Triple Heartbreak: NY Beggars, Yoshoo, and Rotten Apples in Moscow

         Like a lot of people, I have cried many times in my life, about important things and not so important things. Three times rise to the top in recollection not only because they are recent, but they help to define who I am, who I try to be, and life itself for me.

         The first I will mention was 7 years ago. I was in New York City, I was illegally parked, and put in what I consider, the most shameful position imaginable to my self-image. I was walking down the street, just passed someone asking for help, and was relieved I did not have to turn around as it was not expected of me, and no one else was helping either. I fit in too well there. I knew exactly at that moment I would never get those words out of my head spoken by a child to my back almost inaudible on a noisy street which would echo in my head for the rest of my life, “Please sir, could you....” and then trailing off when seeing I was not going to turn around.

         To put it a bit more in perspective, I have always tried never to turn my back on anyone asking for help or even for money. I prided myself on always hearing out anyone, and whenever I could, giving as much help as they asked or that I could. I even went without a meal once while in college when extremely hungry because as I was going to get food, someone outside was panhandling and gave him the only few dollars I had because though I was broke, unlike him, I knew I would be able to find something to eat when I went home that night, plus I had a home then to go home to as well.

         New York City is a very strange environment to me: too many people, too much going on at once. I have never cared for the place and find it abrasive somehow. Since I was saving up to move to Hawaii, I had for some reason over $1000 on me in hundred dollar bills which made me nervous of being robbed or pick-pocketed. I was in a ritzy area of the city where I thought such things might occur. I was not able to find a place to park but figured I could get away with parking in a tow-away zone because I did not think I would be long and guessed, correctly, that my car would not be towed, though I really had nothing to base that on.

         I am often able to read situations correctly, and because of this, make mistakes when I think I know what is going on or going to happen before they actually happen. This day I was blindsided completely, and it was due to anger and an instant judgment which could have been wrong. I was on Wall Street, and saw what I thought was a person using a child to beg for money. The child was dressed in what seemingly purposely looked like rags with mismatched socks and shoes which did not fit, clothes soiled or torn, and the woman seemingly begging for money, whom everyone ignored both of them completely.

         Thinking I knew the situation, I was enraged. “That child should be in school. Its the middle of the day. How can someone be dressed like that and to be used to get handouts? (It was not just bad clothes but seemingly far worse than could be imagined, seemingly almost having to be for effect.)This is America. This should not be happening here. This should not be happening at all.” Obviously, I am not used to cities or seeing what goes on there, and most other people there seemingly did not notice them or ignored the two people completely, as if it was not anything out of place at all.

         So when walking past, thinking I knew completely the situation, I was relieved because I was so angry that once I had gotten past them, the way I saw it, pretending I did not hear or see them, that I could just keep walking. But I was not to get off so easy. Just after I made it past them the child had turned to me and said to my back, “Please sir, could you...,” and yes, I was relieved at that instant that I lived in a society that said, “you don't have to turn around, you can just keep walking and pretend that person does not exist.” It was so antithetical to everything that had been my life and everything I hoped my life to be.

         I was immediately thrown into turmoil by it. I did not see that coming. I was too distracted by the crush of people all around me, the bustle, the voices, the thought of being robbed, too angry at what I thought was the situation, and worrying about my illegally parked car possibly being towed. My mind reeling, I quickly put together a new set of plans. I would go back to where my car had been parked, check to be sure that it was not being towed, and then I would go back to what I thought were people begging and try to find out what the situation there was.

         If it was a good story, or if they needed to find something or get somewhere, I would try to help as much as I could. I would have at that point even gladly give hundreds of dollars if I had to just to paper over that I had just been relieved to have not been required to help someone who very much may have needed it and that moment, me walking away from someone asking for help, would not be frozen in time for all time. I would undo it no matter how much it cost me.

         I got back to where my car was, a nice new sports car, and saw it was still there. But then I was approached by yet another presumed mother and daughter standing by my car, and when they saw that it was mine, this time there was no doubt in my mind about it, that as they were approaching me, that they were begging for money. That time it was clear. Now I was really pissed off. “What is with this place? I can't take this. Get me the hell out of here!” So instead of going back, I got in my car and drove off.

         That night, I not only cried, I literally prayed to die. I could not believe I could be so completely caught off-guard, then so completely 100% time-blind, and to have walked away from a situation I might have been of help when asked directly simply to be listened to, and not even giving that much. There was nothing in that incident that was, relative to the rest of society, anything to be particularly ashamed of, and if I lived in New York or any other major city, I might have had to learn to deal with things like that happening everyday, and might quickly tune it out or like others, have good reason to think I knew the situation based on similar experiences with others. But it was not how I ever saw myself. It was unthinkable. If I could be that much caught off-guard, that much blind to something about to happen, and react that coldly, that out of character, then how might I handle the much more difficult things I knew life would throw at me, without potentially becoming even colder and more unfeeling? "I can't do it. I won't be able to do it. I would fail."

