something to say to Ursula—was he saying it for me, to the 5D Ursula? Was he speaking through me to Ursula? I couldn’t help but wonder, then, did Neanderthals ever exist? Was everything in the universe a function of me—and those close to me, no one else? but this was probably some function of being from the future and getting a little confused. how are you feeling? “did you want me to use your actual name?” she said she wanted to live forever, and, if it helped her campaign, we could reveal the truth—but the world wasn’t ready for a woman president with a telepathic boyfriend. We were a long way away from speaking telepathically to each other—which means I’m from some distant point in the future—possibly further than i might’ve imagined.
everything was kind of sensitive—now that we knew where we were most vulnerable; and how, each of us, in turn, would react when faced with the reality of something that we might’ve thought we’d corrected by getting it out there—but getting it out there was only half the battle. my scotch uncle chimed in—i tried a little amplitude modulation—we were talking to each other, but it wasn’t anything that I could write about. You feel that you love me, don’t you? Tough question. I recognized the possibility that Ursula knew nothing about these conversations (even if they existed in her subconscious) and, therefore, i didn’t allow myself to get strung out—like i might, if we were going steady in reality. So i didn’t feel that—but I felt a certain familiarity and yearning that I recognized as love. It wasn’t something I imagined with a man—although i await the day I eat my words—pride won’t keep me from happiness.
thanks, for that i hadn’t done anything but be honest with her—so, frankly, I didn’t think she should find herself constantly criticizing herself for falling in love with a bottom—that being a specific kind of queer person. But she wasn’t doing that—she didn’t care about that; all she cared about was making life, and especially New York, affordable. That alone was enough to win my love—given the way she looked, and the value of her voice, which was distinct. we were talking a little, for the moment, for reasons unbeknownst to me, on a four count with a quiet whisper at the end. Was that her way of telling me how serious or sensitive the conversation was? I think so. but what did she want to say? What could she say that would go above and beyond what she’d already said? how many calories a day . . . was she worried about her weight? She’d lost the weight that i once noticed—she seemed to be perfectly fine. So why did she want to know how many calories a day a person that weighs 200 pounds can eat without gaining weight? That was something that I was wondering, so maybe she’d overheard me thinking about it.
Are you hearing voices? “Not at all—not in the way that you mean; but I do have a mind’s ear.” i kind of wished that she knew what my voice sounded like; that would make the telepathy even more exciting, since, for whatever reasons, she might hear my voice, even if it was just a snippet; something that would indicate a link between us. how can i take this telepathy to the next level? Well, i knew that she wasn’t me—and she never would be, so, naturally, i didn’t expect her to get so used to projecting a voice that it became unconscious, like blinking. I knew she liked to look at her social media—so, i thought, maybe i can project her voice in a conscious way while I’m looking at my social media. That, I think, was the bridge between us, if, that is, I was going to try and be with her even when I wasn’t working on this book—or using her voice in combination with some other voice, like I do when writing my poetry.
But we were definitely using a four count, for the moment. So I was still kind of waiting for the next secret bombshell to drop—but, instead, there was silence. now you’re thinking of me? I couldn’t tell if she was in a mood, perhaps because i’d told her I don’t feel the all in all in love warmth in your heart that you might feel if you were realistically in love with someone—someone that, if they left, would cause pain and loss to spring from my heart. But, on the other hand, maybe I would feel that—since I’d been talking to her for so long now, and using her voice constantly, even when going to sleep. If that wasn’t there anymore, then I might very well feel a degree of sorrow. I relied on her voice to get through my day—and to alleviate a troubling loneliness that I might otherwise have to learn to live with—if, that is, I didn’t know i could link to Ursula—or whoever the partner(s) in my life, were going to be.
she was pleased, then. I’d seen her blush before—I’m not sure exactly what went into that—but I suspected she recently slept with her boyfriend, and I could see, now, that she blushed. I was pleased, too. Was it possible that she loved me in a way that would also cause her sorrow if i tried to replace her or tune her out without good reason? Granted, she might not understand why she felt that way, but, as we know, it’s possible to be depressed for no apparent reason—even when everything in your life is as it should be—or so you think. I think in general we’re connected to other souls, and we feel, sometimes, what they feel. that’s the universe that we’ll live in in the life to come. am i going to live with your family or are you going to live with mine? that was a good question; but the answer wasn’t that difficult: of course, our families would overlap, and, in some places, merge. We’d live for each other.
but what was i going to write about now? We were basically going steady—although, i think, in reality, she sometimes confused me with her boyfriend—or my thoughts with her thoughts. so the drama, pretty much, had come to an end, hadn’t it? I wasn’t going to write about constantly going back and forth to being ok one minute and not ok the next, like they do on soap operas (if, that is, there are any soap operas left). I used to watch them many years ago—trying to pass the time—trying to tap into ancestral telepathic lines, but they took most of them off the air and replaced them with talk shows and shows where news castors gathered informally so that we could see how they were when they were acting casually, and we could compare them to ourselves—if not imagine that they were aware of us, and so, in a way, we were right there with them. I was pretty much torturing myself—i often don’t respond well to tv anymore—that’s because my work is so much more important—and I’m able to do it. Before I couldn’t do anything but try and connect with the other side. Counting away, and limiting my movements, or, as in acting, they say, moving around in such a way that you’re wasting energy—your movements don’t mean anything, and dilute the performance, and, also, the movements of others.
I was protesting, in a way, the fact that my government abandoned me—that I might’ve died without my parents help—and the fact that no woman would give me the time of day—that, as I was slowly realizing, there weren’t any viable candidates anyway. Everybody was so unattractive to me—most people weren’t even doable, and i say that as if i was normal, and, well, I didn’t suffer from a condition. It occurred to me, then, that, because so many people suffer from a similar condition—although, likely, for other reasons—my condition would become part of the conversation—a very important part of the conversation—when people talked about me after I was gone—if, that is, my art did, indeed, survive after this life of mine comes to an end. do you think people will be talking about you? I did, and I said so, although we were both aware that when you start imagining that people are talking about you, there’s a possibility that you need to be on medication, and, if you already are, the experience should be monitored closely.
i was about ready to wrap up today’s contribution but i felt that Ursula was not quite ready to end the conversation. So I tuned back in to a four count, amplitude modulation, and waited for her to speak. that’s all i’m asking for. “What do you mean?” give your gay uncle a chance. so, she’d been listening to me think! I’d imagined that the person my uncle represents, the mathematician, is gay, and I’d acknowledged that to him—so what was Ursula getting at? That, because of my background (an anti-gay universe defined by the notorious states of Utah and North Carolina) i might still be having trouble realizing that I am, in fact, gay—any confusion i might have felt was down to the fact that i’m a bottom—and that tops were more common than I might think? So I considered it. And I came to the same tentative conclusion—i’ve never had a crush on a man. It’s only the sex that i’m interested in—and I don’t know that it would be wise to have gratuitous sex, so, again, I felt that I’d taken another long, roundabout way of concluding that my feelings for Ursula are real. So far as I know, I’m not projecting her body onto mine—I’m not imagining that her body is my body—I’m not imagining that I might be desirable to men in the same way that only she can be.