Disclaimer: I don't own Neon Genesis: Evangelion.
Author's Note: Chapter title from "TVC-15", by David Bowie.
Special thanks to my reviewers! eva-unit-01, Cronenberg is awesome, and I've incorporated part of Videodrome's concepts into this story. I've taken it a step further than the movie though--I try not to be a hack, just a thief. DrendeSalkash, this is only Shinji/Rei on the very surface, and it only comes out in maybe two chapters. While I don't mind the pairing, the underlying romance is actually... well... I'll leave that up to interpretation. Violet Shadows, don't worry, it gets a LOT more surreal. Konous the Grey, Gendo is a badass, no doubt about it. The romance will be much more apparent as the story progresses, and in fact, only that introductory chapter and the interlude (Chapter 04) do not directly involve Shinji. The rest of the story deals with Shinji rather personally... it's just that I'm doing my best to make the romance itself--the real romance, not just the Shinji/Rei fluff--as subtle as possible.
I know this chapter is going to be a sledgehammer to the last chapter's cool breeze. Bear with it. All of this is important, even though it might seem trivial, stupid, and/or confusing. Things even out to some semblance of normality in the next chapter. I promise.
EDIT 05/02/2010: Strange formatting errors fixed. Again.
Tangent 1.0: So Hologramic Oh My TVC-15
"It's like this," he said. "Reality exists. It is not defined as anything other than what it is—it can't be explained, or reasoned with, or even really understood. It simply is. We can't handle that—as a species, at least, we can't handle that concept at all. Our brains, psyches, whatever, they're too polluted with some bizarre DNA jump that made us capable of a form of rationalization that most animals before us never got. So instead of us simply blending with reality and existing within reality, our brains remove us from reality and give us a porthole through which to observe it and interact with it. That porthole—your porthole—that's your perspective. It's what comprises your individuality."
Shinji stared. "So… that's what that machine is? A… some kind of… porthole into reality?"
The man scratched the back of his head as he regarded the machine.
"Not really. My porthole into reality is in my brain, just like yours is and everyone else's. That machine is a monitoring device—well, actually, that machine is my rationalization of a monitoring device."
"What?"
"What I'm trying to say," the man started, stopped, attempted to find the proper phrasing, "What I'm trying to say is this: reality becomes extremely convoluted with all these portholes looking in on it and attempting to modify it and whatnot. Our attempts at rationalizing this vague reality—essentially, our attempts at… justifying, I suppose, our existences is by communicating with each other and creating things." He motioned back toward the complicated setup of televisions and speakers and computer monitors. "This machine is my rationalization of all this interconnected activity. That's where I come in. I'm here to understand what makes everything we do keep going—basically put it like this: I'm here to figure out why humans are so screwed up."
"Ha! Ha-ha-ha-haaa!" The television flickered into a darkened apartment. On screen, a flamboyant character with an unidentifiable gender flexed his/her/its muscles dramatically. "Try as you might," it exclaimed, "but your puny attempts at vanquishing my presence will continue to prove futile! Ha! Ha-ha-ha-haaa!"
On screen, Gendo Ikari cursed and killed security guards and foamed at the mouth until his teeth fell out. Fuyutsuki sighed and imagined a naked Yui Ikari. The bridge techs below them were busy shouting things that made no logical sense—except for one Maya Ibuki, who was at that very moment daydreaming about the Doctor's unmitigated brilliance and physical perfection while simultaneously lamenting her loneliness and inability to find any ounce of appreciation from her peers.
A bunch of flashing lights on screen brightened the room like a strobe light would. "Shinji!" A sweating, bleeding, undeniably hot Major Katsuragi shouted into space. "You must defeat his new threat! All of our hopes rest on your shoulders!"
Behind her, the screen focused on the misunderstood Rei Ayanami—who, contrary to popular belief, was not a mechanical ice-doll, but in fact a raging volcano of suppressed carnal desires and untapped sexual prowess. "Yes Shinji," she panted. "Come back so that I may jump your bones."