         But I had a realization then that night, that it was really by choice. I lived because I chose to do or attempt certain things, that it was in part, my will that I should be at all, to live by rules I chose for myself to live by, sometimes or in some ways, confining and difficult for me to follow. I could quit at anytime, not meaning suicide, but that every course that I followed and would attempt later, was ultimately by choice. I had no ones image to live up to, and my own was optional, chosen, willed.

         That realization, not the first time in my life I had thought about it in those terms, gave me strength again. At that point, knowing myself to be more or even completely fallible, gutted, I also realized, being who I am is first and foremost my choice, and what others expect from me, whether more or less than what I expect from myself, is secondary. It is true that I would expect no others to have to live by the rules I set for myself. I will never cut myself as much slack as I do for others, but that too is only by choice, and is rescindable.

         The second incident I choose to mention was more recent, in early 2004. It was after the car accident, and as I said in other things, my mind was rebuilding itself after a serious concussion a few months earlier that caused significant damage. I was distraught, trying to figure out as much about life as I could, and as I also said in other things, trying to figure out how everything in life and the Universe fits together, my life, everyones lives, everything. And I gave myself a deadline for having to learn absolutely everything about absolutely everything, or at least everything about what life is or is about, and I knew I was not going to make it before that time. I might die without knowing what life was about, for then I was still trying to work that out again, and that thought chilled me and broke me.


         When realizing I could not know everything that I wanted to know, at least at that time, not being able to figure out everything, I told myself to remember the Yoshoe and Yoshoemee story. And then it popped into my head. At first it did not cheer me up, but then, eventually, slowly, still with a wet face from crying, I wrote it down. It worked more or less. To me, that is what that story is, a consolation prize for not being able to know everything about everything, or even everything about what concerns my life that I think I ought to know about or should be able to figure out. Yet it was something within me, something I could pull out when needed which cuts right through to the heart of everything else, and it was there to give me comfort when I also thought I could not bear to go on, but needed to and did.

         The third time I will mention happened a few months before that. It relates to the other two in various ways. What set me on the course for thinking I needed to know Everything about Everything was that there was a place I saw on TV that I knew, also mentioned before, Kolomenskoe, a park in Moscow. Once I knew that place existed, and that I knew it in another sense, I thought if I went there, I would be able to figure out how or why, or at least what going there would mean. To do that, I saw it if not taking the world in an entirely different direction, it threatened to change my life completely into something else. It was a branch or wing onto my life that was unfamiliar and almost unthinkable, yet it also needed to be understood.

         I did not get really any grand realization by being there, though it was confirmation that I was familiar with that park somehow. But what happened after that was curious and crushing when combined with it and the place in general. While waiting for my shuttle, I went by an old lady sitting in the freezing rain with a puppet on her hands that lit up. It was probably the most heartbreaking sight I ever saw. A woman of 80 or older selling apples slightly rotten with this puppet on her hand trying to get people to notice her. Normally, I think it my place to help anyone life puts in my path, but felt I was on the wrong path, and it was not my place to “interfere” with things there. That feeling of being on the wrong path, not really the wrong path but too off-center to any longer get definite bearings, has now spread so that many more things I now think are wrong for me to “interfere” with, even to the point sometimes of everywhere and everything no longer being my place. I just seem out of sync with the world sometimes, and at that point in time, I felt more “not belonging” there or least “ought not” to affect anything happening there than anywhere else I had been in my life up until that time.

         I ran though every possible way to try to help that old woman and could not find a way that I did not think it would backfire. That is how I see it sometimes. To break the “rules” of what is “interfering” means risking throwing someone else's life off in a direction possibly negative. In this case, giving money to her might put her at risk for being beaten and robbed. As much as I saw this at the time as a bad idea, breaking the rules, I could not not try to help her. She was not my grandmother, but she could have been someones. I ran through every possible thing I could do until I found one that I thought could have worked without backfiring.

         I would buy an apple and hand her a crunched up bill that she would pocket soon after. I really did not have much money to spare as I was almost broke but I was leaving soon anyway and that much money would not have helped me out of the bind I was in anyway. I decided to try to give her 500 rubles, about $17, and figured that might have helped her a bit. But that is a lot of money in some places. At first, everything happened exactly as I had hoped it would. I was proud. Then it started coming apart.

