This is an experiment in fiction. If history acknowledges this work, it will be known as the start of the literary style (?): Abstract Realism.
Love. There exist cases where space is distant between them, the pair. Each occupies a space separately, (in-)dependently, but there is a bridge amidst them. A possible bridge, a strait through that ocean of spaces. In every airport gateway, you will see a case as such. In anticipation, the strait is bridged, automatic doors open – whoosh. Cold air moves outside, unless the airport harbors warmth over the Outside. Eyes glance over, through, sideways… and you see it. A smile, overwhelmed (?), is it a smile or tears? Nobody wants to run over, excited, full throttle, well some do, but a staggered step, intent, uneven, an aim that stops with an embrace. And all that is followed after – words that acknowledge the lack of a conjoined space, “I missed you”, tears and other affections, an affectionate punch on the shoulders perhaps.
Separation of space also deals with the separation of time. Not every time, but often appear together. What is a temporal gap in such circumstances? The lack of a future temporal event. Separation of space brings out the lack, the lack of the other, the lack in oneself – jealousy, anger, detachment; the lack starts embodying the person. And that’s the end. Of course, the temporal gap can happen in the presence of an overflowing space. Stories of lovers, different religious backgrounds, even not religious themselves, but religious to the ones who are religious. Often an eventual separation is anticipated at the beginning or intermediary, “This won’t last long, ?”. ? – a question posed. Do you acknowledge the question? The question of a question is posed to the other.
What would a story of love without temporality and spatiality look like? Love, as what is perceptually love, performatively love. At the end of the day, it may have just been neurotic justifications, unconscious subjugation to the Other, through the other. But what does “atemporal-aspatial” look like?
This is a story of how I came close to that.
A lack of space, how does that come about? What about meet-cutes, conversations, seductions that happen in no-space? Well, “technically”, you could conceive the space. The bits traveling underwater, giant plugs attached to towers that facilitate it through the skies. Air isn’t a lack of space, but it is the closest to pure aspace down here. I won’t bore you with the details. It was a generic voice chat room, a platform for them. Vibrations in Air, electric pulses through wires, underwater, wires again, back through the air, heard through a wire. A layered superimposition of transactions, except underwater, a switchable array of them, like slots inserted and taken out.
Blue lights, dim room, ah, the cliched start of any melancholic tale of love – or a good cyberpunk story. We… well, how did we meet? A movie, that must have been it. Yes, a movie that I had already watched, but wanted to watch again. Movies, conversations, a bond that we couldn’t put terms to language… yet. Eventually, we would, retroactively, in death. Like the Dunes being recognized for what it is, but Toole is already long dead.
Why was it a lack of space? For one, we had no intention to meet, more accurately, the other didn’t. Space would make it too real, too physical, too material. At the moment, it was singular dots, two exo-planets, no feasibility, immediate feasibility of contact. An abstract flow connected us, it could be cut off, anytime. On and off, tap and turn upside down. I was still connected to the concept of space, just that the other wasn’t. It was brought up, thus, each time that weak link severed off with vibrations, increased amplitude, short durations – followed by a silence.
Same thing with temporality. As said before, lack of space, lack of temporality, these are independent. But possibly coexistent too. The other wanted me to stay, to not go, a sustenance of the vibrations still required, a temporal request. Alas, I wanted the risk of space, of falling, of cuts and wounds, splattered blood… merely the vibrations? I didn’t think so.
How might I characterize this? The lack of space, lack of temporality, happens in this asymmetric inverse relation. Consider the two parties. The one connects to space, a feeble connection to it, lends a hand to the aspatial, “Come with me, won’t you?”. Swatted off, severed. The second, however, seeks temporality in the aspatial. “Don’t go away, will you?” – I have no choice. Back and forths happen surely, but eventually, the weak line connecting to space becomes stronger, clearer, tangible, concrete. And I travel, the aspatial is destroyed, connection has no requirement to be severed, it is no longer.
The existence of space doesn’t guarantee excursions in it, a complete employment of it. Often it is merely space, caresses on the fringes of space, toe-dips in water, no possibility of falling off cliffs, wrecked in torn ships, not even a single bruise. Are the sounds of ukuleles heard in the spatial, the fringe shallow one? It certainly was heard in the aspatial-atemporal, a black hole, attractive forces of which glues objects in; what do we call the meeting of two black holes then? A violent excursion in pulling and tearing apart, glued in, through, beyond – and it swings back and forth, this three-forth linear transition.
