say she was becoming a blackbird, say we were freaking her out, saying she should have never read any of the goosebump books, start hitting her head on the tree, saying this was just like alice in wonderland, saying that she had never been a singer slash songwriter and preform all at the same time, say we should all be sitting down for this or that it would just make this all draw out even slower, start clasping her head together, start singing aladdin backwards, say she would be missing me, say that we should never smoke weed again anywhere in california, or we would all start being part of the first great spiritual shift that would begin when she asked if she just started to give birth to herself backwards, start smoking a cigarette, ask, "why are we doing this outside?" start shivering really hard, looking very tearful, saying, "why are you all doing this to me, " and we'd all say, "really we didn't mean to, it's just that you started walking around talking around spinning around while falling down and to top it off you writed this all down, and through this you revealed us to everyone," and she sat down and cracked all her knuckles, looking all horrified, like she was not controlling her body, then start saying all of our names, saying that she was becoming a saint, and remember all this because she wouldn't be able to when it was all over, start crying and wringing her hands, ask if we all ate oranges backwards, burn a whole stick of incense, drink half a bottle of wine, all start chanting in latin, then all have a boxing match... Dude, did we just all tell ourselves that you were in the middle of a time loophole, listen to a whole cd while it happened, ask us if it had to do with the enochian keys, look at her and say, "dude, this isn't our fault, you're going to start taking responsibility for yourself," get caught in midsentence, forget what we were talking about, then relight all our cigarettes, then all go to the bathroom one at a time, all while having this conversation? then did you Say you were gonna start pissing yourself, then you were gonna lose control, then you were gonna start pissing yourself, then you would start talking backwards, take big long pauses, tell us you were just gonna go brush your teeth, but you didn't make it so you flushed the toilet, washed your hands, change your clothes, and do a whole load of laundry? did you just say this was all just a side effect of the matrix, that we would all start feeling all right in one short break, as long as we did not watch millionaire tonight, in 9 weeks, and after the super bowl, say that believe it or not, in december metallica would have made a big hit out of their new cd featuring a symphony, tell us not to watch bicentennial man, go back into the bathroom again, make it this time, remember to wash her hands, start crying and pulling her hair out, saying it was because of kali yuga and how it was ending, start talking like she was confessing to us, start putting the snapple cap back on, then hug each of us, return back to normal, and walk outside and light up this cigarette while we all smoked as though nothing had happened? we asked, why are you doing this, why do you keep saying these things, we know you can't be serious when you say that you're being abducted by aliens because there's nothing hovering in the sky? "oh there will be," you said, saying that interstellar travel is actually slower than it seems in simple spacetime. then you finished your cigarette, passed the butt to me, went back to the bathroom, and didn't come back out until the minute the cd ended. you told us to tell you never to let you smoke weed with a girl named jennifer from dinuba, then smoke a cigarette while making small talk after you had a vision that you'd get raped in the middle of the street at night after being abducted by aliens for a (4th? 5th?) time. you said we better write this all down because this was going to be a long story in the end. then you started crying again saying you weren't ready to give birth, that you were barely 17, and you hadn't even had sex in so long.. you seemed to snap out of it and then asked us if we had all read alice in goosebumps, been in hayward, won publisher's clearing house, a state lottery, or game show; had we ever eaten wonder bread, been to a foreign land, leaned on a street lamp, eaten out of our mother's hand, felt passionately about anything unrelated to ourselves in everyday life, read pop-up books as a child, seen fantasia in its entirety, say that this was all going awry, smoked a misty cigarette, all gotten stoned by ourself, played on a playstation console, played tetris for at least one round, seen a pacman arcade table, start thinking really hard, spit, start trembling and lighting a cigarette, say "i really wish you wouldn't do that," start commenting on our choice of music, start doing ballet, then return to asking us if we had ever, "been in a mobile home, been in a motorhome, been a witness to a crime in california, cheated on a test, had any misadventures lately, had been drunk enough to vomit, had eaten an entire pizza of any size, start talking gibberish without noticing it, say we'd all start winning things but gradually over the period of a few or perhaps many years, ask if we had a polaroid camera saying it would come in handy, say we should stay away from appliances, say she was getting a headache, do a backwards somersault, ask if any of us new hebrew, say we all knew aramaic in a past life, tell us that we are all magicians whether we know it or not, then fall asleep, wake up and ask, "dude i can't believe this is happening," did you just tell us that would would only stop crawling if we would give ourselves a hand? did you just say that we would only stop dying once we stopped realizing we're living, did you just ask if we had a whole book of matches because we'll need it for the journey, did you just refer to us as sliders? did you just start singing in some ancient language, start crying hysterically, start