         She began to think that I had made a mistake. After she sat fretting for a few minutes about what to do, I began to pray the van would leave. She started to wave to me, came over to the van. Shoo, go away I waved at her. This was what I was most afraid would have happened, and if that van had not been delayed, it might had gone as I had hoped. Then, her realizing that I had meant to give her that much for the apple, she was all, thank you, thank you, bless you. Then she sat down again, tucked the money into her shirt, and after a few minutes decided to call it a night and go home. But the van stayed on and on, and after she left, the van driver who saw the whole thing, and though it was by now long long after the time he was supposed to have left, he decided to take a long walk in the direction she went far down the street and around the same corner.

         Now it could be, and hopefully was, either a coincidence or that the van driver had good reason to take an interest besides thinking that he could shake down an old lady who obviously had just been given money, so much so that she would make a minor scene about it. I tell myself, he may have just questioned her, or maybe that helping her only made a positive difference in her life briefly, and that nothing bad might have happened as a result of my wanting to help her.

         It is hard to say what criteria I use for deciding what is “interfering” and what is not. So much of life is strange to me now, so much past the end of the line, that to do anything at all can seem to me to be to risk the opposite of what I attempt or hope will occur later. But that is life, to do without knowing everything that you will affect nor being able to control everything that follows from what you do. I used to believe “nothing done in good faith can have a lasting negative effect,” but that is just words, old words and an old idea to me now.

         That night I broke down and cried hard. It was a weight almost unbearable. In New York years before, I cried because I was blindsided suddenly without warning and missed a chance to help someone, far worse and more completely than I ever could have imagined being caught off-guard. In Moscow, I cried in part because a well-thought out attempt to help someone that worked exactly as I saw it could have, later than I anticipated slowly unraveled, possibly into exactly why I feared to try to help her, and thought it best that I should not attempt it. That even when someone is standing right before me and that I think I could help, I know I am helpless to help them because of everything else around us both.

         That is a weakness, a part of my circumstances, that is hardest to bear, by choice or not. Knowledge of why this is so is not lacking in me anymore, but it is not always a comfort. Life is always best a friction, a coarseness, meant to make a mark or impression upon you. Without it, without deep feeling, gliding too easily, you are not engaged in it and less a part of it than you can be. How much you should be a part of it, a part of them, a part of their lives, that is your choice.

Politically dimensional and positively more and less pointless

One last one of these. I decided to put all the best short political bits of 2D 3D 4D 5D Thinking Made Simple together in one spot. I almost put it in TruthRevival.org but decided it was too silly, though these are somewhat political. Needed to put something lighter somewhere.

• Though he was, as in the real 2D world, still a brilliant scientist, in this evil 2D Universe, scientists were only valued and employed if willing to make weapons of mass destruction, devise new ways to manipulate people psychologically through subliminal advertising, coming up with new ways to rig peoples own computers, security cameras, and webcams to spy on them to help the secret police, or for devising new justifications and models for cheating poorer peoples out of their lands, money, and resources to make them all servants of The Corporations or die.
  Because Evil Assistwo grew up in this backward Universe, he saw nothing wrong with any of that and would have been quite willing to do any of the above, he just never caught any of the breaks like the real Assistwo did. In this evil Universe, his government was willing to hire all foreign scientists to make all their weapons of mass destruction because they did not have to pay them as much, could deport, torture, or shoot them without trials because they were foreigners (which made them more likely to show up for work on time), and above all, in hopes they would steal some of those ideas to build similar weapons in their own countries so Assistwo's country would have a good excuse for either invading them and taking all their stuff, or just simply killing them so they could use up their weapons and need to make more to keep up their weapons industry, the largest and most profitable industry on the planet, giving it even greater profits.
  

• ---

• One of the perks of his new position of power was that he got to decide who to hire, give employment to, and thereby prevent from starving to death because many had no jobs and the government forbid people not to have jobs, but would not give them any either, so not having one was a leading cause of death.
  Evil Assistwo loved his new power of life and death over those even more unfortunate than himself as much as his superiors enjoyed weilding it over him. By coincidence, one of those looking for a job was a familiar name to him somehow, maybe from a dream he once had of a freer world without gravity, rampant corruption, price tags on everyone's lives and self-respect, and one with hope.
  "I see it says here your name is "Inventor". That is a really strange name."
  "No more strange than Assistwo," he said daring the slightest hint of a smile.
  "Hey!!! You must show respect for my authoritaaaay!!!" Assistwo yelled while knocking over a table for effect. Having gravity was nice because it just laid there instead of bouncing around the room incessantly after that. The dramatic pause and silence was nicer than it bouncing around during the whole interview or having to stop it. That would have looked silly.
  