A hole through earth. Opposite sides, two entities, dropped in. There’s a collision in the core, an immense acceleration. In and Through. Immediately we go Beyond, the other side, only go In again. In, Through, Beyond.
Space is isolated in interaction. In solitude, space is dead for the moment. Sleep. There’s no spatial-temporal activity, nothing active anyway. And the inactive ones, easily forgettable. Like cats, they prefer naps – no active spatio-temporality, inactive ones are forgotten. Thus, space (and time) is dead.
When space is violated, is a recuperation of space the easier path? Or the neglect of space, turning a blind eye to the destroyed crop-fields, an on and off switch: space is no more. Thus, for the other, space was absent, has been absent, an earlier violation the reason. Not completely absent, cracks of light pass through the closed eyes, or the light knocks on the eyelids, there’s no running away with space absolutely. But the pursuit of closing eyes, ignoring the light, killing space.
It’s a sphere of glass, a space covering it, then the external space. Space? More like Aether. Einstein’s second biggest “blunder” was useful after all.
Creation of this isolated space. What does that look like? Any immediate threats to the space has to disappear, the four-year distancing period. The one that comes right after the legally mandated, not yet socially, possibility of any non-violatary exploration. And by the isolated space, once again, I don’t mean any “deep” exploration of it. Nothing extensive, for even that, even non-violation, is violation. What I mean is the construction of the Aether, the filling of it.
There are agents, there is space. There are events, agents in them, space overflowing. It is easy to be part of an event, one isn’t required to have any invasive participation. Agents look at you- “Ah, there’s one of us”. No questions asked, no doubts elicited. Aether gives off the illusion that something is there, something is participating with us, this is another agent just like us. Of course, whether there are other isolated balls, Aether-surrounded ones, is another question. But, the Aether-surrounded other, themselves, wouldn’t know, would they? There’s a reason why Aether surrounds her.
Now, the four-year tenure isn’t the only tool for filling space. A retroactive padding, Aether now takes on a life of its own. Now, the space that identifies with the Aether, thinking it is the Aether, doesn’t realize this. For it is merely being who it is, who it truly is, the Aether. What would a padding, filling, look like? Specifically, what did it look like for the other I speak of?
Padding – it has to be something non-fragmented. In content, yes, but also repeating the same already keeps it non-fragmented. No surprises, no breaks, disruption, tears, strains, any varied words that signified an event of fragmentation. All of it is non-existent. Animated movies, the Disney princesses – ones that dictate Aether itself, socially mandated Aether, “Oh, don’t show fragmentation”, there’s an implicit directive. Don’t show the lack, don’t show the flux, only Aether, a carefully (unconsciously) formulated, an identified-with, Aether.
It helps if the padding is associated with an event before fragmentation, when everything was non-fragmented. A dead father and the Disney movie cds he used to bring when he wasn’t dead will do. Padding becomes comfortable, familiar. It takes on extra powers, for it kills two fragmentations in one stone. It supercharges itself, it’s a super-padding now. A concealed sponge, a hard-to-tear one, that to the outside, to the “self”, keeps stability.
Can we identify with this Aether? A pseudo-space, larking as actual space, but merely a construction over the fragmented one. An obstruction even, for what is the truth? Is there a permanent texture of space, a “true” one – not really. Aether, however, propagates the “trueness” of this space; “Aether is the real space.”, it proclaims. But it merely distracts, it conceals, fragments and fragments more. To even realize the emptiness of space, its non-permanency, its flux and possibility – won’t fragments have to be encountered?
And when the spatial one, the one who lends their hand, becomes this very flux. And the aspatial-temporal reaches out, again with the same temporal request, “Stay with me, will you” – How can it respond? It cares for this aspatial creature, however, cannot… It realizes that the flux is too important, it can only interact with flux, other flux(es), the fluctual spaces. The aspatial has still a long way to go from being spatial, then fluctual. Alas, the fluctual is destined to wander alone, a singular fluctual. No other singularities in sight.
Formula for a particular case of aspatial-atemporal love. Two agents in no-space, asymptotical no-space, “the air”. One insistent on spatial, therefore after the fact temporal, but spatial, first and foremost. The other insistent on aspatial, but temporal in this aspatial. Consider the initial interaction, not any change that may happen after conditions being, or not, met.
(One) Spatial-atemporal <-> (the other) Aspatial-temporal = Aspatial-Atemporal.
Therefore.