self-references engine
PROLOGUE: WRITING
A SET OF all possible character strings. All possible books would be contained
in that.
Most unfortunately though, there is no guarantee whatsoever you would
be able to find within it the book you were hoping for. It could be you might
find a string of characters saying, “This is the book you were hoping for.”
Like right here, now. But of course, that is not the book you were hoping
for.
I haven’t seen her since then. I think she’s most likely dead. After all, it
has been hundreds of years.
But then again, I also think this.
Noticing her as she gazes intently into the mirror, the room in disarray; it
is clear that centuries have flowed by, or some such. And she, perhaps, has
finished applying her makeup, and she is getting up and is going out to look
for me.
Her eyes show no sign of taking in the fact that the house has been
completely changed, destroyed around her. The change was gradual,
continuing, and even long ago she was not very good at things like that. As
far as she is concerned, that is not the sort of thing one has to pay attention
to. Not that she is aware, but it seems so obvious, she doesn’t need to care
about it.
Have we drowned, are we about to drown, are we already finished
drowning, are we not yet drowning? We are in one of those situations. Ofcourse, it could be that we will never drown. But think about it. I mean,
even fish can drown.
I remember her saying meanly, “If that’s the case, you must be the one
from the past.”
It is true of course. Everybody comes out of the past; it’s not that I’m
some guy who comes from some particular past.
Even when that is pointed out, though, she shows no sign of backing
down.
“It’s not as if I came out of some bizarro past,” she said. That’s how she
and I met.
Writing it down this way, it doesn’t seem like anything at all is about to
happen, right? Between her and me, I mean. As if something could ever
really happen. As if something continues to happen that might ever make
something else happen.
I am repeating myself, but I haven’t seen her since then. She promised
me, with a sweet smile, that I would never see her again.
For the short time we were together, we tried to talk about things that
really meant something to us. Around that time there were a lot of things
that were all mixed up, and it was not easy to sort out what was really real.
There might be a pebble over there, and when you took your eyes off it it
turned into a frog, and when you took your eyes off it again it turned into a
horsefly. The horsefly that used to be a frog remembered it used to be a frog
and stuck out its tongue to try to eat a fly, and then remembered it used to
be a pebble and stopped and crashed to the ground.
With all this going on, it’s really important to know what’s really real and
what’s not.
“Once upon a time, somewhere, there lived a boy and a girl.”
“Once upon a time, somewhere, there lived boys and girls.”
“Once upon a time, somewhere, there lived no boy and no girl.”
“Once upon a time…lived.”
“Lived.”
“Once upon a time.”
From beginning to end, we carried on this back-and-forth process. For
example, in this dialogue, we were somehow finally mutually able to comeup with this kind of compromise statement:
“Once upon a time, somewhere, there lived a boy and a girl. There may
have been lots of boys, and there may have been lots of girls. There may
have been no boys at all, and there may have been no girls at all. There may
even have been no one at all. At any rate there is little chance there were
equal numbers of each. That is unless there had never been anybody at all
anyway.”
That was our first meeting, she and I, and of course it meant we would
never see each other again. I was making my way in the direction she had
come from, and she was headed in the direction I had come from, and this is
a somewhat important point; you must realize this walking had to be,