• ---

• "They said I had a point about wanting a better plot but that I shouldn't complain about it while the story is ongoing because it could be an intentional plot twist or setting up something which will happen later, and eventually make sense when I see the larger picture at the end. I think they only pretend to represent me and are really suck ups to The Man," he answered.
  "The Man?" Researcher replied.
  "You know, the establishment. Didn't you read 1960's literature or television? That was their term for that controlling group of society that tries to run our lives and keep us down. In this case though, that would be the Author."
  "What about a reversed 3D Universe dream?"
  "That idea was nixed. It said trying to reverse our world might actually improve it too much. Societies would be run by the kindest generous smart people and the most ruthless greedy and stupid mean people would be the least powerful, and corporations would have to do what the governments tell them instead of the other way around. The corporations also would not get to decide who the people could vote for in a general election."
  "That would be too strange."
  

• ---

• “But this is “nature of the Universe” type stuff, how can they cut funding for that? We can send things into other dimensions for crying out loud! How can even the so-called “military intelligence” people running out government not be impressed with that?”Researcher asked.
  “Well, for awhile they wanted to send people into another dimension to torture them outside of our laws, if its another Universe, then it can't be illegal, right? But then they found countries in Europe that already had existing facilities for than kind of stuff, and unemployed Easterners who were already well-trained.”
  “What about weapons disposal? We may not be able to bring things back from a 4th dimension yet or target things back in our Universe through it yet, but the applications for disposing dangerous weapons ought to get them interested,” he said still astounded at the concept of being unemployed. He had tenure after all!
  “Well, they thought that treaties to dispose of old weapons was a good excuse to get rid of them so they could get even more money to build new ones, but while you have been gone, it seems they never run out of new excuses for getting rid of them the old-fashioned way, using them on people. In fact that alone, that we can't make them fast enough, plus what we gain from scaring countries to give us money or leases or to get them to buy our bombs so we will have fewer to drop on them, has made the whole “treaties” and “disposal” and “disarmament” ideas downright laughable. You make them, you use them, you make more of them. Can't argue with the newer simpler straightforward logic of that.”

Infinities Overlapping: Two to One to Two

2D 3D 4D 5D Thinking Made Simple:

Infinities Overlapping: Two to One to Two

8.1 "Yes, the first part did straight-jacket us a bit."

7.6 Similarly our world being used as in 4D world examples has similar limitations depending upon which way you wish to "point" the gravity relative to our world. To imagine its gravity relative to our own, you would have to imagine a 4D researcher or inventor being able to walk around within our world, jump within our world, but also be able to step out of it at any time in either of two possible directions we can't see or imagine."

"If we do get a 4D researcher in the story," the assistant interrupted again, "he better not get a name before me. At least you and Inventor had to wait awhile for names. It seems like I have been waiting forever. However, I vote for 'Refrigerator' for a name. For a 4D person, not for me."

"If you keep interrupting me, I will vote for 'Exterminator' because we would seem like bugs crawling around on a 3D universe "ground" to them, and since you keep interrupting, it would be good to have an easy way to write you out. My guess is it would be an occupational name. 'Researcher,' 'Inventor,' see a pattern? 'Refrigerator' indeed! 'Upholsterer' would even make more sense!"

8.1 "I just thought since you were writing about the possibility of one dimension higher, maybe we could play around with time a bit. You know, bounce around in the story without having to have to build upon anything, no conclusion to the story, just little vignettes of stuff."

7.5 "But is that really applicable to us?" his assistant wondered. "Though we have decided for some time now the world is not flat, and see ourselves stuck to the outside of a bubble or marble in space, we do understand being able to travel in any direction in 3D "outer" space, so is our view limited any longer by gravity since we no longer see the world as flat and realize all of the 3 dimensions we perceive are the same?"

"They are NOT the same, not with gravity, but now is not the time to go there yet. We have only begun to factor in all that it means," Researcher suggested.

"In regards to heaven and hell, we still have the same ideas or imagery roughly as when we thought the world was flat. Because we had the up/down direction we never used much in our thinking, we were able to decide how the Earth could curve back upon around upon itself, but a curvature of all 3 dimensions back upon itself, that even other researchers as ourselves are only in our infancy of beginning to understand "curving into what" as those who first thought the world was not flat had to figure out a way to explain gravity, or that how people at the opposite end of the planet as you would not fall off. Because we now have more freedom of movement in space, we can understand up/down, left/right, forward/backward, they are all completely the same there unlike on Earth where up/down is nowheres near the same. But with more understanding of more possible movements, now how to curve all of those back again without having another limited one, that becomes the next problem to solve."

8.1 "But that would preclude causality, that there was a before now, and you said you wanted to do away with that. You may have said that, but who says it was before now. Maybe you will say that later. Maybe it was a different Universe and there you are saying it now."

7.3 "I have two but they are both on the same side of my head so I have to bend my neck all the way backwards to see what is behind me. I miss being able to turn around. Wouldn't it make more sense to have one on each side so I can see what is behind me when I wish to back up?" Assistwo asked.

