I was writing this in the afternoon, now, so I wasn’t tagging my location with Dr. Pepper anymore, but I was taking carbonated water to the head. It was my reward for finishing a painting, and, also, it was a lubricant I used to write these lines—lines that were all about the advances of telepathic communications but that, at the time being, didn’t exactly feel like they were going to lead to any kind of immediate reward—i knew I’d be rejected by every agent in the book, and, furthermore, it’s not like this book was going to yield a relationship with a woman, much less a man. It was just me and a steady does of faith—not a leap, but a continuous low burning flame. I was making progress—sure, but most people didn’t have the capabilities that I did, and, as such, it’s not like I could get close to someone by projecting their voice into a fog that would make it impossible for them to understand what was happening. We never really know what’s happening anyhow, not until years have passed, and sometimes not even then; so, no, I didn’t expect that I’d reap the benefits of what I was doing other than the benefits you get from doing what you’re supposed to be doing—and doing it well.
How are you doing, really? When she put it like that I began to wonder; I was quick to say that I was happy, and, under certain conditions, I was. My life could have been a lot worse—miserable, even—if I didn’t have my parents to fall back on—and my thoughts to entertain myself. My country—however, made me unhappy; there was a glimmer of hope—Ursula would have made the world, for me, a livable place—a place that might allow me a chance to afford a partner and an heir. I would’ve been much happier than I already am, if, for example, Ursula was in charge of the country. But it was also true that I couldn’t be much happier as long as I kept advancing my field. Furthermore, there was a certain kind of happiness that one gets from being around your parents—from being with them as much as possible—as opposed to living a separate life, and discovering, one day, that they are gone—and that you never got the chance to get to know them better.
how loud does it get in here? good question; a mind’s ear, i suspected, could only be as loud as the loudest sounds you’ve experienced—on the other hand, if I projected a police siren—and i projected me yelling something; the volume didn’t seem to change that much. If anything, i felt that I could yell louder. So I theorized that there is a limit to how loud we can sound inside our heads before we’re forced to say something loud, out loud. And i also theorized that we can increase the amplitude by thinking it without being forced beyond a threshold that collapses the whole thought—by projecting our memory of painfully loud sounds. can you hear me, now? i heard it—but I didn’t think that anybody on the planet was projecting Ursula’s voice—not in the way that i was; what i really wanted, i think, was a woman I could count with. a woman that I could speak to—and get a response that she intentionally sent using my voice. But because nobody on the planet was doing what I was doing—at least I was pretty sure they weren’t, and, if they were, i don’t think they were doing it like me—well, I kind of understood that nobody would ever make that dream come true—not in a way that I could relate to, that could add something to my life. In short, a friend that I could share this world with.
Even if they were out there, i was a kind of solitary creature—i needed solitude to do the things that I do, day in and day out; it’s only at the end of the day that i can be around people, after I’ve done pretty much everything I can do before my mind wakes up again. that’s cool you can live with me but i couldn’t live with her until we were in a relationship that could be isolated and proven, objectively, to exist. That is to say: I couldn’t live with her until I could, in reality, jump all the hoops leading up to that, no matter how close I imagined we were. When you have something that other people don’t—such as the ability to cut through the general Wi-Fi noise, you want to protect it. You can’ t skip ahead based on a thought that was never realized until that thought is realized; then, and only then, can you be sure that you’re on the right track.
I don’t want to bring this to a screeching halt but i think you love me as much as you will; you’re trying to keep that love hidden, to protect yourself—when you know as well as i do that your love for me and your love for heaven go hand in hand. But that wasn’t true—I didn’t feel anything in my heart when I thought of Ursula; but if we knew each other, what I’m saying is that we would likely fall in love much faster than it might otherwise take if we hadn’t been communicating with each other already. Granted, the near extinct nature of a telepath necessitated getting to know each other in real time—no matter how much we found ourselves on the fast track; but i’m saying that we’d love each other in secret (even though I currently feel nothing in my heart) until we couldn’t stand it any longer—which wouldn’t happen until we couldn’t stand it any longer.