Waking up in a new, different place. Again. Awesome.
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve woken up. It’s at least something like…twenty. Could be as many as a hundred-million. Are numbers still a thing now?
Also lost track of all the years that have passed while I was asleep. Not that there’s really any way at all of keeping track.
Without being certain, I keep existing anyway. As if it’s my volition, somehow. Hey, what else can I do?
I could just stay still and let shit begin orbiting me, but who the hell knows how much longer that would take.
Heh. I wonder what that would be like. To be a celestial body. Just waiting for eternity for some cosmic event. Do celestials think, wait, expect? Could I be one already? I gotta say, not quite worth it if it doesn’t feel badass.
No; I keep pushing forward, so I must still be somewhat human. Even though I know now that I’m not entirely human.
Feels like I’ve been lying here for a while. Just letting all the lights spin around me.
Spinning lights. Assuming my memory is constant, it seems like I just noticed them.
Who am I kidding? That doesn’t mean anything. Even when your eyes are closed, you can still see…something. Even if you don’t realize it.
Are my eyes closed? Do I still have them? I had a body once. Has my body changed or has my mind? Is there a difference?
And suddenly, there it is. Sensation. Whether or not I still have a body, I feel something.
I see something. “Spinning lights.”
Progress of some sort.
Alright, now look around. If I still have a fucking head, now’s the time to move it.
If I still have eyes, now’s the time to use them.
Arms. Hands. An ancillary to channel my physical strength.
Physical strength. That’s the kind of niche, generalized thought, the only tuition that makes sense. I don’t know why, but that’s my new truth.
Push up.
Okay, that one is a little too specific, but somehow it’s helping.
PUSH UP.
Strength training from my human days. Hey, feels pretty good to remember that.
And feels really damn good to use it again.
Okay — now I’m face down against a solid surface. I’m not lying — I’m being pushed against it by force. This feels — less badass.
Centrifugal force.
A rotor.
Yes. Still in the human body, and now I’ve got my bearings. That old, humanly discomfort. Pain in my ass, but I know what to do with it. Come up from it before.
Push up, Tanta.
Yes. That’s my name.
PUSH. UP.
Hands. Knees.
Now, look up.
“Up.”
Doesn’t matter that that’s not the right word. Just do it. Words don’t mean shit anymore anyway.
Fingertips. Feet.
No, that’s too far. Take a knee, just one. There we go.
The lights aren’t spinning. The rotor is spinning. With me inside.
I can do this.
Fists.
Push.
Push.
PUSH.
…stand.
The universe spins around me.
Well, it does something around me.
But now I see it.
And I will enter it, and it might become something else but that’s OK.
It’s been a million years. I can do a million more.
Stand.
Enter the universe. Again.
And, when you get there, enter otherworld.
