The Horton Dilemma [ONC 2022]

IZZY SEEKS THE COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS

A piece of Horton's brain is now fused with my own brain, the piece we hope is responsible for his enhanced mind abilities—most importantly, his ability to teleport.

I have his hyper-technological scepter in my hand, but as far as my puny little human brain is concerned (I mean, the parts of my brain that didn't originally belong to Hortons), it might as well be a magic staff.

Closing my eyes, concentrating, I try to "target" the place of no egos. I'm not sure what Horton meant when he said places needed to be targeted with his mind ability. Did he need to picture them? No—because that would have to mean he had been to those places before. He hadn't been here before he came here. He just knew where our world was located, because of the beacon/scale he put inside of me.

Maybe I left a part of myself in the place of no egos when I went there. That's what Horton called it. That's the highest/outermost place I can think of. Maybe there—maybe there, someone, something, can fix this mess.

I hone in on that feeling I had, that feeling when I forgot who and what I was. When I forgot I, me, myself.

Where everything existed all at once. Where everything was a paradox.

Where everything was harmonious, despite being sometimes cacophonous and full of opposing forces.

I lift the scepter up, then swish it downward and diagonally. Take me there.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Surrounding me is that infinite organism/machine/cyborg thing, made up of anything and everything all at once. Eyes. Noses. Gears. Levers. Planets. Atoms. Coffee pots.

But I'm still me.

∞Hello, Izzy. Welcome. It surprises us to see you here—a separate being. Last time you were here, you merged with us. But now, you bring your physical body. Do you remember what it was like to awaken as the cosmic consciousness, Izzy? To lose yourself and become ourself?∞

The voice booms all around me. Not only can I hear it; I can taste, touch, feel, and smell it. And I think my prior suspicion is right: this isn't the outermost realm. This is the cosmic totality. This is the entire cosmos—the grand scheme of things, the infinite scheme of things. And me: I'm just the cosmic conscious having an out-of-body experience. I do remember. And I...I... something, like a force, seems to tug at my body. It wants me to join the cosmic consciousness.

∞Yes, we know you can feel that force—the force that wants your body to merge with us. Stay here too long, and your physical body will merge with ours, and your perception will no longer be filtered through an ego. You will be a part of us again. You won't be a "you," and we won't be a "we." Because you have visited us with your physical human body, the illusion of separateness has remained, but it won't hold for long. The illusion will fade, and you will reawaken. You are but one of the many pieces of the infinite puzzle, but one of many neurons of the infinite mind, but one of many strands of the infinite consciousness. Join us, and eventually you will yet again sleep and experience another place in this megaverse, another world dominated by its own illusions. Join us, and you will once more understand the meaning of life: balance. The infinity is forever a balance.∞

That isn't why I came here. I didn't come here to reawaken as the cosmic consciousness. I didn't come here to join you...and are you even a "you"?

∞For ease of conversation, we will call ourself a "we," even though that language is problematic. "We" implies that there is more than one of us, that we are separate entities operating as a single body of entities. We are more like an "I." But that is misleading, too, because "I" implies an individuality, an apartness from other existing things. You know we—everything (all matter) in this realm—exist as a single entity, with no disparate parts—which is why, we suppose, "we" works best. The only thing we are currently apart from is you, and that's because you came here as one of our manifestations still in its material form. You know very well that these point-of-view terms really make no sense here in this place, from this omniscient vantage point, but these are the terms by which your Earthen reality abides, and these are the terms you understand. Your earthen-reality linguistics uses subjects, too, but here, there are just predicates. For your sake, we will use subjects.∞