photo credit: jonstahl

Sandwich: Mr Mackerel, does the ontological niche of a peanut butter jar decide its purpose as well as its identity?

Mr Mackerel: Sit very, very still.

Sandwich: Excuse me, Mr Mackerel? Do you mean its purpose is only defined based on its contents when always used for its original intent, but dynamic tensions can change its purpose in a way that its surroundings have not only become irrelevant in deciding its purpose but place it in a quantum state where its purpose can be both true to its identity and, say, a container for preserves, until either has come into effect?

Mr Mackerel: I mean that there’s a big ass spider on your face.

Sandwich: Oh, that’s Rudolph.

Mr Mackerel: Rudolph, yes? He is allowed to live?

Sandwich: Why, yes. He’s just a spider. And I think he looks cute.

Mr Mackerel: I see that. Very elegant as well. Very limber. Does he catch many bugs?

Sandwich: None, it seems. I’m not sure how he survives!

Mr Mackerel: Maybe Rudolph’s infected by a parasite that lays eggs in his body, but he digests them before they mature, parasitising the parasite.

Sandwich: That… could be the case, I suppose.

Mr Mackerel: Maybe his kind intentionally grows and harvests parasite maggots in his intestines, just like we could have a vegetable patch in our abdomen.

Sandwich: I don’t think we could, Mr Mackerel. I don’t know about that. What do the maggots feed on?

Mr Mackerel: Peanut butter?

Sandwich: You’re just being ridiculous now, Mr Mackerel.

Mr Mackerel: Maybe your mother is being ridiculous.

Sandwich: Did you just do what I think you did?

Mr Mackerel: All I did was your momma.

Sandwich: Mr Mackerel!!

Mr Mackerel: That’s what she said.

The fulminating vista of Mr Mackerel’s world.

Living in this reality used to be a given, an assumption, it did not occur to me that a world with different rules might exist. Before I found the portal to Earth, the Corporeal Manifestation Battery and the Sigma Stick, I knew much less about my world than I know now by knowing Life on Earth.

Let me teach you about my world so you can know about your own world.

Why your reality is better than Metaworld:

1. A bridge yesterday is a bridge today.

In Metaworld the laws of nature are just as strict as in human reality, but chaotic. A complex reality can be stable in its patterns, situated on the edge of chaos between randomness and thorough predictability. Change the factors and reality leans towards one or the other. On Earth reality is predictable to a high degree and humans have learnt to live life based on certainties and probabilities. When a bridge has been built you can generally expect that bridge to be there for years to come and it will always be familiar to you. Its shape is stable and sharply outlined.

In Metaworld the factors in play make for a much more unpredictable reality. A Focus (object conceived by coagulation of symbols) representing a bridge can for any set of reasons turn into a mirror or monstrous machine. Its shape will never be in rest, always pulsating or undulating or camouflaging or moving or subtly changing its function.

2. Doors seal a room.

Within Earth’s reality doors make it possible to separate a space from another space. In Metaworld there are countless doors, but it’s impossible to gain access to a separate space by using them. The doors simply allow you to view a space with a different perspective. The surrounding reality seeps right into and through it.

On Earth you can keep the cat out of the bedroom. In the Metaworld, a lava stream of ideas might flow right into the ‘room’ and trip you into thinking about creating a metaworld within the metaworld, with your own choice of rule sets. Stupid distracting lava streams.

3. Monsters are mostly limited to zoos.

The Metaworld is teeming with hordes and hordes of monsters. They don’t pose a threat to your existence per se, but alter your perception of reality in involuntary ways. A human may play a game with computer-generated monsters, a human child may think there’s a monster under their bed, but in the Metaworld monsters are real and have to be dealt with on a daily basis. They are particularly difficult when you wish to change an element of your own reality. Monsters are guaranteed to contest your changes.

Monsters are a simpler species of Metaworld creature. They work on a basic mechanism that is frighteningly important to them. Monsters have been infused with the idea that the interests of their mechanism trumps all other considerations. They usually have a very limited sense of humour.

4. Selective information.

On Earth it is perfectly possible to remain ignorant of most things beyond your direct surroundings, and even ignorant of what is before your eyes. In the Metaworld your mind is bombarded by practically everything there is to know about anything your mind concentrates on. If you see a fellow Mackerel, you know why they are there, how they got there, whether they’re truly a danger or would be of interest to you, all but what they will do next.

On Earth you can choose to only know certain bits of information, and they have to be acquired, so that when you see a sausage you’re not overwhelmed with everything there is to know about sausage making factories.

5. A chance to rest.

A human being can close the eyes and go to sleep, can disable all senses. A Metaworld creature is subject to a never-ending influx of impressions. Mackerel creatures do go into various rest states, but in these states we are never disconnected from the Metaworld reality. The best we can hope for is a trance-like distraction or drowning out the senses by extreme input.

Mr Mackerel is able to sleep in this world, but his dreams translate his daily impressions into Metaworld symbolism. He does feel like he can finally rest. And that is why your reality rocks, that is why Mr Mackerel made the move to Earth.

Rejoice in your restrictions?