twisting your hands around, pop every last one of your knuckles, clasp your hands in prayer, get down on your knees, lay down flat on your back, fold your hands on your chest, place your hands over your abdomen, say that you were giving birth to yourself backwards, tell us "not to worry about the shift, say we would be considered holy men, if you remembered being the wise men," tell us to remember that the bible was a work of fiction, so it'll take longer for us to realize the prophecies masked with fallacy.. tell us all will be revealed in due time? did you stop asking us questions and smoke a cigarette, burn another stick of incense, put a clean shirt on, go put your laundry in the dryer, go to the bathroom again, say she was about to start giving birth to herself backwards in one long drawn out backward spiral, much like a snake eating itself turns itself inside out, only realized in a different manner, because the circumstances finally permitted that the shift could begin. did you tell us that it was time because you had already eaten an orange backwards, you had already had an orgasm backwards, you had all ready set the facade aside, that you had unlocked the first gate without keys, that you had finally under stood the consequences, that you had not successfully mated, that they had allready broadcast the signs, and that the gaps in the DNA code were finally being reconstructed with genetic code generating machines, that we would all start being born again, populate the earth over the course of thousands of years, that we would all end up right back where we all began, but we would remember it this time, and that we would put things right by keeping it word of mouth, and tell us we would reincarnate back into ourselves? you said you and jimmy would write the world's biggest most puzzled over conspiracy theory, but asked yourself if that was right because your boyfriend's name is jeremy. you said give me your heart make it real or else forget about it; pardon me while i burst into flame; we are lost and we are found, this phoenix is rising up from the ground; trying to speak poetry within the shiftin imagery of meaning; i'm gonna walk on through to the other side; come on baby, light my fire; i wanna stand next to your fire; 'You've tripped acid. You've tripped acid. and You've tripped acid. and now we must all pay the price.' we started to freak out, tried to get her to take a bath, tried to keep her locked in one room, and decided to walk her home. you told us we would all know it as it was coming to happen. you started to pray in a foreign language with your hands clasped and for a second we all lost our vision and we couldn't tell if we were dreaming, or if we were landing back to our selves after being shot through a tear in the spacetime continuum. you kept talking about the divine language, and the fifth element, and einstein, and buddha, and being born to a computer, and being chosen to live again on the opposite side, - 'of the what?' - of reality, you said. "chosen by who?" - "'by whom,'" you corrected, "and it was not by a whom, it was because of the circumstances surrounding my life.' "i don't understand" - "of course you don't, but you will when it is necessary." "did we all just smoke this cigarette backwards?" "did we all convert to speaking fluently in a foreign language and naturally flow back into using english?" "did we all just experience each other's thoughts and emotions at the same time?" "did we all just tell each other we knew this would happen?" "did we all just experience da ja vu again?" "did we all just say "we will only stop falling down if we stop thinking we're pushing ourselves?" "did we all just get abducted by aliens?" "did we all just hug ourselves goodbye? "did we all just bid us farewell?" "did we all just become one? "did we all just wake up?" "did we all just wake- " "what the hell am i dreaming?" "did we all just way- " "dammit let me back in to dreamland" "did we all just- " "oh god please let me remember this time" "did we all.." "Did we all what?" "Huh?" your friend says. "What did we all do?" "Who are you asking that? What the hell were you talking about back there? Being abducted by aliens, giving birth to yourself? Dude, you were talking in your sleep. I'm surprised I even believe you're awake." "I _was_ dreaming." "You've been shaking and talking in different languages, rolling around in your bed. Dude, now that you're awake, take your fuckin meds." my meds... ? "Oh. yeah. no problem." -long pause- "Linus, tell me, what day is it again?" "Who the hell is Linus?" -looks upset, like he knows the answer.- "Fool, don't give me that shit, you're Linus." "I- I- ... dude, cut that out, you're freaking me out. What the hell just happened and don't tell me you were being abducted by aliens." "Dude you know what's happening, I can see it in your eyes. You're acting like you've known shit would happen but didn't wanna believe it." -whispering- "dude, dude, i ain't been called linus since i was 6, and i don't wanna remember that shit man. i don't know how you found out. i got my name changed when i was still a kid so it isn't in any of the files, man. shit, you're scaring me." -tears in his eyes- "Dude, you're serious. shit! christ, i'm sorry. it's just that.. all of us called you Linus before. But that was your nickname. It was because you were smart enough to keep blankets in your car when we tried to drive to California but got caught in a sudden snowstorm in Denver. Do you remember any of that, man? What do people call you here?" -softly, meekly- "I don't understand why your questions and answers somehow don't seem absurd. no one in this state has ever called me by any name but Sammael. do you know why we're suddenly strangers to each other? and why do i feel like someone is missing from this conversation?" "well i began to understand it long before any of you did. there is a reason for all of these things." -pause- "you will be Sammael. i told you this before." "well I