"That is a good question, but not applicable to gravity. Even in your "normal" 2D world, you could not see what was behind you, which from what you say about the size of your ass, may be a good thing after all. It would make understanding when you are moving toward something, you have to be moving away from something or somewhere else easier. Clearer insight into that would have been helpful when contemplating curved spacial environments," Inventor answered.

8.1 "See, there you go, bringing up the past. All the better to get rid of causality now. No expectations, no limitations on the future or what is possible. Thats what I'm talking about! If you were good before, you have to be just as good or better later. If you're off a bit, everyone says, "Hey, whats wrong with him, he used to be so good. What a pity!" Its a trap I tell you."

8.0: Infinity Zero Realm: After an eternity of bad jokes, we finally start in 4th gear

As Upholsterer was coming back from the store in the 4D universe, he was eager to patch the hole in the couch where a 4 dimensional cigarette burned a hole through it. Not only was the hole in the couch the equivalent to us as a completely self-enclosed 3 dimensional universe, it was also only the width of a 4 dimensional (insert product placement brand name here) cigarette, which are not very wide but even more lethal than a 3D one (Ok, forget the product placement commission). The strip of cloth he got, that was extremely thin in a 4th dimensional sense, which made it nice and flexible and easier to sew through, was also the equivalent of a 3D universe to us, only it was a solid leather universe which would not have been very comfortable to try to move around in it but would not have stopped rock musicians and fashion-crazed idiots from wanting to own one to make 4D pants out of.

He stopped and raised a hypersphere shaped knocker on one of the double doors, also coincidentally shaped as what Einstein believed the Universe was made out of, only his were not brass like these balls were.

The solid brass hypersphere knocker came down on the 4D door causing such a nasty noise that its occupant, Big Ass, had to cover his ears while walking to the door. There was definitely gravity in this Universe, as well as hangovers.

"Are you Big Ass?" Upholsterer asked.

"You've heard of me?" Big Ass inquired back.

"No, it says so on this invoice. I am here to repair the damage on one of your bosses expensive leather couches from your party last week at this office without permission."

"It says all of that on the invoice?" Big Ass asked while shielding his eyes from the light of the hyperspheric sun.

"No, but me and your boss talked a little while ago and I was told to ask for "Big Ass." I am guessing there is not many who would like to be called that. Actually, I was told to bill it to a Mr. Assistant Morefour. I assume that is you, Big Ass."

"Ok, you can quit with the "Big Ass" now. Only my friends get to call me that. To my boss and most people, they call me Asisfour. That was my boss's idea of a joke. Come on in."

As Upholsterer set to work on repairing the couch, Asisfour's boss arrived at the office. Each time Upholsterer cut the cloth, it was like a solid leather 3D universe getting smaller and smaller until it was the right size to repair the hole. All the extra leather 3D universes leftover from the cutting he threw away in a nearby 4D trash can.

His boss seemed in a pretty good mood. Asisfour figured his crashing at the office overnight might go unnoticed.

"I ought to start having you pay the office rent," his boss suggested to Asisfour.

"I was drunk and you know what they say about drinking and hyper-driving. Besides, when I crash here I am never late for work in the morning."

"True, but it takes you just as long to be useful when you are here and hung over as when you are half-asleep at home just thinking about when to show up," his boss admonished.

"My thoughts exactly, so you won't mind if I go grab a bite to eat to help me over my hangover so I can be of better use to you?"

"Not at all," his boss replied. "I assumed you would ask as much."

"You must be psychic then?" Asisfour replied.

"Right, and this then would be the first time we had this conversation or the first time you wrecked one of my expensive leather couches. You are lucky I am a very forgiving woman," his boss replied.

"And a sexy one at that," Asisfour said. "Do you want me to bring you back anything?"

"No, I made myself something to eat at home."

"Well, I guess they don't call you Creator for nothing," Asisfour joked while leaving just in time to dodge the hyperspheric Universe shaped tennis-ball from her desk he knew she would throw when he joked yet again about her name.

End of Book One

8.1: The Second Coming Outside of Causality: Book 2 Commences (For the Usual Fee Plus Expenses)

"Do we have to be linear progressive?"

"What?" Creator asked puzzled.

"In this story," Asisfour answered. "Does time have to be linear progressive? I mean since we are dealing with one dimension higher, can't we bounce around in time a bit now with some things happening later that happened before what is happening currently? You know, like a scifi movie about time travel that really doesn't make any sense if you think about it too much, so you don't try to. They're just meant to disorient you like a scarry movie is meant to get your pulse going?"

"You mean forget about causality?" she asked back.

"Sort of, maybe, I don't know. I am just bouncing some ideas off of you. It is your story after all, I just thought since you were writing about the possibility of one dimension higher, maybe we could play around with time a bit. You know, bounce around in the story without having to have to build upon anything, no conclusion to the story, just little vignettes of stuff."

