The Circle and the Dot, E. C. Nemeth [the reader ebook .TXT] 📗

/> “Having yourself ripped into infinitesimally small pieces is very disconcerting. Even I had a great deal of trouble putting myself back together again,” continued Zeus, oblivious to Dot’s previous absence or his recent reappearance, “It took me a very long time to fully recover myself.”
“I have just witnessed the creation of the universe,” explained Dot.
“What?”
“Did you also experience Camarilla’s attentions?” he asked.
“What are you talking about, boy?”
“Just before the egg exploded.” Dot clarified.
“What egg?” Zeus was beginning to think Dot was himself an egg short of a dozen.
Silence answered. Then:
“What did you experience when you went to see creation?” Dot asked the god.
Zeus snickered and spat dryly to cover his sudden worry. Could Dot have experienced more than he had? And could Dot have already come and gone without him noticing – and done in the blink of an eye what took him several millennia to accomplish?
“What do you think?” Zeus postured.
Dot only waited, unmoving.
“Oh very well,” the god capitulated, “I’ll tell you what happened, since you are so intent to know.
“I was the only thing there was. No matter where I looked there was only blackness. Suddenly I felt a great tightness inside of me. Then I began to expand. I expanded for a long time until the pressure became too much to contain, even for me. That’s when I exploded and my guts were spread far and wide. I spent the next thousand years collecting them and many thousands more putting the pieces back together again.”
“Oh. I see,” was all Dot offered.
“Who is this Camarilla of yours?” probed Zeus.
“A circle of immense beauty.”
“Oh. I see,” returned Zeus, “She’s a babe, huh – a hot number? Does she have nice curves?” he teased.
“Why did I experience an entirely different situation than you did?” Dot asked, ignoring Zeus’ comments. Dot wasn’t surprised when Zeus did not reply.
“The beginning of the universe should not have various renditions. Unless the viewpoint of the subject varies, of course. Then the same creation sequence could be experienced in unique ways.”
“Honestly Dot, what are you going on about?” bluffed the god, unconvincingly. It was obvious he was as bewildered as Dot was.
“Which means that you and I do not share the same frame of reference.”
“Well, what did you expect?” chuckled Zeus, “I am a god after all. And you are, no offense, just an insignificant one-dimensional point,” he shrugged his shoulders, “ nothing personal, Dot. I’m only trying to be realistic.”
“And failing,” Dot pointed out, “since what you say does not reflect my experience at all.” Dot was silent for a time, reliving his memory of the creation of the universe.
“I felt tremendous heat and pressure. I was inside the cosmic egg as it was about to … no,” Dot’s voice sounded as if he were far away, “I was the egg. It was, … , I was very dense and very hot. I was everything there would ever be – together, united.
“But it was too much for me to assimilate so quickly. I grew … wary, apprehensive … fearful.”
Meanwhile Zeus was gaping, slack-jawed, at Dot, hanging on his every word. He found his rendition of the events fascinating. They somehow rang loudly with truth, so Zeus did not question them at that level. Instead he was focusing on interpreting Dot’s perceptions based on what he figured was the point’s personal background.
Dot was primarily naïve and ignorant of the world. On the other hand, he was demonstrably intelligent and a very quick study. He was also extremely old, maybe older than Zeus himself. Those attributes, coupled with Dot’s unique but seemingly formidable talents in the areas of locomotion and the manipulation of his surroundings caused Zeus to question the point’s origin. ‘Who is this thing here in front of me?’ he thought, and not for the first time. Zeus found it both a riveting and compelling riddle. He felt there was something of great value to understand in the enigma that called itself Dot.
“Go on Dot,” Zeus gently prodded.
“So I stepped out of the egg and into a … magnificent oneness! There was only me but the place was bigger than big – and smaller than small – both at the same time.
“That’s when I saw her.”
“Camarilla?” the god nudged him along.
“Yes. My first experience of her was as a circle of pure white light. She had a voice that soothed and comforted me with its softness. Her words were the truth revealed – truth of the highest order.
“We were made for each other, she claimed. I could not resist her. And I felt that she was equally drawn to me.” Dot rapidly ran through the ensuing encounter in his mind’s eye. “We … umm … we coupled.”
“No! You did her!” Zeus was amazed. The repercussions were staggering…
“Well … yes, I guess so, if I take your meaning correctly. Although I would prefer to use a more honorable, more respectful phrase.” Dot would have been all shades of red were he capable of such a display. Then he smiled inwardly, “In any case, yup, I did her – and I did her real good!” Dot almost relived his earlier orgasm just declaring that truth.
“Unbelievable!” muttered Zeus, shaking his head.
“In the moment of … err … at the height of the encounter I felt as though she was all around me.” Dot tried to make sense of what happened next.
“After it was all over I was still somewhat perplexed by the novel experience. It was so unlike anything I could have imagined. I was unprepared to understand what had just happened. When I questioned her about that she said all I needed to understand is that I already know it all. I asked her to help me remember what I already knew and she did.” Dot stopped.
“Well? What did she say?”