But next to her, for no apparent reason, the TV screen showed a close-up of Asuka's retina as she dramatically proclaimed, "No, you doll! I will jump Shinji's bones! I have overcome my numerous complexes and embraced the new order of the undying love! I hate you in a purely sisterly fashion that is devoid of any true malice!"
Misato vigorously nodded and pumped her fist in the holoprojection area's direction. "Asuka speaks truth!" She cried. "We're all one big happy harem family. I eagerly await your victorious return, champion-who-is-half-my-age!"
"But Shinji," the sinster voice of the villain-who-had-not-yet-been-named flooded over the command bridge's digital surround sound speaker system. "You will fail this day, and your body shall remain in a hospital long enough for me to usurp your place at the head of the plotline! I shall be the protagonist, and I shall steal the things you hold dear—including your ability to pilot the Evangelion housing your dead mother's soul—which I know about—and also I shall steal one or more of your love interests! Ha! Ha-ha-ha-haaa!"
On screen, Fuyutsuki gazed dispassionately at the holoprojection as if he knew what the hell he was looking at. "A Mary Sue?" he queried softly—but just loud enough so that everyone could hear him.
"A Gary Sue!" the two-dimensional Misato seethed.
Kaji, who for some reason was still alive in the plot, pigheadedly declared, "Or is he/she/it in fact a self insertion of God itself?" I don't how one could pigheadedly declare such a statement, but he found a way!
"No!" The voice boomed. The screen focused on Shinj's shocked face. "No, you fools! Ha! Ha-ha-ha-haaa!" Various other close ups of shocked faces dominated the television screen.
"I am neither Gary nor Mary! I am that which has oft been achieved! Ha! Ha-ha-ha-haaa! I am the androgynous amalgamation of self-insertion and caricatured self-reflexive perfection! I am the character whose seriousness extends beyond the realm of disbelief! I am the incarnation of campy atmospheres and half-assed grammatical wordiness! I am a living fantasy of reality bending proportions! Ha! Ha-ha-ha-haaa! No narrative can keep me bound!"
On screen, pale hands extended toward Gendo's throat and asphyxiated the poorly-portrayed, two-dimensional bastard. "My first order of making all of you my friends was to kill your commanding officer! Ha! Ha-ha-ha-haaa! Love me!"
A pizza popped up and an announcer declared that all large pizzas were now a few bucks cheaper than they were mere weeks prior, and that anyone looking to save money should take advantage of the new deal. After that, a commercial for hair products commenced, followed by an advertisement for Yebisu. Drink until you're happy.
"Position target in center, pull switch."
A virtual monster went down in a blaze of smoke. A kick barely registered in the palms of his hands. Liquid saturated the pores in his forehead and weighed down on him like some unnamable, unidentifiable guilt. This wasn't how it was last time.
"Position target in center, pull switch."
This wasn't real. It was just some sort of stupid training simulation. The skin on his hands felt like the surfaces of rubber gloves when he removed the plugsuit an hour later. It was crinkled and spongy and slightly numb due to the tightness of the suit, but he regained feeling after clenching his hands over and over and over.
"Position target in center, pull switch."
He gazed at the showerhead as water droplets cascaded down upon his lanky frame. The sharply defined ridges that poked through his skin stood in stark contrast from the slight-inward curve of his stomach. How long was he in training? Minutes? Hours? The whole day?
"Position target in center, pull switch."
The back of his head felt sore. Part of him felt like he was still inside the plug, taking that first step and failing miserably, getting his arm snapped like it was a dead sapling, having a spike burned through his brain—
"Shinji?"
Left arm. Right eye. Where had he seen that before? Broken arm, gouged eye—
"Shinji, is everything alright?"
Startled by the voice, he quickly spun towards the door. He stood on his toes just enough to see over the door of the stall, catching sight of highlighted amethyst. In what he thought had been a dream, he felt her lips against his, words he couldn't remember whispered reassuringly in his ear, her blood on his hands, and the sound of thunder that heralded her demise.
"Uh—yeah, everything's fine, Misato." He eased back onto his heels and turned back toward the shower nozzle.
"It's just that you've been in here an awful long time," she said. "I was starting to get worried." Her tone suggested a jocularity that barely masked a deep rooted concern.