Bell Pepper: “There approaches a roaring sound, Mr Mackerel. Shall we presently yell and run in terror?”

Mr Mackerel: “But Pepps, that is the farmers’ parade. Look there, see the farmers approach the bridge. Look at the bridge, and look at the farmers approaching it. They are in view of the bridge, and making their way towards it. Are they not headed for a place across the bridge?

BP: Oh, currently they step to the bridge! What is their business carrying toilet paper rolls?

MM: The rolls are filled with rice, can you hear the sound of their toilet rolls rattling?

BP: They are carrying a multitude of toilet rolls.

MM: They are rich in toilet rolls.

BP: The sound of rattling toilet rolls, it must be noted, is well-nigh indistinguishable from their clogs drumming on the bridge. So many are the farmers, so many are the clogs!

MM: They’re crossing the bridge. There is tumultuousness and there is pandemonium.

BP: The bridge consists partly of the following: support beams. Mr Mackerel, would I be correct in stating this?

MM: You would be correct in stating this, Bell Pepper. And the toilet rolls contain rice. And the farmers are making a racket, as are the starlings and as are the blackbirds. See the birds descend in swooping gestures around the canal boats. Here are birds, do you see the birds?

BP: Rather than the birds, I am enthralled by the farmers. They head for the setting sun. This is not my idea of farmers, and begs enquiry. But there!

MM: Woe!

BP: Pouty mogul!

MM: Flimsy posterior!

BP: Conniving fate!

MM: What happens!?

BP: A coastline appeared abruptly!

MM: I see it! The coastline!

BP: Oh, how it appeared! What shall be expected of us?

MM: I can tell you the rattling of the toilet paper stopped. I can tell you the drumming of farmers’ feet on the bridge stopped.

BP: They are silent. But they are heading for the coastline with eager speed!

MM: They must be. Do you still have that blueberry pancake?

BP: Yes, but it has gotten a bit sticky.

MM: That’s alright. I do not intend to eat it.

The rain blows in every direction.
Upwards? Upwards back into the sky.
A random case of rain running amok in space.

Morning. Waking up under a bridge. Have I become a Parisian vagabond? I notice that my feet are still claws, though. There they are. Hi, claws! I grab a bottle and throw it into the river just to hear the sound of it.

Early afternoon. Walking along the river I see it flanked by stones, rusty lengths of barbed wire, foam, reed branches and an undefinable mixture of mud and pigeon poop.

Late afternoon. A burly man with rugged face is hunched over a tiny ice-cream. It appeals to me. But then it starts to rain. It rains almost horizontally, it hits me from the left, it hits me from the right. Going along with this I let the rain push me anywhere, push me home. But it pushes me up, it starts to rain upwards and I’m shot into the sky. I feel mildly not at ease! Wooh!

(Ed: At this point the memory must have gotten the best of him. He ran off and returned 3 hours later with a tacky balloon and lipstick on his face. Thanks for that, it’s impossible to calm him down now.)

The ribbons dropped like glossy flyers from a crashing zeppelin, sucking up our mind void in a dreamlike loss of control. They were, probably, more like flyers than ribbons anyway. Ms. Lanyard watched, and so did Mr Pigskin and Mr Porkknuckles. Meanwhile the monkey was shot behind the scenes, without audio or video recording, without paperwork. If we had known, we would have not been happy with that.

The ribbons served a mere decorative function. They were there to be pretty, to rain with a positively cheerful attitude. The next night fireflies made their way down the motorway. We were inside one of those fireflies, had been for hours, but hadn’t been thinking about monkeys. Monkeys were one of the farthest things from our minds. Ms. Lanyard was thinking about how their melancholy was reinforcing itself, Mr Porkknuckles was pondering the A-Team, and Mr Pigskin had tomato juice on his mind. I was thinking about whether people could be lured to a good shoe shining by the scent of shoe polish.

SHOE POLISH, IMAGINE THAT?

We did make our way to Dubrovnik eventually.

Mice are better than rats? I do not think you can make that kind of distinction!

Hello, I’m Mr. Mackerel. I’m not a fish. I’ve been told I can pass for a fish, which is not a nice thing to say unless you’d consider dating a fish or have it polish your shoes. It turns out most people wouldn’t date a fish.

I like fish.

Yesterday I tied knots in a rainbow and it seemed to work for a while. Tell me, is it inadvisable to stand twitching and sizzling in the sun though you feel like you’re accomplishing the impossible? A young girl in pyjamas passed me by and told me I looked like a musician. I didn’t reply, because I was too busy pondering how nice it would be if there was a band of musicians called the Brotherhood of Nothing, and I could knight those melody carriers I thought fit to be part of the brotherhood, cheerfully hailing them as guardians of the people immersed. Crane birds, do they signify that such a thing is possible? They might as well!

Mr. Mackerel needs a nap. I am going to call it a French nap. It sounds better.

My thanks to “Admin”, who is going to give the reigns of this blog to me (Ed: for the most part). I like washed lettuce! It feels like limp pages of cracked paper! Candy for the ex-shoe polisher? I must assume that tomorrow I will wake up as myself once more.