Selfer

I gain consciousness as the buzzing of the alarm awakens me, my dreams dissipating, my Self still trying to transition from dormancy to wakefulness. I climb out of the pool of water which serves as my Bed and keeps me hydrated when I am not in the pipes. My whole body feels stiff and heavy, suffocating me. Being Whole doesn't come naturally for me, the way it does for the Wholers in the city above. To us Selfers, being Whole is uncomfortable and restricting, like wearing clothes cut from mortar. It is bad enough to wake up Whole in my ugly Cell in the sewers, but the buzzing is worse, like the shriek of a small child. I wish I could stop it, but it is connected to the Computer, which hides inside the walls, a Machine that monitors the pipes and everything else in the city of Skketch.

It is strange to be ruled by something that you cannot see.

The computer's buzzing reverberates through a box on the wall, a simple throbbing of sound waves that my Self registers and understands: ATTENTION! ATTENTION! MAINTENANCE CALL TO THE SELFER IN SECTOR 23A! LEAK IN ZONE 10! MAINTENANCE REQUIRED! It is the Wholer's Metal God, the computer H28, which oversees all that goes on in the city. Its reign extends to the sewers below, in the territory consigned to us Selfers. The Wholers worship it, but we do not.

I climb out of the Bed and look at the notice board on the far wall. Ten lights stare back at me, one for each zone in my sector. The light for sector ten is blinking red, like an eye looking at me. Above the notice board is another box mounted on a pivot, which turns and flashes as glass cylinder filled with light at me. I know that it is the computer's eye, through which it watches me, as it watches everything in Skketch. What does H28 know? Does it comprehend me, my thoughts, and my soul? The other Selfers say that it controls everything in Skketch above, from the lights to the doors to the water level to the heat, anything that is electrical or mechanical. But I have always wondered if control is real at all, or perhaps, only a comforting illusion.

But the buzzing is splitting through me, cutting into Myself, letting me know that I have a job to do though I have no love for the task ahead. We Selfers are all slaves to the Wholers, and slaves to H28, as part of an agreement made years before. With their technology, they could destroy us, yet they allow us to exist peacefully so long as we help to maintain their precious Skketch. We are prized only for our abilities, for we are not Mass only, as the Wholers are, but at will, Volume too. It is, to us, pure relief to transition, from the constriction and discomfort of a solid to the diffusion of a Liquid.

Which is what I must become now.

I go over to the opening under the notice board, a metal pipe that projects from the stone wall. I only have to be Whole while I sleep, or else my Self will break apart and dissolve with no direction from my Central Self. I must do is relax, letting my body com loose, as I come apart into a Volume that is amorphous, yet united. I flow into the pipe, like a pool of water, my Self gliding along the smooth, metal surface of the pipe, sensing the makeup and composition of everything around me.

When I Flow, I am fluid, a viscous gel, feeling surface and form with my Self. I know the pipes by memory, their composition, their placement, their soul. Some are wide, some narrow, but I flow through all easily, taking the form of the pipe as I pass through. Flowing is the little bit of of pleasure I know, my body stretching as it has yearned to do. I've worked this Sector for almost as long as my Self can remember, and it is the computer and the pipes which dictate my existence. There are over a thousand Sectors, each manned by a Selfer night and day, whose life is similar to mine, confined by the constant monitoring and dictation of H28.

It was my Parent that told me of the Before Time. It surprises the Wholers that we have parents, but we, like them, were Raised, yet not the same way. Our Parent undergoes the Meiosis, some of the Selves dividing and fusing, forming a Spore. The Spore disengages from the Parent and then grows, forming a new Selfer. Young Selfers grow up with their Parent, and the Parent passes on memories and thoughts to the child through neurochemical signals released by their Self, what the Wholers would call "lessons". Thus, each generation has the memories of its Parent, and each generation is wiser than the last. We do not simply read history, as the Wholers do: we experience it in the memories of our Parents.

I loved my Parent very much.

I have never experienced what it is to be in the Sea, and be completely free, but I have a memory of it in the depths of my Central Self, like a dream remembered before waking. It is the thing my Parent shared with me most, the strongest thing my Central Self has. The Wholers tell us that their technology has made our lives better since they came out of the sky in their Ship, that we were primitive and stupid and they have brought us knowledge from beyond the stars. But we know so much better, and we hide our memories from them, like a treasure. We were all One once, thousands of Selfers intermingling and sharing their thoughts, lives, and experiences. We lived in the Sea, one with the water, moving through it and with it, liquid within liquid. The Old Ones speak of that to us youngsters sometimes, but all that was in Time Previous. I have known nothing but theses pipes. My Parent's memories of that Time Previous flow through me day after day, moment after moment, and my Central Self sings a symphony of what my Parent passed on before.....

But those memories bring me shame.