"I don't know if you are trying to make this easier or if you really are trying to come up with something new," Creator surmised. "Yes, on one hand we would have a lot less work if we did not have to deal with linear causality, not have to worry about a storyline," her quick stern look cut off Asisfour with his mouth half open before he could make a joke on that.

She continued, "or even a conclusion, and we could jump around in the story a lot more. We would not have to deal with a 5D universe as having to make any sense in regards to our current perceptions or perspectives on time, but then on the other hand, as you mention, that does get harder to make any sense of, and have it actually make any point whatsoever. If you play around with the parameters of perception and the Universe as we perceive it too much, the whole thing can easily collapse like a bad souffle."

"I just thought it would be a cool angle to take for the next section," Asisfour said apologetically. "Just a little less boring. Ahem, I mean less routine, uh, ...."

"I get your point," Creator shot back. "No apology necessary," she said, but what her expression implied was that none would be welcomed anyway.

"Yes, the first part did straight-jacket us a bit," pausing to see if Asisfour was going to interrupt.

"Nope," he answered sensing the opening and the pause together left a volley toward him. "Too early and too easy. Go on," he said with a smile.

"Good. But we can work with it. After all, we do get to introduce new concepts, so we can keep time as a single track for now, linear, as you mentioned. But these characters really suck. Maybe we can kill some of them off, or maybe kill all of them and just start over."

"Ah, the GWB Decider approach!" Asisfour responded, "now you got my attention!"

"Maybe starting with you," she added.

"Hey, I'm not one of your characters, you can't kill me off, and you can't fire me either. You know you could never do without me," he added trying to look as cute as possible.

"Won't and can't are not the same thing," she added. "you are not as good as you used to be."

"See, there you go, bringing up the past. All the better to get rid of causality now. No expectations, no limitations on the future or what is possible. Thats what I'm talking about! If you were good before, you have to be just as good or better later. If you're off a bit, everyone says, "Hey, whats wrong with him, he used to be so good. What a pity!" Its a trap I tell you."

"Granted, expectations can be a bitch sometimes," she added, "just as I can be, but without them, without assuming you will do something as good in the future as you did in the past, why keep you on at all? Don't think your past will carry you far with me for long. We need some continuity and expectations to live up to or fail at living up to, or it just becomes dribble. Ok, so we keep some of the characters from the first section. Researcher and his assistant will stay on. What about Inventor?"

"I don't know. Didn't you try to kill him off once or twice before? Why would I believe it again if I were reading it? Why would I think you wouldn't change your mind again later even if I now said "Kill him off," and you agreed with me? It gets to be like Spock in Star Trek. How many times can you die in a series anyway? Past expectations on you say you won't make up your mind now and stick to it anyhow."

"I resent that and the stereotype that as the only female character in it so far, that I am indecisive, thus implying that 100% of women can't make up their minds. Either now I have to disprove that, which I can't because I am, or now I will have to introduce a new female character who IS decisive to cut that down to at least 50%."

"Are you sure about that," Asisfour grinned at her. "I don't think you could write for a woman character. Its not in you," he joked.

"Shut up," she said. "Ok, there is nothing wrong with being indecisive anyhow. Unpredictability is the spice of life anyway. You are right, I probably would not stick to it anyway. We will table it for now. It does get a little stupid killing off characters only to put them back in later in another guise or way anyhow."

"Inventor couldn't have said it better," Asisfour joked, "or did he?"

"Man, you are irritating sometimes, and no one would get that joke anyway. So where do the new ideas come in? I don't think 5D objects popping in and out of our 4D universe would be anything new. I'm thinking fresh, something vibrant, something in soft Earth-tone colors and maybe refracted lighting. Sorry, I was thinking about fixing up the office. I also think playing God with a 3D universe would be a bit predictable too, given my name and all, but I don't want to rule that out either. Nothings off the table except peaches. After all, didn't The Da Vinci Code say that the god of the 3D Universe is a woman?"

"Well, if life's a bitch then why can't God..., um, I think you risk losing the fundamentalists."

"Then we'll just have to find them again. You know they always hang out around the same places for centuries anyway," she mused putting her feet up on her desk. "Movin' on baby, never seem to touch the ground," she sang.

"Baaad Company, till the day we die." Asisfour sang back. "Ok, they're gone for good. I feel lighter now. But without things popping in and out of our 4D universe, how will we maintain continuity with the first section? What are we to do if we can't build multi-dimensional tesseract/box/square-type things around floating multi-dimensional hypersphere/globe/circle-type things? Plus the first section stuck us with gravity too. That sucks. So much for your Bad Co. lyric."

