Lost in Foundation

a first, the one, and an only

The prismatic variables in our cosmic equation change continuously, continually altering the balance of factors affecting our collective trajectory. Stuff shifts around {un}reliably by the predictable nature of vibrational interference. And things are starting to heat up on all fronts.

On that note, a low-pressure system approaches the Gulf Coast, raising the stakes of my mission to EXTREMELY HIGH. One plus one definitely equals something more {usually}, right? The temperature down here is about to dip. “Attempts” loom; I’m sure of it. Understand? The monsters are about to come out, and they’ll not be prone to play nice.

Meh, and I suppose I ought not make you think I’m a filthy liar given that we must have established some degree of trust by now; so, as promised, this was my delayed response (to T. Tuck’s late-night text) the next morning (at 11:11):

At least your middle name wasn’t almost Boone. And at least your first name isn’t Benda.

™Ess Kay

That’s what she named me in her phone. You figure it out; at least half of it’s not even hard. My best only remotely plausible guess is “The Mysterious S.K.” That can’t be right. Ahhh! I can’t think straight. This 27-year-old human female is a beautiful fruitcake. And I’m a nervous wreck, okay!? About two things, no less! MAJOR THINGS. EVENTS. This is incredibly bizarre. Can you imagine? Try. Hell, advise me. Yes, you. Comment. Consider yourself dared. Truly, I’m not sure which nerve-wracking situation I’m more anxious about:

1. the absurdly potent spell she seems to be able to cast on me and the increasingly confounding physiological effects with which I can’t even deal
2. assassinating Severus Rex and, in so doing, knocking over the domino that leads to the explosive onset of Earth War I

Sometimes I think the ratio surely must be 90% option #2. I mean, really, that’s gonna be difficult. He might kill me. In fact, the smart money’s probably on him. But other times, like when I’m within 10 feet of Thierry and no one else is around, the ratio seems to swing in the other direction. Is she making me (falsely) believe that I’m [we’re] gonna triumph? Ugh!

This just hit me: I’ve never been more confused that I am right now. Yep, I’m positive. Not upon my irritating introduction [at age 5, by the way] to organic chemistry. Not the time I lost a sparring round to Conrad. Not even the first time I ingested edible cannabis and couldn’t figure out how to escape Bessi’s wide-open and symmetrically/intuitively designed bottom floor layout. Never have I been this confused.

So the ratio probably rocks back and forth by no more than 1 digit on either side of the 50/50 mark.

I am terrified of failure, but I’m not afraid to try.

Fear presents opportunities to be bold and brave.

Surely somebody somewhere said that once. There’s no way I just made it up. I’ll probably forget that I said it and say it again in the future with slightly tweaked verbiage.

On top of all that shit, I’ve never soloed a covert protection detail. Have you?? Plus, I know not how to interact (like a “guy”) with girls/ladies/women, let alone how to “get in good with” a well-rounded specimen of the uniquely brilliant (squared) variety on display through T. Nova’s capable body {of work}. Anyhow, I might’ve vomited had she not responded (in the nick of time) favorably to my goofy response, the further details of which are none of your beeswax. I am not trying to play any “games” with her outside the game we recently started playing together.

Fact: I’ve puked on two separate occasions in the last couple weeks.
Fun: I hadn’t puked once in almost 60 years.

See, we’ve been playing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game [MMORPG] together. In this digital world which, incidentally, feels fascinatingly alive—and I wish I had time to conduct a sociological study of the wildly varying types of interactions between participants of all ages/backgrounds from around the world whilst they “live” (essentially) in relative anonymity inside an unreal fantasy-land—Thierry’s a short stocky male dwarf and I’m tall slender female elf. Naturally.

Shut up. It’s not weird.

And this was all her idea. She posed a question, the phrasing {and even the contents} of which couldn’t be more irrelevant in this sentence, and, that (honestly) elicited the following (dishonest) response from me: “I played for maybe six months back in the day.” The fib was spontaneous, I swear, and I still couldn’t tell you why it materialized, but when her genuine reaction caused her already piercing eyes to light up and glow, I was glad that my instinct was to tell a little white lie.

