I/Tulpa: the Seven Year Girl

chapter 10

"There's no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going

There's no knowing where we're rowing, or which way the river's flowing."

"Sorry I haven't been to work in a while, but..."

"Jon, Jon, Jon," Paul said on the ride to the studio. "You do know you're not supposed to be doing that level of magic here, right? You're a freshman for one, just started your internship, and this isn't internship, this is just you completing old assignments so that you can progress in school."

"You mean I fell behind?" Jon asked.

"You're joking, right?" Paul asked, glaring through the rearview mirror. "Jon! You would have had to have advanced in the first place to fall behind!"

"I am behind compared to my peers?" Jon asked.

"Jon, the fucking track is an infinite loop, you can't be behind if everyone is simultaneously behind you and in front of you and beside you. There is only the track, and off the track, no behind, no one better off than the other, no one getting a better deal or a raw deal, and you need to reframe that or you will hobble yourself," Paul said.

That sounded profound. He filed it for later, because Paul was still ranting.

"You're going to draw unnecessary attention to yourself," Paul was saying. He honked at the car that had swiped him off. "Fuck you, too, bitch! Where was I?"

"I am not sure. Kind of distracted by your anger," Jon said.

"I am not angry! Don't drive angry. Oh! Interfering with Meadows affair was huge. You condensed what might normally take a year or two to resolve and uncompressed it in the matter of minutes and..."

"Wait wait wait," Jon said. "It took me a week to secure all the homes I bought so I could do a secret coup on the housing association."

"No, minutes. You were using an extremely focused magic and you experienced the short cut, the shortest route of accomplishing what needed to be done, but you sorted it all in under two hours and seventeen minutes. You have not missed a single day of work, and the events that you experienced did happen, and people will remember them, but they're going to be in a fog about it all until time catches up to what it should be, and well, you really need to check in with me or one of your other helpers," Paul said.

"Other helpers?" Jon asked.

"Sure. Me. Paula. The Cowgirl," Paul said.

"I haven't even met the Cowgirl, yet," Jon said.

"Really? Wow, that's interesting. I thought for sure you would have hooked up with her by now," Paul said. "Which one of the Sorority sisters are you doing instead?"

"I am not doing any of them!" Jon said.

"What's wrong with you?!" Paul asked.

"It hasn't come up," Jon said.

"You mean like, you need some blue pills?" Paul asked.

"No! I meant I am trying not to force it," Jon said.

"It's okay to use the blue pills if..."

"Paul. I am their guest, I have been avoiding trying to hook up with them. It just seemed the right course and all and I didn't want to assume that that was on the table," Jon said.

"Doesn't have to be on the table. Could be on the floor, in the bedroom... Oh, playing the nice guy and waiting for them to offer?" Paul asked.

"I am not playing the nice guy," Jon said.