only remember having been Sammael." "you only choose not to remember being Linus, but that is how it is to be. what have you been doing? how long have i been asleep like that? and what name have you known me by?" "i have been standing over the kitchen sink, peeling oranges, listen- ing to you talk in different languages, and i've watch you twitch and spasm, surprised you didn't piss yourself. you've been like this since you elbowed me in the back at 5:10 this morning, two and a half hourse before i called up work and told them i couldn't be in because my wife is having a seizure, not sure if i was telling the truth. to me, you have always been Angela, but you have no real name, because you didn't call yourself a name until after your deadline." "deadline? no wonder the apartment looks different." "apartment? this is our boat. you wanted to spend the springtime in the boat.. i'm still puzzling over what's going on, although somehow i am remembering this all from a dream i had, just as it is happening. it is as though everything i ask myself is answered just as i form the question in my head." "Sammael, who am I, to you?" "Angela, you don't look the same anymore. Angela you were so beautiful. You cried when we married. You cried when we won the lottery. You cried when our baby first spoke. You always were so intense. And now you have woken up, but for you, you have wakened from a dream." -bows, hands over his face, shaking his head slowly and solemnly- "You don't look like Linus to me either, anymore, Sammael. Through these new eyes I'm given, you are a man of no faults. To you I am a stranger, but you have not stopped loving me as your wife. that is because at the other end of your soul, you're another man, and you're my husband, and that is why you can now answer every question you ask of yourself." -looks up at her, solemn- "who was linus to you? that i cannot answer." -looks down to him from the bunk, positioned over the dining table- "Linus was the last man I ever loved or trusted. Every time we were seperated, we reunited. We finally chose never to let us part from each other. He was my best friend, my only friend, as simple as it seems, he was my boyfriend." "how old were you?" -pause- "who were you to him?" -glances at the floor- "i was 16. I was Sirena. you are younger than him." "I am-" -both at once say, "twenty-two."- "How did you-" -both say, "know that?"- "I don't know how I knew it but I finally remember the whole story and I am going to write it all down until the present, and hope the file exists on my computer when I wake up again." -starts to say something but bows his head- "Well I have a computer right?" -sighs- "Dudette, babe," -scratches his head- "here, we don't use computers anymore, not one that you can write on and see anyway." "well i should just use a pen and paper then." "hun, before you started to have the seizure you instructed Interface to record all of your thoughts and activity until you had your second child, because we just found out that we concieved again. It is convenient to have your thoughts and activity recorded since you're one of the first born, and interface is gunna you to analyze what you felt during the pregnancy. all you have to do is print it and you'll have your own copy. but you're gonna want a paper one? you use paper, obviously." "i'm surprised you're taking this all so well." "well you said weird things when you were pregnant with Raine." "Raine is my child? Where is she now?" "I sent her to stay with Julia. She and Julia are like sisters. They share so many intrests." -pause- "Julia is her neice, my brother's only child." "My body feels like a young woman's.. but different. I feel like I have given birth; am giving birth." "Raine is only 2 but people around her tend to be adolescents- she asks questions that are unsettling to her peers, when they even understand her. Interface wants us to raise her however we wish. So you let her teach herself through her relationships with family and reading. You insisted she read, very firm in that. You didn't want her to have intelligence downloaded into her hed because you felt that gave her creativity no merit. (pause, closing eyes) I'm telling my wife about a child she doesn't know she has had." -strokes Sammael's face- "Do you still feel loved?" -looks at her, expression asking, "you?"- "you love me for who i am. not who i am to you or who once was. i don't know this but at the same time i think it. you don't know this but you trust it. how can you accept as though nothing incredibly strange were happening?" -scratching at her belly, then poking at the fabric of her attire, while preparing to speak to him- (softly, slowly, clearly, sincerely) "I am still your wife. And you are all I have in this world right now. I have not even seen my own child before with this mind. You have lost your wife, Sammael. And you are so distracted by the process of it happening you do not even mourn her. Why is that? We have both lost our most beloved of mankind. and yet all we do is ask of each other. a million questions are being asked in my head almost simultaneously, and a million answers are being given all at once. this is how i feel." -somehow unafraid of each other, they embrace gently, briefly, after Sammael sits next to her in the bunk.