Author: olivia circe
Summary: A brief moment in River's mind.
Spoilers: Not really. Makes more sense if you've seen the show. Vague references to "Objects in Space"
Rating: PG for complexity and pain
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing. Allusions/quotes are Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, miscellaneous Latin, and the Oxford English Dictionary.
Distribution: Sure, but ask.
Feedback: Please! (leiranilknarf@hotmail.com)
"She's not crazy," Simon says. "They hurt her." Did they? "You'll get better," he says, "You'll be yourself again." But I am myself, I try to say, just new.
*
Much madness is divinest sense/ To a discerning eye. My eyes are beyond discerning, though I doubt the divine. I see more in a second than Simon will see in a lifetime. There are no boundaries to my sight. All the myriad meanings of madness are irrelevant to this analysis. Seeing between layers of time and space should drive me to insanity - but was I ever sane? Sanus, sana, sanum, in the Latin. Mens sana in corpore sano. My body is sound; my mind perceives sound at new frequencies. I am made of sound and sight. Sensory overload is my dwelling place and my foundation.
Don't touch me, Simon. I am like quicksand, and will bury you, consume you, make you into something even less human than I. Nole me tangere. You'll only hurt yourself. There will be no touching.
*
I am like a Sapphic poem, fragmented onto archaeological pieces of papyrus. Studied by scholars who discover me, dissect me, translate me into a hundred different languages, preoccupied by inconsequential particles of my composition. Once - this one thinks - I was complete, and he wants to make me so again. But it isn't possible. Half my words are lost, and those that aren't are broken and unclear, or made of letters that turn the meanings inside out.
Simon would make me whole, but he is no scholar. No courtier, no soldier. My fragments were intentional. Time will not alter them.
*
The divergence theorem is merely a four-dimensional equivalent of the one- dimensional fundamental theorem of calculus.
Quantum physics and chaos theory are nothing to this. I transcend dimensions. There are no barriers between my mind and the 'verse. There is nothing to keep me out - or keep me in. Nothing is sacred. Not even reality. Not even time.
Time is relative to your position in space. Space travel is like time travel. Serenity is like me, and I am like Serenity, but without boundaries defined by mathematics or mechanics. We are different now, Simon. We are new. But are we River, still?
*
River. A copious stream of water flowing in a channel towards the sea, a lake, or another stream. River-bank, river-run, river-marsh, river-boat, river-course, river-head, river-walk. A flooded river can destroy a town - a dry one can destroy the economy. Down the river, up the river, across the river and through the woods.
There are five rivers in Hades: Acheron, Lethe, Cocytus, Phlegathon, and Styx. Woe, forgetfulness, lamentation, fire, and unbreakable oaths. Only the Styx has a ferryman. I wish I had a ferryman. Which river am I?
*
Any definition of madness would defy me. I am not mad north-by- northwest.but there are no compass directions in empty space. I'm not quite right, but neither am I wrong. None of them can conceive of me, imagine me, or know me in their unaltered natural minds. But I am not lonely. I am everywhere.
*
Serenity is filled with flowers, but where is the rosemary for remembrance, the violets, the fennel, or the rue to wear with a difference? These are not objects. These are projected figments of a scattered mind. We know what we are, but know not what we may be. I am my potential. Mermaid-like, I cannot drown in a river - I am a River, instead. I become the essence of all things.
"She's not crazy," Simon says. I wonder if he's right.
Summary: A brief moment in River's mind.
Spoilers: Not really. Makes more sense if you've seen the show. Vague references to "Objects in Space"
Rating: PG for complexity and pain
Disclaimer: Not mine, just borrowing. Allusions/quotes are Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare, miscellaneous Latin, and the Oxford English Dictionary.
Distribution: Sure, but ask.
Feedback: Please! (leiranilknarf@hotmail.com)
"She's not crazy," Simon says. "They hurt her." Did they? "You'll get better," he says, "You'll be yourself again." But I am myself, I try to say, just new.
*
Much madness is divinest sense/ To a discerning eye. My eyes are beyond discerning, though I doubt the divine. I see more in a second than Simon will see in a lifetime. There are no boundaries to my sight. All the myriad meanings of madness are irrelevant to this analysis. Seeing between layers of time and space should drive me to insanity - but was I ever sane? Sanus, sana, sanum, in the Latin. Mens sana in corpore sano. My body is sound; my mind perceives sound at new frequencies. I am made of sound and sight. Sensory overload is my dwelling place and my foundation.
Don't touch me, Simon. I am like quicksand, and will bury you, consume you, make you into something even less human than I. Nole me tangere. You'll only hurt yourself. There will be no touching.
*
I am like a Sapphic poem, fragmented onto archaeological pieces of papyrus. Studied by scholars who discover me, dissect me, translate me into a hundred different languages, preoccupied by inconsequential particles of my composition. Once - this one thinks - I was complete, and he wants to make me so again. But it isn't possible. Half my words are lost, and those that aren't are broken and unclear, or made of letters that turn the meanings inside out.
Simon would make me whole, but he is no scholar. No courtier, no soldier. My fragments were intentional. Time will not alter them.
*
The divergence theorem is merely a four-dimensional equivalent of the one- dimensional fundamental theorem of calculus.
Quantum physics and chaos theory are nothing to this. I transcend dimensions. There are no barriers between my mind and the 'verse. There is nothing to keep me out - or keep me in. Nothing is sacred. Not even reality. Not even time.
Time is relative to your position in space. Space travel is like time travel. Serenity is like me, and I am like Serenity, but without boundaries defined by mathematics or mechanics. We are different now, Simon. We are new. But are we River, still?
*
River. A copious stream of water flowing in a channel towards the sea, a lake, or another stream. River-bank, river-run, river-marsh, river-boat, river-course, river-head, river-walk. A flooded river can destroy a town - a dry one can destroy the economy. Down the river, up the river, across the river and through the woods.
There are five rivers in Hades: Acheron, Lethe, Cocytus, Phlegathon, and Styx. Woe, forgetfulness, lamentation, fire, and unbreakable oaths. Only the Styx has a ferryman. I wish I had a ferryman. Which river am I?
*
Any definition of madness would defy me. I am not mad north-by- northwest.but there are no compass directions in empty space. I'm not quite right, but neither am I wrong. None of them can conceive of me, imagine me, or know me in their unaltered natural minds. But I am not lonely. I am everywhere.
*
Serenity is filled with flowers, but where is the rosemary for remembrance, the violets, the fennel, or the rue to wear with a difference? These are not objects. These are projected figments of a scattered mind. We know what we are, but know not what we may be. I am my potential. Mermaid-like, I cannot drown in a river - I am a River, instead. I become the essence of all things.
"She's not crazy," Simon says. I wonder if he's right.