"So we'll just have to think outside the tesseract a bit more. Its not like they're aren't an infinite number of ways to go just messing around with 3D and 2D universes from our point of view. (Expletive), we can even mess up causality in their universes a bit and still keep our time moving straightforward if we want."

"But," Asisfour said confused, "didn't I start with that before and then you said no?"

"But that would preclude causality, that there was a before now, and you said you wanted to do away with that. You may have said that, but who says it was before now. Maybe you will say that later. Maybe it was a different Universe and there you are saying it now," she said smiling.

"Ok, I get the point. We have to limit that s--- or it gets messy."

"To put it a bit in perspective, I meant we will not deal with a lack of causality in dealing with 5D compared to our 4D world, but we might mess around with it in dealing with lower dimensional Universes, at least seemingly bending causality from their points of view, while from our point of view, we can keep the events in a straight line through a curved Universe, theirs curved that is.""

"I get what you are saying but jeez, you really mangled that sentence. As your proofer as well as sometimes your ghost writer, I think I deserve a raise, especially since I brought up the whole messing around with time idea as the new direction to go in, and you will get all the credit for it. 'Creator,' sheesh, if only they knew..."

"Man, you have an ego. You know I get top billing because who in this Universe would take seriously a book written by a man? Seriously, and a man as a scientist too? Gimme a break! Everyone knows men are inferiorly physically equipped in their brains when it comes to scientific thinking. You're just lucky I am a progressive."

"If you're so progressive, how about paying me what a woman would make for the same job," he joked.

"And would you give up your special benefits package in return?" she added while moving seductively toward him on the couch.

"I do believe the potential for a sexual harassment suit coming on now would more than make up for losing them," Asisfour said decisively.

8.2: Asisfour's 3D Hangover Hallucination: Doing the space warp again, perpendicular style. (Oddly similar for some reason to Assistwo's Alternate Evil 2D Perpendicular Universe Dream, must be more to perpendicular Universes)

Asisfour awoke face down in the dirt, spitting it out of his mouth. “Not good,” he thought, and not the first time he woke after a bender in this position, outside somewhere he was not quite sure of yet.

“Think back,” he thought to himself, trying to think of the most recent thing he could remember. He was having drinks with his boss, Creator. Then back to her office. “That was nice,” he thought with a broad smile. “Uh oh, stop there,” he thought but the recollection kept on streaming. More drinks, the lamp, the couch again, vomiting into her desk drawer.

His head was pounding and he still felt sick to his stomach. “Trashed the office yet again. I am so screwed.”

Getting up to his feet, he noticed he was still clothed. “Always a good sign, at least when you wake up in public,” he mused. “Wait, somethings not right.”

His clothes were all clingy to him. “Must be static electricity,” he thought before he looked up at the sun.

“It looks as flat as a pancake,” he thought as if someone painted a yellow circle in the sky. Then he noticed everywhere he looked things looked almost flat, like as if he was in a 360 degree painting. He rubbed his eyes and counted them again.

“Oh no,” he thought, “only two. I knew I shouldn't have eaten the worm in that Tequila.”

Once fully aware he now must be hallucinating, he actually began feeling better about it. “Well, at least this is something new.”

Moving around, he felt himself pinned down somehow. He could move left and right, backwards and forwards, but not defendicular nor sternish. Though still queasy, he had to try like one stretches when waking up.

Up, down, then he fell over. "Ok, I can still jump up. Landing, not so good though."

Then it dawned on him. He was dreaming in 3D.

“[Expletive], I'm dreaming I'm in her stupid book!” he realized suddenly and then remembered that was what they had been working on all week. He knew he was as stumped as she was on where to go next with it and was unwilling to admit it to her. Drunk out of his goard last night, he even took to boasting he had the perfect idea before accidentally crashing open her aquarium.

“Well if I can just figure a way to keep track of time in this dream, maybe I can bill her for it.”

“Movement isn't so bad,” he thought once getting used to only being able to move sideways in two directions. Driving, even in his hallucination, was still out of the question though. “Would be fun except for the crashing though. Like an old fashioned 3D video game before they became realistically 4D.”

He could barely do what he assumed was walking, and though everything still seemed as flat as a 3D painting, his movement or others movements equally made him queasy.

He noticed everything got even flatter when he closed one of his eyes. “Not that much different,” he thought but he found when keeping them both open at once, he only walked into things half as often.

“It is amazing anyone can tell how far away anything is,” he thought, realizing later actually knowing how big things were supposed to be helped too. Once becoming familiar with his hallucinatory world, he began to tell what was big and far away from memory, and from seeing things closer to him seeming to “pass over” and obstruct things further away.

“Cool,” he thought looking sideways while moving fast and seeing things closer to him seeming to move faster over things further away. “Like flat ducks in a shooting gallery moving at different speeds. Trippy!”

