wr_post24:subj_fict

SELF-TREASON

Imagine that every time you make a decision, the time line of the universe(s) splits to accommodate all of the possible outcomes and at any given point in time, assuming that time is more or less linearly sweeping across all lines at once, you may perceive yourself to be doing one thing, but you are also, technically, buying that car and/or not signing up for cable internet and/or married with 2 young children, while simultaneously poor, rich, dying and sterile. The reason we think of ourselves as possessing free will is that each of these selves only sees the line they're on, not knowing that the infinite Calder mobile which is these paths hangs sideways, for the sake of argument, across, and really, more accurately, within and through, the cosmos and is, always was and always will be going on forever towards our million deaths and beyond the point when we stop consciously participating and our bodies break down and make untold billions of other little lives possible.

But, the metaphysical mysteries of time and space aside, imagine that you could visit yourself on another time line and imagine that somehow your absence in your line and duplicate presence in another didn't totally muck up the whole works and imagine that in you-sub-one's time line life is more or less average, but you-sub-two is revered as a god. And to tell the truth, not just a god, but God. Million typewriters, million monkeys, Shakespeare. Ta-da! "Other you" won the jackpot, so to speak, and everyone in his little corner of existence can recite his entire brilliant legacy from birth til recognition as a the deity. In fact, given the complexity of the various streams, you-sub-one and you-sub-two are essentially identical save one seemingly arbitrary and meaningless decision which forms the basis for some of the most extravagant ritual ever exhibited by any humans on any of the intertwining lines.

NOW, imagine that I lied about their being no negative effects to you-sub-one playing house guest in the realm of His Majesty You-Sub-Two, because truth-be-told in a vein similar to preserving a sense of control in a time-space relation like the one I've described, deity's draw their power from infallibility and the plain and simple fact that their followers think there is only one of them. So naturally you-sub-one walks on the scene none the wiser, probably through some door he'd never seen anyone go through in his office out in the hall by the fire stairs and the bathrooms, and everyone he sees averts their eyes in a show of piety. It doesn't take long for him to see the statues, posters and uniformly "unworthy" behavior of every spectator. No one leapt forth with an explanation, but their was the general sense that he was being directed, if only by the path people cleared before him in their expectations and given their remembrances of God's interaction with the citizenry. He walked slowly, seemed lost. Everyone stared obediently at their knees as they crouched the requisite amount of time for the Godhead to pass, but some people noticed the hesitance in God's gait. The uncertainty that had never been present before as God mounted the steps to his temple. God seemed...out of sorts.

Inside the main chamber lavish attention had been paid to every detail. Immense orange sashes covered nearly every surface, lending the room a cloud-like quality and an ethereality that left one unbalanced. You-sub-one walks up and they get to talking and then they realize the point in time that they made different decisions and the worshippers hear and they're all "whatever, you suck." and the streams cross and mcfly from BTTF2 sees BTTF1 mcfly in the 50's from different points in the future and david lee roth fights sammy hagar and crazy music plays with banjos and shit the end...