Author: Majoki
On the endless rooftop of the fact-ory, they sat in the beat up armchairs amid a bristling forest of antennae and corrugated steel backlit by the godly effulgence of towers and tenements that defined the horizon. It was steamy hot though well past midnight. The heat never quite radiated away these days, but they’d long grown accustomed to it, grateful for the slight breeze that stirred late at night.
The eleven adults who represented Kankuut—their rooftop settlement—sat in a semicircle interacting with the cyglyph. A buzzing hive of media sensation, the holoform display branched to each of their chairs pouring a live netstream from which they made their selections. Consuming and producing content simultaneously, they shaped meme-ing in their lives. Pheromones of thought directed strange dances of conversation that filled the air and airways.
I post, therefore I exist. The city sang. Connected.
Little aYa appeared puffing her cherubic cheeks. “I can’t sleep,” she told the adults of Kankuut as she climbed onto her mother’s arm rest. “Tell me a story.”
Her mother patted her head and sent the image to her cadre of followers. “Who’ll tell aYa a story?” she broadcast.
aBa oLo pinged and his sister positioned his holoform in front of aYa. “Having trouble sleeping, little bird?”
aYa nodded. “Tell me a story, aBa. Please.”
“Of course. It is what we are. You and I, your aMa and aPa, all people, we are made of stories.” His holoform turned a bright orange, not unlike the rising moon through the thick city haze. “I think I will tell you the story of Hupta the Hermit.”
“Was he real?” the child asked.
“Hupta? Little bird, all is real. Creation is creation. Information, information. Thus we are formed. And that is much of Hupta’s tale. Listen, little bird.”
aBa oLo’s form reached out in an expansive gesture which slowly dissolved into a massive tree and then a towering forest. aBa oLo’s voice filled the forest.
“This is a place of old, aYa. A living thing connected at the roots like we are connected by the air and waves of cyglyphs. Creatures great and small lived among these mighty trees, but only two had the knowledge to harness the trees. One creature, Biva had enormously powerful front teeth and jaws.”
An image of the furry flat tailed creature with the protruding teeth floated before aYa who drew back. “It must be enormous to bite through a tree, aBa.”
“Biva was much smaller than you, aYa. It could only bring down a tree very slowly, and generally small trees. Trees that it could easily position to make its home.” A Biva dam and pond slowly rotated for aYa.
“It is like the pools that form behind the fact-ory during monsoon. Oh, to live in water every day, aMa!” She turned to her mother who, once again, patted her head.
“Yes, aYa, water is a blessing. Now let your aBa tell his story.”
“Indeed, the Biva enjoyed his home among the trees, until…”
“Until,” aYa repeated, sensing the cue, “Hupta came.”
“Yes, little bird, Hupta came and sat with his back against the tallest tree near the pond.” aBa allowed aYa to see from Hupta’s vantage, his deep red robe and gnarled bare feet pointing directly to the placid pond where Biva swam.
“Show me his face, aBa.”
aBa chuckled. “I cannot. You must create it. Hupta the Hermit. Beyond ken and kit. Let his words and actions create his features. To partake of the cyglyph, one day, you must contribute. That is the way of the city-zen and the fact-ory”
Her chocolate eyes widened like a newborn’s. “I will try, aBa.”
“That is all that is ever required, little bird. To try is to learn, to learn is to grow, to grow is to connect.
“I do not understand how, aBa,” she said.
“Of course you do not, little bird. Not yet. Hupta’s story, like all tales is a seed. It must grow. Like we all must. Become Biva. Become Hupta. Become the teller of your own story. Ideas, possibilities, lessons, life, oneness are the work which we commit to the fact-ory. It makes the world spin.”
“It makes me dizzy, aBa,” aYa admitted.
“Then, precious little bird, you are of the city-zen.”