Then he noticed as he moved faster, his body was not particularly adept at suddenly moving sideways in the only 2 directions he could turn toward (while still moving forward). He was not skilled at stopping either, he soon found out.

“So much for going anywhere in a hurry for awhile,” he thought. And then he began to think, where in her book could he go? He remembered she was a masculinist, rare in women, believing in equal rights for men. She had written the first book about all men scientists in a male-dominated world as a social commentary.

“Not such a bad place to be in a hallucination,” he thought, pondering over an entire world centering around what men would want and respecting them even more than women.

“Strip clubs would sure be interesting to see here,” he pondered. “The high heel's on the other foot now!”

But then he remembered what was waiting for him when he woke up. The docked pay if he still could keep his job, the general s--- hole that would be his life, yet this hallucination could give him some ideas to hopefully lessen the damage.

“Everything for a reason,” he thought while moving his hands over each other in front of his face, obscuring them one at a time. “Weird.”

People were staring at him staring at his hands, turning them over as if surprised to see or not see the other sides, but he did not care. Now he had a purpose here, somewhere to go and something to do.

”Hey you,” he called out to the nearest person looking uncomfortably in his direction. “Do you have a University in this Universe nearby? I am looking for a Researcher!”

8.3: Redefining the Purpose of Life in a Militaristic Age.

Researcher got back from his bi-annual 2-year vacation in a relatively good mood. His assistant though was more reserved on seeing him.

“Has it been two years already? You know they are about to shut us down.” his assistant informed him.

His mood quickly adjusted. “Why, what is going on now?” he asked thinking he still had weeks before his next 2-year vacation and if the program were shut down soon, it would be an UNPAID 2-year vacation, if he could afford one at that.

“They have said your program has run its course. Without any military applications, there is no room for it in the University system anymore. Those programs now have over 80% of the budget. Since the disappearing spheres were not hostile, and we could not provoke them to become hostile, you have no idea how hard we have been trying at that, they said they would pull out funding our department.”

“But this is “nature of the Universe” type stuff, how can they cut funding for that? We can send things into other dimensions for crying out loud! How can even the so-called “military intelligence” people running out government not be impressed with that?” Researcher asked.

“Well, for awhile the wanted to send people into another dimension to torture them outside of our laws, if its another Universe, then it can't be illegal, right? But then they found countries in Europe that already had existing facilities for than kind of stuff, and unemployed Easterners who were already well-trained.”

“What about weapons disposal? We may not be able to bring things back from a 4th dimension yet or target things back in our Universe through it yet, but the applications for disposing dangerous weapons ought to get them interested,” he said still astounded at the concept of being unemployed. He had tenure after all!

“Well, they thought that treaties to dispose of old weapons was a good excuse to get rid of them so they could get even more money to build new ones, but while you have been gone, it seems they never run out of new excuses for getting rid of them the old-fashioned way, using them on people. In fact that alone, that we can't make them fast enough, plus what we gain from scaring countries to give us money or leases or to get them to buy our bombs so we will have fewer to drop on them, has made the whole “treaties” and “disposal” and “disarmament” ideas downright laughable. You make them, you use them, you make more of them. Can't argue with the newer simpler straightforward logic of that.”

“What about nuclear material? We want to get rid of radioactive waste, don't we? Our method may be expensive, but keeping away dangerous material and ensuring it is gone for good, isn't that worth something?”

The assistant didn't know what to say. He had heard rumors that the government wanted to keep stockpiles of it on hand for black-ops and a 100% working solution for eliminating all existing hazardous material was right now about as welcome as an electric car, but he knew all the campus offices were now bugged, and he did not like to repeat rumors.

“There has been a rather strange development though, which I thought you might like to know about. A guy showed up here looking for you. He had the math down pat for making a Decadodeca, made up of 12 dodecahedrons facing each other turned into a 4th dimension.”

“I told you,” Researcher said acerbically to his assistant, “NEVER to mention that shape to me again!” He was still sore about that time he gave a presentation in Stockholm about the math on that shape, not realizing it had already been proven years before that. He did not like reading technical journals and that time it really bit him in the ass. “So went my hopes for a Nobel,” he remembered sourly.

“He said he could make one. He even said he did,” the assistant said while tossing him what looked to be an ordinary dodecahedron.

“So what is remarkable about that, we did that years ago!” he said turning the shape over in his hand while looking closely at it.

“He made it without using a turning machine,” the assistant responded.

“Oh...,” then thinking of the implications of that, Researcher rolled his eyes and then blinked hard with surprise a few times, “...kay, ...well, what are you waiting for? Go find him!”

After the assistant left, Researcher put the dodecahedron in his newest 360 Quad Spin turning machine and studied the image on the holographic display.

“Well I'll be damned,” he said. “twelve dodeca sides.”