He couldn't see her duck as the camera rolled past her shoulder on a boom.
"This was not part of the scenario."
"The scenario remains unchanged."
"Ikari, we know this was of your doing."
Gendo took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He felt like he just had woken up from a nap that had lasted a million years.
"Ikari." The gravestone marked 'SEELE 01 [sound only]' stood directly in front of him; the other eleven pillars circled the desk like vultures. "We question your ability to act according to the scenario—"
"The scenario failed." He didn't know why he said it, but when he put his glasses back on he found himself staring directly into Kihl's visor.
"What are you talking about?" One of the pillars behind him spoke up.
"Can you please explain to me," Gendo began, "how we are even having this discussion?"
Kihl, the only member of SEELE now visible, observed Gendo carefully. "Explain yourself."
He bridged his hands across his face. "According to my calculations, this is the fifth time we have had this conversation. This is the first time that the conversation has deviated from its usual course—and it has done so for a single reason: I have been convinced that we have unknowingly been victims of a temporal causality loop, beginning sometime around mid-July of 2015 and terminating on the first of January, 2016."
SEELE was silent.
"I have linked this loop explicitly to two events—the first event is directly connected with the arrival of the Third Child to Tokyo-3—which, as you are to shortly be informed, coincides with the attack of the Third Angel, Sachiel." Gendo smirked to himself as he imagined the look of the various council members' faces. "The terminus of this loop coincides with the completion of the Human Instrumentality Project and Third Impact."
"The council fails to see the reasoning behind your outrageous claims." Kihl's words slithered out of his old and rotting lips.
Now Gendo's smirk was evident. He opened one of the drawers in his desk and pulled out a remote with a cartoonishly large red button on the top of it.
"You fail to see the reasoning behind my outrageous claims," he said, "because you do not exist beyond the boundaries of this void."
"Ikari—"
The phone rang inside his desk, and Gendo's face returned to a frown. It was Fuyutsuki on the other end.
"Magi confirms a target approaching Tokyo-3. Pattern Blue."
"We will continue this discussion later, Ikari." Kihl seethed. "Do not forget that your place in this scenario is easily replaced."
The pillars dissolved into obscurity, and lamplight returned to the room. Gendo once more rubbed his head. He sat the remote on his desk and headed for the Command Bridge.
Reality felt a little looser this time, like an old suit worn far beyond its intended lifespan.
Subroutine Six, as it turns out, was a purely fictional construct created within an equally fictional environment, and—through the use of an aptly-dubbed "Miracle Machine" designed by the MAGI—extrapolated into reality for use as a plot device.
Being a device thought up and created in fictional, "cartoon" world in which the normal rules of physics were so drastically altered as to appear unrecognizable to an inhabitant of another reality, Subroutine Six (or THE DEVICE, as it had once been known in a previous and now-outdated model) would be used to manipulate the extradimensional forces that held sway over the events and interactions of various personas within any given reality. These extradimensional forces are best summarized as being, quite simply, me.
Because I'm the one writing the story.
In an entirely related section of reality, FLAX HARDSEED gelled his hair using the reflective surface of the elevator doors as a mirror. She shot his somewhat distorted reflection a smug smirk.
"Flax, my dude, you are one hot son of a gun." Nobody used that term anymore; this is a testament to her squareness.
I use these gender-specific pronouns entirely interchangeably for one crucial reason: Flax Hardseed is androgynous, and dislikes being referred to as "it", as she finds it dehumanizing. Instead, Flax Hardseed prefers interchanging gender specific pronouns, or simply being referred to as "Flax Hardseed". Not "Flax", and most certainly not "Hardseed". Only both may suffice.
Flax Hardseed had just successfully done what a handful of enormous gozilla-like aliens had failed to do—something that countless conspiracies by countless unnamed terrorist organizations had failed to do—something even SEELE could not accomplish. Flax Hardseed had killed the commander of NERV with his own two hands. Flax Hardseed felt like she was the hottest piece of ass on the planet right about now.