Sometimes the truth isn’t good enough.

One of the Nolans, I’m assuming.

“Really?!” she squealed. “When??” This moment may have marked the first time I’d ever legitimately felt a human’s honest feeling of excitement. Empathy, I think it’s called sometimes (maybe).

“Umm, late 2009, I think.” I knew I could continue to fabricate my way through this exchange because the video game in question had been an industry-influencing, pop-culture phenomenon, and I have long found value in keeping up with such info. What the masses consume can offer clues about what’s been transpiring, for example, during secret political meetings.

In other words, if enough people know about it, then I gotta know about it, too.

Also, not that it’s knowable, but by now I can name but one living being who has read more writing than I’ve encountered, and it’s only because she has lived longer.

“Ahh, so you were a Wrath baby,” Thierry easily concluded, flexing her formidable knowledge of the associated lingo. Assuredly, I nodded, utterly unsure. It worked; she continued her investigation: “What class?”

“Paladin.” It was the first answer that popped into my head, and I didn’t want to invite suspicion to my evolving web of lies by hesitating to answer what had to be a no-brainer for anyone who had actually played.

Wait, why are we all up in the past tense? We should be present.

“Hmm.” She squints as if telepathically probing me for weaknesses.

Thierry has this mysterious way of bringing out the “blurter” in me. What do you reckon I did at this point? Did “you blurted” spring to mind? If so, then congrats, because you’re right as rain. I blurted, “Which one did you play, class-wise?” One of my more embarrassing assembly of words in recent memory. I couldn’t have waited half a second to let that response evolve? “What class did you play?” That’s what I should’ve said. Mercifully, however, before I even finished mumble-blurting the ass-end of the hyphenated mess at the deformed tail of my question, she plowed ahead by requesting that I:

“Guess.”

Thierry has an uncanny knack for never missing/skipping a beat.

Also, shit. I walked right into this trap. She’s quick. I don’t even have to fake the facial expression that should buy me enough time to dig up a guess as I scour the dusty recesses of my brain’s useless {until now} collection of nerdy knowledge. My mouth opens with the intention of wildly guessing, “Priest,” but for some reason, I stop myself. I gotta get the blurting under control.

Look at her. She radiates subtle waves of raw emotion, unadulterated intrigue on display, a palpable sense of authentic wonder. With bated breath, she awaits my best guess, which, by the way, carries more weight than you may realize as it could will afford her an insight regarding how well I really (don’t) know her at this point in time. I won’t lose many points if I’m wrong, but I’ll gain a shit-ton if when I’m right.

Finally, involuntarily pausing my respiratory functions, I calmly enter my decently confident submission after peering briefly into her very essence and declaring with a smirk, “Druid.”

Hell yeah, I was right. Good game. Easy.

Not sure if this is any of your business, but I guess I’d like you to know that I purposefully cataloged an extra detailed memory of this moment. Her face beamed satisfaction during her instantaneous initiation of a classic celebration that immediately baited my exceedingly willing compliance, at which point we executed a most fluid and crisp high-five as if we’d been practicing for about ten whole seconds beforehand. The clap echoed satisfactorily across the quiet night.

Now, mercifully, the moment of truth arrives. I knew it was coming—the divisive answer to the most fundamental choice made by loyal players of the game in question. “Horde or Alliance?” she wonders aloud, emotionally guarded and, I suspect, ready for anything.

On purpose, I hesitate, and, as expected, she waits. Is my Blurter Disease cured!?

Our expressions are virtual mirrors. Unless I’m misreading this silent exchange [entirely possible], we are cementing our flowering bond by energetically agreeing to communicate exclusively via the handy-dandy fragile orbs protruding from our two forward-facing cranial sockets. Granted, I’m not exactly sure what she’s saying to me, but I’m asking her something like, “So, in the future, how many babies do you reckon we should attempt to make?”

