“Hauuu...” Jon whined, getting their attention.
“Jon?” Sarah asked. “What happened? Where did you go?” Sarah also was wearing clothes she hadn’t been before. That was another thing Jon should have noticed and been thinking about. It wasn’t just Sarah, the man and the chess setup with table and chairs, for they weren’t naked like Jon was, there was also their clothes. Funny how one takes clothes for granted so much, it hadn’t even occurred to Jon to put a lot of thought into it or to be surprised about it or question where they had gotten their clothes from, she just figured they had appeared in this place fully clothed, and with some metaphysical immunity to the need to take them off for any reason like showering or going to the bathroom because they also didn’t need to eat or drink because they were ghosts or something. But both of them were wearing different clothes now. This was very frustrating to face without being able to talk because Jon wanted to know:
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Are they able to just manifest items in this world such as clothing, the table and chairs and chessboard and indeed this forest they were in now?
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How exactly do they go about doing it?
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How much time has passed for them since their last meeting and how did time work here?
and 4. What is this eyeball creature! and for that matter,
- How many things, people, creatures, conscious beings, were trapped inside this world? So it wasn’t just Sarah and the man whose name she still didn’t know. But how many others, and would they show up? It seemed like a common wish would probably be either outright immortality or at least drastically enhanced lifespan so even if many people had used the stone in the past over thousands of years, the actual population in here may not be so large if they have to actually die to get here after all. Was her grandfather here for instance?
But despite how much she had to say, Jon had to settle for “Hauuu...”
Sarah, while before had been wearing sneakers, a dark blue skirt and matching dark blue button down shirt, now was wearing a pink two-piece bathing suit and sandals! While the man was wearing a long-sleeved dress shirt and long pants, but they were definitely not the same ones. She wasn’t sure about their colors but they were lighter before, while now the pants were dark brown instead of she thought light tan before, and the shirt was possibly a different shade of blue than before or maybe it only seemed different against the pants. Jon tried to make a lasting note of their clothes for later comparison if she didn’t get her questions answered now.
Sarah was also a lot less reserved than before! She ran up to Jon and picked her up and held her like a baby.
“Auuuu” Jon complained, but actually enjoying the tactile experience as Sarah hugged her. Sarah touched her nose to Jon like an overzealous cat owner and hugged her with a little too much strength but Jon didn’t actually mind it. But the real issue was what was happening here?!
“Jon, this is Zzyzx, am I pronouncing that right? He, or I guess it, is a being who encountered the rock before it was a rock we think, or maybe a different incarnation of it in an alternate universe or something,” Sarah explained while holding Jon and furiously petting her as best as she could with her hands while still securely holding her.
“Greetings Jon Merlin,” the angel-looking entity said in a perfect Morgan Freeman’s voice. Jon wanted to say “get out of town!” at that. Was it something like in that movie Contact with the alien looking like the chick’s father? The visual appearance notwithstanding, was the voice Morgan Freeman’s voice just because that was the voice Jon would probably be most comfortable with an inscrutable cosmic eldritch horror speaking in?
“I think Zzyzx is a being who lived in the first fraction of a second after the big bang, and the first to make a wish,” the man explained.
“What did you wish for?” Jon wanted to say.
“I wished for life to go on,” the being said. “I was dying in a dying universe after all. From my point of view. To me, the core of the hottest star in your time would be unbearably cold.”
“Did you just read my mind?” Jon asked mentally.
“I hope that’s all right,” Zzyzx said in Morgan Freeman’s most humble tone of voice.
“Yes! I’ve been trying to communicate and yes it’s all right! Tell them I want to ask about...” Jon thought to Zzyzx, explaining her complicated thoughts.
Zzyzx then proceeded to explain to the rest of the group everything Jon had so longed to be able to say! Jon had never been so grateful to an incomprehensible telepathic gimbal device eyeball creature ever before in her life! Well obviously. But now at least they knew Jon wasn’t dead like them. They knew the situation.
“You’re just the smartest and cutest fox in the universe!” Sarah exclaimed, awkwardly kissing Jon’s nose, to which Jon sighed outwardly in a loud rush of air. It did make it seem like much more of a pity that Karyn had killed her, though it was certainly justified to do it. Could Sarah be wished back to life? Then again, despite the first appearance of a terrible empty void except for a chess table, and the man’s claim this place was hell, maybe it wasn’t so bad and Sarah wouldn’t even want to leave?
“Jon wants to know if we want to be brought back to the normal spacetime in new bodies when heshe can get an opportunity to speak a wish,” Zzyzx announced, having settled on using the terms ‘heshe’ and ‘himher’ for Jon. Jon didn’t know what to think about that. Honestly it was pretty weird and awkward no matter what, being factually incorrect to say he/him, and uncomfortable to hear she/her spoken about her right in front of her even though she knew it was correct. And yet, heshe kind of seemed to lampshade that fact and make it a little less awkward. Maybe that was why the telepathic being was using the term. “I for one am content to reside in here as I have already, for times you couldn’t even begin to imagine. Even now, I experience time as I did originally. To me, who lived a billionth of a billionth of what you call a second after what you call the big bang, even as I am speaking to you now, every second of time you experience is trillions of years to me. To me, my existence is a vast expanse of reflection punctuated by sending or receiving an occasional word of communication much less frequently than once over a time that is to you the age of the universe. To live in your world in your time would be unthinkable to me.”
“Yes I would want to be brought back. If for nothing else, to get revenge against...” Dr. Hudson, as Jon had now learned the man’s name was, began, but trailed off, on realizing how awkward it was to swear vengeance in front of his grandson, or granddaughter, especially since until recently Jon never had any reason to believe anything bad about her grandpa.
“And I want to be brought back too,” Sarah said. “I want to make amends to you Jon, and also, just to have a life again.” Jon noticed Sarah said she wanted to make amends to Jon specifically, not to ‘Jon and Karyn’. Hmmm, has she really reformed all the way, or is she holding onto a grudge against Karyn after all? She had said she had wished Karyn had died instead of Jon earlier after all.
They taught Jon about some of the rules of behavior of this alternate domain. Indeed they could have almost anything they wanted in this place. What they couldn’t do was change themselves or get information. But for physical objects they could have whatever they wanted, without even the words “I wish”. It was just that the first two times Jon had been there, they had decorated their ‘hell’ in such a spartan way. But it was an empty and lonely place. It was just Sarah, Dr. Hudson and Zzyzx here. Whoever or whatever had wished with it before, was somehow in some capacity still living, and that included Jon’s grandfather. Most beings apparently must gain immortality or ascend to a higher level of existence or something.
But Zzyzx also taught Jon the true rules of the stone, or the naked singularity within. Including its relations with desires related by language developed by conscious agents. It was partially as Jon had suspected. There was nothing special about the words “I wish” in English. There was nothing special about any language. And now Jon knew how to use it. And what’s more, she didn’t even need to be able to talk, to do it.
Jon knew just what to do now.
She woke up.
Back in the woods on Earth in Jon’s neighborhood at early dawn, she roused Karyn from his sleep with some gentle nudging and licks. Karyn stretched and lazily yawned.