He was able to do this for one reason—Flax Hardseed was an AndrogynoSue, capable of wielding twice the power of a Gary Sue, thrice the power of a Mary Sue. Within her dwelled the capacity for more reality altering mechanisms than all the self-inserts in the world put together! He had more knowledge of the series' future than the original writers of the show—and more ways to take advantage of this knowledge than angry fans who didn't understand End of Evangelion! AND NOT ONLY THAT, but—being an AndrogynoSue—Flax Hardseed was entirely immune to any attempts at seduction on the part of the cast!
She could charm the ladies and humor the men, she could even indulge in sexual excursions with every character in the reality—but it would be at his own discretion!
FLAX HARDSEED COULD NOT FAIL!
"Oh man, that's nothing," Makoto boasted as Fuyutsuki tried to recover his breath. "Man, if you think that's bad, you've never seen this guy shit-faced before." He nodded his head toward Shigeru, whose eyes widened and ears perked back.
"Oh no you don't—" Shigeru started to say, but was cut off.
"I remember this time, man, back in college—what, second or third year, a few months after meeting you, right?—"
"No, no! Don't even—I know where this is going—"
"Aw I don't see what you're so embarrassed by—I mean, she didn't entirely resemble a horse. More like a-a goat or… something with more fur—"
"Hey shut up with that right now!"
Fuyutsuki snorted while he still had his stein over his face—it took a bit of effort to keep the alcohol from spewing out of his nose, but he managed. Meanwhile, Kaji just shrugged and smirked.
"Hey, you guys wouldn't know what it's like coming around your girlfriend's apartment and finding her girlfriend answering the door," he said.
Whatever insult Shigeru had been about to throw at his coworker died on his lips, and Makoto's laughs died into a curious drunken request to continue.
Kaji's eyes half-lidded themselves as he went on. "Yep, that was the day I found out about Katsuragi and the Doc," he sighed. "'Course, if the amount of empty bottles and cans all over the place were any testament to the endurance of their livers, it was also a pretty good indication of their states of intoxication the night before."
The Sub-Commander's eyes bugged out. "That's insane—you're insane," he stuttered. "There is no way the doctor I know would—oh, for god's sake, Ikari—" he mumbled the last part under his breath as he grimaced. "There had to have been some mistake; maybe they just got really drunk and…"
"You know that smell," Kaji started to describe, but Kouzou would have none of it.
"Okay, that's it." He put his hands up in defeat. "I don't want to hear any more of that. I have enough trouble listening to the break room gossip chatter among people I don't even know. But if I listen to any more of your college stories, Ryoji, all I'll be thinking about is—oh Christ, it's already started." He put his fingers over his eyes and rubbed.
"How do you think I feel?" Kaji took a drink.
"It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that I'm their boss," Fuyutsuki rambled. "I don't know how I'm going make it through the next debriefing session. Katsuragi's on one side, Akagi on the other—"
"The Major… and Doctor Akagi?" Makoto stressed, apparently befuddled.
"That's…" Shigeru grasped for words. "That's actually really creepy, now that I think about it."
"Yeah," Makoto agreed. "Very." He'd never quite see his commanding officer in the same light again, after that.
"Well, it wasn't so bad," Kaji relented. "I mean, Rits wearing that black negligee wasn't what I'd call an unpleasant image—"
"Ugh, but still," Shigeru interrupted. "Doctor Akagi. Man."
"Yeah… Not-so-subtle undertones of sadomasochism in that one," Makoto commented.
Shigeru agreed, "Dominatrix to the max—"
"Hey." It wasn't so much an utterance as it was an urgent request to cease and desist. "Please." The old professor rubbed his eyeballs and cringed.
"She's actually rather sweet, once you get past that cold scientific exterior—"
"Class, have the first ten chapters of Red Harvest read by next time," Kaji's day was long in the making. "And I expect that report on Nova Express on my desk come Friday—that's half of this quarter's grade, you know." His commands were barely audible over the sound of the students marching out through the classroom door. "And don't forget to read Blake's 'Auguries of Innocence' for Friday as well—class discussion on that…" he trialed off when he knew the noise had won.