She’s about to speak, so I decide to interrupt her in advance because, otherwise, I’m sure my reluctance to have answered forthwith would’ve been perceived as unattractive insecurity. “I wanted to be a Paladin,” I explained. “Something about being a warrior of holy light appealed to me,” I further claimed. “Couple that with the horrendous Blood Elf voice lines…”

“Say no more,” she interjects with familiar understanding, cluing me in to her thorough approval of both my answer and the procession of personally logical thought which spawned it. “A choice that makes itself has to be right,” she remarks with a right-eyed wink as, I swear to god, her left eye twinkles.

I can’t help but wonder if she knows just how profound that statement was/is. Even more impressively, she thought it up (just now) on the spot. “I’m guessing,” I blurt [goddammit], “that you align with the same faction for similar reasons.”

She can’t help but grin while nodding, visibly relieved (if not outright impressed) by my inferential capabilities. “I have no interest in even pretending to be a talking cow.”

You don’t have to grasp what any of this nerdspeak means, really. Just know that it amounts to another generous dollop of proof that we are beginning to understand one another on a level that neither of us yet comprehends. In other words, we’re not merely on the same page; no, it’s looking more and more like we each occupy space in the same paragraph, and possibly even in the same sentence.

“I like the Alliance flag better, too,” I add, if only to pad my credibility. She’s not curious enough to dig it out of me, so she patiently waits for more. “Not the color scheme, necessarily, per se,” I clumsily elaborate, “but the clear fact that a little more thought went into it.”

Thierry squints. I like when she squints. It’s “cute,” I guess. Anyway, she’s not sure what I mean; hence, I explain, “It’s a lion.” She still doesn’t get it. This’ll be fun. Very plainly, I state, “A lion. Alliance.”

Now she gets it, but her reaction isn’t quite what I expected. I expected a fit of erratic full-body animation because of the mind-blowing realization that just defibrillated her noodle. But no. Instead, she stands there, almost perfectly still and yet also almost swaying to a slow song I can’t hear but wish like hell that I could, smiling, eyes closed, particularly enjoying a very deep breath. “These are some of my favorite moments in life,” she expresses in a tone that underscores her sincerity. “When you realize something new—something so simply clever that you failed to ever notice because it was staring you a bit too squarely in the face… Fuck, I love it so much. Every time.”

That did something weird to both my throat and my anus. Whatever. Moving on. Before I realize that words are coming outta my mouth, I find myself improvising: “Just yesterday I noticed the obvious arrow in the FedEx logo.” I lied. I noticed it the first time I saw it, I’m sure.

“I don’t think I’ve ever looked directly at the FedEx logo,” she subtly boasts.

“Efficient policy,” I declare without hesitation. “Reserve your gaze for what’s most important. At least that’s what I always say since one second ago.”

She giggles, nods in agreement, settles into several seconds of comfortably shared silence. Crickets chirp. We are each in our own {very similar} little big FUCKING COLOSSAL (mental) worlds.

TNT breaks the unmeasured stretch of silence with a zinger: “But I did notice the arrow peripherally like forever ago.”

That made me laugh. Out loud. I don’t do that. I don’t emit involuntary noises. I was trained for over 50 years to maintain complete control of my immediate milieus [The Big 3: e/p/m] at all times. Counterproductively, now, the faintest whiff of this creature’s pheromones {especially in the evening} makes me forget important details such as where I hid my dagger or why this unusually dense agate slice weighs down my left pants pocket. Conclusion: my instructors at Bessi should’ve included this crap in my curriculum; otherwise, they [mainly Elvyn] structured my path of learning brilliantly.

In the observable universe, which element is far and away [~75% of all] the most abundant/common?

You should know this. This should be taught on day one in Kindergarten. Hydrogen.

A few days have passed since our unexpected bonding session earned me a (sort of) homework assignment. Ya see, later that night, I began cramming in untold hours upon hours of necessary study {in order to maintain the lie until it becomes the truth} while making preparations to join Thierry in playing WoW Classic. Worth it. Because now we share a hobby.

For two nights in a row, we’ve played together from approximately 21:30 until roughly 05:00. The game serves merely as a platform that gives us a reason to interact. It’s also nice to work as a team/duo in a less-than-challenging {but fantastically designed, seamless} environment because it demands very little in terms of cognitive resources, freeing up our combined acumen to discuss anything else while completing “quests” by pressing buttons [i.e. making at least one decision per second] in fantasy-themed, virtual combat.