I pass through blockages and clots, my Self releasing chemicals to disintegrate them. They dissolve in me, and my Central Self analyzes the contents through biochemical processes: calcium carbonite, iron oxide, all these are registered in my Central Self. All Selfers can dissolve electrolytes and analyze them within their Form, another reason for why we are so qualified for this job. It is for this and our ability to become Volume that the Wholers used their technology to separate us from the Sea, and make us work down here forever. To them, Skketch is a heaven, a utopia, but to us, it is only a prison from which we cannot escape.

Skketch is a city built on water, projecting from the oceans of Deukel, its metal towers and spires surrounded by a wall that keeps the water out. There is nothing here more precious than a dry space, and elaborate sewers are built to dispose of waste and keep the Wholers hydrated with clean water. The pipes are extensive, and all two hundred miles of the city are serviced by sewers miles deep. We Selfers are responsible for fixing the pipes and maintaining them, making sure there are no leaks or runs, as part of our Agreement with the Wholers. Even a microscopic break in the pipes could lead to chaos, flooding, and ultimately, to destruction. Thus, we are forcibly kept down here, by filters made of burning light that melt us if we go past a certain point, and flying machines that enforce the rules of H28.

Why build a city on water? Because they are Wholers: they seek to defy the Universe, not understand it.

I have been Above a few times, to see what it was that we Selfers were supposed to be protecting. We are allowed to go there, when there are no leaks or pipes to repair, as long as we follow certain rules, which are enforced by H28. Skketch is large but, to me, not beautiful, a place of metal and machines and Wholers with greedy ideas. I thought if I spent time with the Wholers, I might like them, and possibly appreciate my job more.But when I walked the streets, they glared at me and whispered behind my back. I was Whole like them, but even saw, they recognized me for what I was. I had to remain Whole, as part of the Rules I must obey when I or any other Selfer is Above. H28's boxes watched me constantly, waiting for any infraction of the laws it is made to uphold. It was like torture, to smell the sea that is all around the city, yet have to remain Whole like that.

But I was not the only one watched, for the city of Skketch is ruled by a voyeuristic god of metal. Everywhere, I saw the glowing, mechanical eyes hanging from doorways and towers, eyes that matched the one in my Cell. H28 watches all, recording everything everyone in the city says or does, all day and all night, for all time. It is in every place, so that there is not one corner where there is privacy or secrecy. It hangs from doorways, from ceilings, in homes and in shops, in the metal carriages the Wholers drive, in every conceivable space. it watches while you walk, while you sleep, while you eat, while you mate, while you talk, watching and listening forever. It creates the laws, it judges every action, and it punishes those who do not comply with it absolutely. The Wholers think that it is necessary, believing that Control is necessary. They do not mind when its voice cries out to them, calling to them as it does to us Selfers in its mechanical voice:

ATTENTION! ATTENTION! THE MERCHANT IN THE THIRD SHOP IN SECTOR 24A, CITIZEN 13472, HAS MISCALCULATED HIS CHANGE BY HALF> THIS MUST BE RECTIFIED IMMEDIATELY
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! THE MAIN STREET THROUGH SECTOR 19C STILL REQUIRED REPAIR! TRAFFIC WILL CONTINUE TO BE WAYLAID UNTIL THIS IS RECTIFIED.
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! IF THE INHABITANTS OF APARTMENT 25 IN BUILDING X35 IN SECTOR 12D, CITIZENS 23498 AND CITIZEN 3521, DO NOT REPAIR THEIR RESIDENCE TO CITY CODE IN THE NEXT DAY SEGMENT, RECTIFICATION DROIDS WILL BE DISPATCHED TO THEIR LOCALE.

They are content with this.

I tried to understand the Wholers during my visit, but most of them treated me as an inferior. They think we are stupid because we build no Machines and we have no Names. Since the Time Previous, we have tried to reason with them, to explain that we have never needed these things and were happy without them. Names constrict identity, and Machines constrict the mind, and both create perception based on another, not from the Self. But they cannot understand any way that is not their own. They make us wear Translators around our necks, and they force us into the sewers, where we are treated like animals. Whenever I DID talk to a Wholer, all they did was to ask me again and again what it is like to be Volume and to Flow. My only answer, to them, is one word: Freedom.

But I am not free. Though I flow, the computer tells me where I can go, and what I can do. It keeps the filters made of burning lights up, so that I cannot cross through the outermost pipes without burning up and being Undone. Otherwise, I would follow the water through the pipes, out into the sea, back to where my people came from. Out in the sea, I would be free, back to the ways before there was a city, and pipes, and walls and confinements.

I finally feel the leak in the pipe. My Self detects the break, a small one that is easily fixed. I have the iron and calcium from the clots within me, and I begin to secrete the ions that I have collected, forming a mass over the leak. The enzymes I secrete harden the mass, sealing the leak with my juices and with metal from the pipes. Finally, the buzzing from the computer will stop, and will be satisfied for a while. I turn back and start towards my Cell, where I can rest from my labors for a while. I enjoy what sleep I can get, for oblivion is better than consciousness these days. It will not be long before there will be more leaks and clogs to deal with, and more reminders of my imprisonment. H28 is like a hungry beast, and it is never satisfied for very long.