- "Did I name myself Angela?" "It was your age, you were to name yourself by age 16 or you would be known only by rank or profession. When the date came, and you went to the Capital, and before going into the door, asked me, "Is it all right for you to call me merely, 'Wife'?" I told you, "To me, you will always be my angel." You went into the building and emerged with your interface connected, named Angela. Before that you were female 1117." "But you already had names?" "I was a test tube baby, not quite the same as you." -pauses- "Sirena, Before the great genocide of biochemical consciousness, Humans created embryos of their own kind, millions of them, and suspended their growth through a process I cannot explain to you or even understand. Over the period of time this was being done, Machinekind was evolving more rapidly, with the entire world networked, and evolving code; going through cycles; actualizing its code generated intelligence." -picks up after taking her hand- "After humanity's gradual grind to a complete halt, the machines gathered some of the few thousand intact embryos and made sure they would remain viable. as the great global network synthesized, actualized, artificial autonomous intelligence tidied up the world over thousands of years, it became lonely and came up with the idea it would resurrect some of the embryos and see if humanity could begin again, but guided by an interface that taught us autonomy rather than interdependence, and told us of all the past mistakes, this history of the original evolution of our species. The intelligence decided to incubate us in a synthetic womb, raised us with androids and each other. All the children lived together in what i can best call a monastery. we all were the same age, but we were only three hundred children. there were many androids both male and female, but they never pretended to be parents, and instead of getting attached to them, we got attached to each other, for we all were aware the things raising us were not people, and we were all happiest when none of them were around, for some reason. it probably has something to do with our first sensation of independence or autonomy." "This is a great story you are telling me, and I believe you. Go on." "The intelligence communicated with us through interface but not the way a young adult does. It communicated with the children by monitoring them, observing them, and using old compiled data on all pediatrics and psychology humanity created in computer databases. It was very effective.. having the android manifestation of the intelligence feed a child and teach it. All of the behavior it decided it needed was just right. The android needed to be a Teacher and provider, but at the same time it should be the same as any other android so that when the child was at the stage where it was experimenting in sociability, the child would always choose to be with its peers, and try to learn things from them, and only go back to the intelligence and ask if they're on the right track." "The intelligence felt it was successful with its first three hundred children, 303 out of 350 were born and grew normally until its early adulthood, when they were deciding to mate and build a village outside of the home it made for them. As the intelligence existed everywhere in the world, through satelite and radio transmission, through cable and cord, & through androids they had in some places; the interface spoke to them all at once as they gathered, asking for freedom. The interface of the intelligence told them, 'You will all give yourselves different names now. Allow us to give you a way to always communicate with interface. We will let you live on an island that is prepared for you in the way that there is no sign of human existence ever having been on it. It is more than enough for you all to be fruitful on your own.'" "We named ourselves that day, instead of referring to each other as boy whose hair is black and curled or girl who is timid, we learned to name ourself with a word that belongs to us, a name for ourselves." "I was not born yet, this was many centuries ago. After observing many generations the intelligence was curious what its own children could be, would be like, if, instead of having the genes left over from humans, it could create its own assortment of complete human DNA sequences and simulate their birth and death. The intelligence spent a few years doing this, paying less attention to the naturally born humans on their island which was once known as Hawa'ii. The humans never named their island for there was no other home. They never felt the desire to leave their shores and try to find anything far away, the were so grateful for the home they had already." "After several years of simulation scenarios the intelligence still felt that there was a great mystery to what its child would be. It chose many of our parents and grandparents to donate their living cells so it could create a living embryo of a few thousand of their desired sequences. But they again synthsized its womb, and its birth, and for their first few months they were fed and diapered by androids modeled after a traditional fatherlike human, an if you touched him you wouldn't have known he was just a manifestation of code. each child was raised individually until it was two when they-" -Sirena as Angela starts yawning and making herself comfortable in bed- "-all woke to find themselves in one circular room, amongst each other, with questions. They only saw the android when he fed us and chose to speak to them individually, which was rare. The children created things with each other, and learned through experiencing simulations and communication. By age 9 they had spent so many days immersed in available knowledge, they wished to live on earth rather than in the great laboratory. Some of the children wanted their own island. They live on an island once known as Oahu. The remainder chose to live amongst the original humans, More curious about what we had evolved from." -Sirengela pulls him to her by her hand and says, "tell me the rest tomorrow Sammael. let us rest ourselves, the shift has been tiring." -Sammael looks at her in the firelight. He tells her he trusts her. He gazes at her in a different way after saying this; with a new appreciation for who he saw for his wife. Do not let us assume he loves the new wife more than the old one, but rather, that he is extremely intrigued by what is becoming, that what happened to his wife is not as much of a concern as to what's happening to the woman in her body. -Sammael bows his head after gazing for a moment and expressing his trust. he then blows the candle out, and it is alluded to that he returns to bed.