Also, in the real world, it’s much easier to break into a dead sprint and literally run for your life if you’re already awake when the race starts. Naturally I’m hoping to intercept the coming threat before she’s forced to resort to fleeing in desperation. She is fast, especially for a human female, but she can’t outrun the slowest g/b on record.

Point is, playing a video game together serves multiple useful purposes, most of which were/have been unforeseen. Solid, beneficial escapism is good (if not absolutely essential) for any healthy person, but goodness knows my energy-hogging brain needs it as desperately as hers.

To exclaim the least with elementary simplicity, this is super hard to explain! Despite the thick dust clouds of confusing chaos organizing in preparation to sweep across the globe in a momentous re-contextualization (of our place on Earth as well as in the universe) that will shatter and disintegrate many, many selves, this all feels pretty right to me. In other words, due to my acute awareness of basic statistical patterns, my hand has been forced to make a decision that will destroy virtually every human being’s concept of what life means because it’s the only way we’ll have the slightest chance to prevent the swiftly excruciating extinction of (y)our miraculously well-rounded {but heretofore ultimately blind} special species. Now, if you dare, try to put yourself in my shoes and imagine how my most singular plight must feel to me.

Hahaha. Good try.

Thierry and I went hiking/trail-running once, too. Was that a week ago now? Maybe that happened yesterday. Wait, no, it happens tomorrow. Eh, who cares? Especially in the last few weeks, time has been doubling down on its propensity to blur. Case in point: falling asleep last night, I was under the impression that tomorrow would be Saturday once becoming today, but while typing the previous sentence (mere seconds ago [you know, the blurry one]), I realized that today is Tuesday Monday, and, even more perplexing, perhaps, is the factual opinion that I’ll probably post this entry on (a) Sunday after dark (in the past {possibly}).

Ha. Don’t worry about it, all{y}. Obviously I like you. Clearly I’m glad you’re here. Unequivocally, I do want you on my team. Any individual’s purpose is to find the purpose s/he best serves happily. To accomplish this feat of optimal assignment, we must all help each other. But you gotta know that there are gonna be times when you’ll just have to fucking trust me. Together, we must inspire the dawn of an Age filled with the most wonderfully sweeping changes in the history of civilization because we just might survive beyond 2050. Stranger things have happened.

(All our joint activities {thus far} have been her idea, by the way.)

I forgot what day it is. Whatever; the day of the week matters less and less. At the midpoint of our mapped jaunt [routed around maximum difficulty] through rough terrain in the woods, a strongly precipitous thunderstorm—what Boogie likes to call a “turd-floater”; I laughed the first time he said it {but none of the six times since}—materialized suddenly and soaked us thoroughly. We didn’t seem to mind. Neither of us were carrying any electronics. Conditions were definitively not hypothermic. So, yeah, no harm done; just got a little wet. We chose to get off the beaten path, thereby ultimately slicing a half-hour from our pre-planned 5.8-mile course.

Wouldn’t you know it, right as we got back to my vehicle, the rain had all but stopped. We used the merry-go-round to expedite air-drying. That idea actually was mine. See that? I contributed. Go, me. Then she decided to get both of our shifts covered that night. Then we were offered two bottles of Sangiovese by a disgruntled young woman whose romantic picnic had gone to fiery hell in a soggy handbasket.

The grumpy, pouting dude made a beeline for their SUV [probably hers] without acknowledging our presence as the defeated {but slightly amused} chick diverted toward us with the aforementioned offering and shrugged, “He only likes Pinot and apparently I should’ve known that.”

“Yeah, I could tell by the way he walks,” I joked without thinking. Thankfully, it landed; she guffawed, which pissed off the wet whiny boy—even though there’s no way he heard anything other than his date’s fleeting joy—as he slammed himself inside the passenger seat of the aforementioned SUV.