As I head to my Cell, I pass through another Sector, where I encounter another Selfer in the pipes. We pass through each other and pause briefly, our Selves intermingling, exchanging information and chemical signals. The Wholers, in their ignorance, think of it as sexual intercourse, but it is so much more than that. We have no Male or Female forms, like the Wholers, and thus, we do not Mate, but we can exchange information. Just as Parents teach their children through chemical signals that code memories, so too can unrelated Selves exchange thoughts. It is not talking, but a sharing that goes beyond mere gestures and sounds the Wholers use. We pass through one another, each continuing on our way. I know that Selfer, I know the age of the Self and the memories of the Time Previous which resonate in its Central Self. After my encounter, those memories resonate in me and titillate every particle of my Self. And I think of the Parent again.

We are all of us talking. Every time one Selfer meets another, the messages always come back to the memories of the Time Previous, and those memories cut into all of us. H28 cannot monitor our chemical messages, and it cannot see what we are discussing and sharing. We all want to stop fixing the pipes, so that the city will flood, and wash the walls and buildings and foul Wholers away. If only one of us refuses to work, it will not matter: H28 will send a Flying Machine to their Cell, and the Machine will hit them with burning light, and they will be Undone, what the Wholers call dead. But if we all refuse to work, what can they do? The leaks will build up, and everything will flood, and then it will be over. We know they will kill some of us to scare us, but we have talked about that, too. We are all of us willing to make that sacrifice. We would rather be dead than go on living this way.

After some time, I come back to my Cell, for I do not call it Home, like the Wholers would. I become Whole again, going through the agony of of being Finite so I can turn off my conscious self and allow my Central Self to function on instinct. A lifetime of this? I cannot endure the thought! I am too much like my Parent, who also grew tired of the pipes and the blinking lights and the constant leaks. Soon, the Parent stopped going to work, and let the computer beep, night and day. Over and over, it cried out ATTENTION! ATTENTION!, but the Parent would not be moved. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, I heard the message of doom: ATTENTION! ATTENTION! LAST WARNING! IF THE LEAK IN 23A IS NOT RECTIFIED IN HALF A SEMESTER, DRASTIC MEASURES WILL BE TAKEN.

I was afraid, because I knew what was going to happen, but the Parent told me not to be scared. The Parent said that death had to come so that the other Selfers would take it as an example. H28 might control our Forms, but it could not control our will or our memories. H28 is no God, but only a silly mask of control. The Parent wanted me to go on, to carry its memories, and to wait for a time when we could be free again. It was then that H28 sent a Flying Machine, which came into the Cell. I was young, but I remember what it was like, to see it come in. It was a round, shiny metal sphere, with a cylinder mounted on top. If flew through the air so fast, it was a blur until it stopped. It came in, paused, and shot a beam of red light from the cylinder at my Parent. I watched as my Parent came Undone, its form turned to gas, the Central Self gone. I screamed, and felt agony and anger and hatred welling up inside of me, until I thought I would bubble up and burst as well. The flying machine left, and I heard H28 call out again:

ANACHRONISM DISPOSED. LEAK STILL NOT REPAIRED. NEW SELFER PROMOTED TO 23A. LEAK MUST BE FIXED IN THE NEXT QUARTER OF A SEMESTER, OR ELSE CONSEQUENCES WILL FOLLOW. REPEAT: CONSEQUENCES WILL FOLLOW.

I fixed the leak.

I have always felt ashamed.

I know now what I must do. The next time the light blinks, I will not answer it. I told that to the other Selfer I met today, and I hope that the message will be relayed to other Selfers. Maybe it will be passed on, and other Selfers will refuse to be the computer's slaves. H28 will kill some of us, but even then, it will be too late, and the water will build up and flood everything. The pressure will grow, the walls will collapse, and then we will be washed into the sea. We will be free again, and all will be as it was in Time Previous.

I climb into the water in my Bed, and let my Central Self wander. The Wholers think they are clever, too clever to believe in Anything. But we Selfers have memories: we remember the Creator, and the Beginning of All Things. The Creator gave to us the water, and it is our Element, where we lived and will live eternally, even though we may be undone. The Creator has promised us water, and His promises are eternal. These pipes and walls are against the will of the Creator, and destroying them can only better the Universe.

As I drift off to sleep, my Central Self resonates with memories of the Parent and the Time Previous, and the great sacrifice the Parent made, and that I must make now.

I dream of a sea without end, where I will be soon.

THE END

Bio: In the author's own words, "I'm a man who likes to write interesting stories.  Any criticism you have in the way of helping me to do this better would be appreciated."

E-mail: Andrew Hodges

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