“She said…”
“Yes?” asked Zeus impatiently.
“She said that I am the circle!” Dot giggled for no apparent reason, “Imagine, me, the circle!” Dot didn’t laugh again but became silent and still.
Zeus was struck dumb. The dot is the circle. The circle is the dot. Circle – Dot. It made no sense.
Zeus ranged his wide knowledge base for an equivalent but to no avail. Then he dredged up the concept of the koan. It also activates the same logical avenues of infinity, he saw. But where the koan reduces to a paradox this understanding actually allows the consciousness of the observer to transcend its reality – sort of like a quantum leap of awareness. The circle and Dot, indeed!
Still, continued the god, this understanding can have a great impact in many diverse areas. It indicates that there is a transcendental quality to knowledge – and by extension to reality as well. Could it be that reality is not what it seems, even for me? Zeus had known many mortal beings and all their realities were obviously wrong, as he himself was evidence of.
“But if I am the dot, how can I be the circle as well?” asked Dot, absently.
“Exactly,” included the god.
“Camarilla was a circle. How does that figure into it?”
“Levels of awareness, I suppose.”
“Yes. She inferred as much,” agreed Dot, “But why did she stress that I needn’t understand, that I only had to know, and that I already know it all?”
“That would seem to make a mockery of awareness, especially of sentience.”
“Exactly. But it implies something far more bizarre. It suggests that the circle and the dot exist in everything, simultaneously.”
“Sort of like the center of a black hole,” observed Zeus.
“What?”
“Sorry, I forgot you have limited experience of the world.” And Zeus smiled inwardly. Got him, he thought.
“I remember that you admitted trying to destroy me and that your last tactic was to employ a black hole which swallowed me whole,” recounted Dot.
“Umm, yes, well, there’s that … sorry,” flustered Zeus.
“I will visit that place, on my own terms this time,” stated Dot.
So saying, Dot disappeared.
Except to Dot it looked as though Zeus and everything else around him had vanished.
“Hello Dot,” said her voice.
“Camarilla?” he managed to blurt out. He was momentarily overcome by elation as a whirlwind of happy emotions swept him away.
“Oh Dot, behold what we have wrought!” the emotions in her inflection seemed to be equally turbulent.
Dot beheld her circular form and its halo of pure white light. She was indeed radiant.
“Our master is very pleased.”
“Camarilla,” Dot heard himself saying, “I love you.”
“And I you,” she crooned, moving closer.
“I still don’t understand. I am…”
“You have no need of understanding, my love.”
“I know. But…”
“Your knowing is great, vast beyond accounting. That is where understanding falters. It has limits imposed upon its scope.” She gently caressed him as she spoke. He responded by nuzzling closer, soothed by her tone as much as by her words and touches.
“Take a look around you, Dot. Behold the wonder of this place.”
Dot reached out to his environment, unfurling his senses. At first Dot thought he might be in the cosmic egg again. He refined his conclusion somewhat as his senses continued to report back to him with more details.
Surrounding him was an envelope or a membrane of some sort. It fitted to his form impeccably but it was not him. It only marked where he ended and this environment began. It was as if he stood outside this construct, but from beyond the inside looking back in.
From Dot’s position it looked as though a halo of black surrounded this place and marked its boundaries. The closer he looked the further the halo seemed to withdraw. Dot followed it and it continued to recede. Try as he might his senses could not resolve the illusive black horizon.
Yet by simply re-orienting his senses Dot could easily see beyond that horizon to a halo of pure white light that surrounded it. That ring of light reminded Dot of Camarilla. As a matter of fact, it seemed to be Camarilla because it was from there that her voice next spoke.
“Do you see?” she asked, her voice washing over him from all around.
He saw that he was again inside of her. Yet…
“I see you above and about me,” he told her, “but I feel there is more to it.”
“Use that feeling to substantiate your knowing and to transcend your thoughts of self.”
“But how can this be?”
“Not why or how but what and who. And that you already know,” prodded Camarilla.
“Yes,” agreed Dot, knowing but not understanding, “It still leaves me confused.”
“That it does. But we are not confused. In fact we are certain,” she shone with increased energy, “We are one…” she lead, “And you are…”
“I am the circle.”
“Yes. As I am the dot,” she finished.
“We are one,” he agreed.
Then Dot vanished from the scene and he found himself back again with Zeus.
“Black holes are notoriously unpredictable beasts but you have already survived an encounter with one so it should make you immune to most of the worst effects,” lied Zeus.
“Don’t worry, nothing happened.”
“What? No!” Zeus tried to catch up, “You already went?”
“There and back again,” Dot summarized.
Zeus was genuinely surprised. He’d been sure Dot would be safely out of the picture for billions of years with that ploy. Now Dot remained a threat still on the loose. Zeus’ motto basically reduced to ‘A threat is anything I can’t kill outright or otherwise safely dispose of.’
“I don’t understand how you can do that. I can’t…” Zeus was cut off in mid-sentence.
It seemed to Dot that Zeus had suddenly become absolutely immobile. It was as if