“If it’s any consolation,” Thierry chimed in, “we will appreciate every ounce of these wines from tongue to gut-brain.” The friendly chick kindly uncorked the bottle that didn’t have a screw-top, at which point we gladly accepted custody of the underappreciated vino before she went on her way toward her big baby of a (surely temporary) companion, renewed irritation escalating as she marched nearer.

Holding each bottle, Thierry asked, “Preference?”

I pointed at the one she didn’t expect. Her eyes widened. “This one?” she confirmed, perhaps more curious about the reason behind my selection more so than surprised/confused by it. She eyed me for a moment before inquiring softly, “Why?”

Thierry has a handful of very different, distinct voices:

• everyday voice [you’d have to hear it]
• talking to customers voice [you can probably imagine it]
• soft voice [butterflies, surrender]
• sleepy voice [often slurred and nonsensical, occasional rasp]
• good mood voice [happy-go-lucky, sunshine, rainbows, puppies]
• bad mood voice [world sucks, people be stupid, time for pajamas]

There are more, but (hopefully) you get the idea. Soft and sleepy are the most powerfully intoxicating. Good mood is formidable in its own right, and it’s the one I prefer, in fact, because my two favorites shred my perceptual defenses and I lose track of where I am physically in space and time. Off the top of my head, I can think of two occasions while under the effects of either of those two voices when I could have been easily ambushed and murdered. Now, I am quite certain she’s well-versed in using her vocal range manipulatively; though I think I can tell when she’s not doing it on purpose. Like just then.

“Why?”

Thierry, in her trademark soft voice (re: my curious choice of a screw-top Sangiovese)

How do I put this? Coupled with the look she gave me [which, by the way, I’ve never seen more diversely expressive capable potential in the art of facial communication; not even Ernest can hold a handle to her], I’m considering the possibility that she could be a witch sorceress who can mind-control mortals by casting spells through the flexible control of her vocal chords and facial muscles. And her eyes; whatever she does with those—for all I know, that shit is magic.

Anyway, I answered her bewitching question honestly. “Because I don’t care which, and you obviously want the other one.”

Again, she pierces me with her luminous eyeballs. She can’t figure out how I could tell which bottle she (strongly) preferred, and I can plainly see that she’s not sure what to make of me (in general). In fairness, I’m not entirely sure what to make of her, either.

Matter-of-factly, she states, “Since I can’t find a flaw in your logic…”

And with that, she awards me with the less desirable bottle of fermented grape juice, I graciously accept, follow her lead toward a successful cheers [meaning no broken glass] before simultaneously—and while aligning our respective gazes in magnetically locked, oddly expressive, almost transcendent eye contact—we take our first sips of the free wine the universe saw fit to gift us on this otherwise ordinary eve.

After that, we lost track of time.

No, nothing happened. Nothing physical, anyway. Unless you count a few lingering touches as one of us showed the other whichever multimedia file on either of our phones that one of us wanted the other to see for whatever reason(s). But mentally, yep, we porn-fucked nonstop for no less than four hours. Emotionally, I have no idea what’s happening to me. Your guess, in this case, just might be better than as good as mine.

Nearly halfway through emptying our bottles, we concluded that the perpetually spinning motion of the clunky merry-go-round could begin to disagree with the delightful liquid filling our stomachs; therefore, we regrouped at the swing set. We didn’t swing, though. We sat. Still. And then we traded bottles. Again, her suggestion.

As you can{not} imagine, we have explored the penultimate depths of the deepest possible topics, the bulk of which was logged at that playground on the night beckoning my current description, spinning slowly round and round as night fell sneakily amid the mentally satisfying arc of our impromptu, thought-provoking, erratically winding conversation. Thierry Nova Tuck feels a profound truth that she can’t quite yet articulate. She’s getting more comfortable (around me); she wants to open up [I can tell]. And I’m battling my own similarly internal struggle: I want to reveal the solution to the riddle of existence—and that she helped me put it all together—but I’m afraid it’s too soon. Connecting her dots could would definitely draw too much attention to us because she’d erupt with unprecedented joy all over the internet. I guess the point here is that we’ve become pals, I think. That seems like the right word. “Pals.”

Us two, too.

Heya, pal{s}!