By the time the ruckus was over with, only a single student remained. Kensuke Aida stood in front of Kaji's desk expectantly.
"Mister Ryoji?"
"Ah, Aida. What can I do for you?" Kaji threw on a mask of pleasantries as he pulled his leather briefcase onto his desk and numbly waited for the end of the day.
"I—well I have my report done, uh, can I just turn it in now?" The spectacled boy waved a stapled set of papers.
"Sure." Kaji took the packet and slid it into his briefcase. "That it?"
"Ah, no…" Kensuke paused uncertainly. "Did you have a chance to read what I emailed?"
"Oh—the story?" The clasps for the strap of the case snapped into place.
Kensuke nodded.
"I did, actually, what little you sent—I take it that it's a work in progress?" Kaji grinned as he hoisted the shoulder strap over his arm.
"Yeah, it is. I've done a bit more since I sent that off, but yeah—and I've—well," Kensuke looked around for a second, verifying the emptiness of the classroom. "I'm not the only one working on this thing—it's sorta collaborative," he said. "Shinji's got some great ideas, but he can't really write them down very well, so we've been working together on this thing. We're basing it off of—"
"It's a fan fiction, isn't it?" Kaji dug for something in one of the desk drawers.
"Uh huh," Kensuke nodded again.
"Yeah," Kaji said as he pulled another wad of papers and haphazardly shoved them into an open flap of the briefcase. "Off of ah, whatsit—an old cartoon from back when I was in high school. Evangelion somethingrather, right?"
"I'm… kind of surprised you even knew what it was from," Kensuke rubbed the back of his head. "I figured me an' Shinji were the only ones in the school who'd watched the thing."
"Nah, Makoto down in computer sciences is a huge geek for that stuff," Kaji replied. "Reading about those characters again made me feel kind of nostalgic—if I remember right, it got really dark towards the end."
"Yep—the main character goes nuts and everyone gets turned into orange sludge!" Kensuke's reply seemed needlessly enthusiastic—almost forced.
To Kaji, that sounded eerily familiar, and he couldn't quite place why. "It's been awhile, so I'd have to watch the series again to remember what you're talking about."
"It's nice to know that fan fiction isn't given a bad rep by everyone," Kensuke said. "My folks kind of laughed at the concept, and the few others I talked to just sorta call it a stepping stone into writing original fiction."
Kaji shrugged as he looked at the clock on the wall. "I dunno, from an English teacher's perspective, I'm looking at a student willing to spend some time creatively expressing himself—and that's something that I can never downplay. As for fan fiction…" he trailed of and shrugged again. "To be honest, I think writing really good fan fiction can be even more difficult than writing really good original fiction—I mean, since you're using characters that were defined by someone else, you—as the writer—have to find plausible reasons for their non-canonical actions and thoughts. And not only that," he added, "I would think that you'd have to find equally plausible avenues for new conflicts and drama and whatnot. Otherwise you'd just be rewriting what's already been written."
"Right, see—right!" Kensuke exclaimed. "That's what Shinji and I were all about with this thing!"
They were interrupted by the sound of the school nurse's rarely used sing-song voice: "It seems someone's late for a doctor's appoint—oh shi—Aida, ah, how are you?" And suddenly, the air inside the classroom went from easy going relaxation to that of impenetrable stillness and awkward maneuverability.
The younger Akagi stood in the door, a polite—if forced—smile plastered to her face.
Kensuke, not unaware of the possible implications behind what the doctor's earlier comment could have been, suddenly found his brain mechanics slowing to a dull limp. "Uh…" He said the only thing he could. "Hi, Ms. Akagi."
Kaji's eyes were closed and his head was tilted to the side slightly. He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Hi Doc," he mumbled.
"Um, I'm just going to leave." Kensuke shuffled toward the door as he looked at Kaji in a somewhat different light. "I'll leave you two to your uh… your doctor's appointment. Or something." He cast a strange eye at Ritsuko as he edged past her.
"If that boy were going any faster, he'd be sprinting," Ritsuko muttered as soon as he was out of earshot.
"I actually like Burzum," Makoto admitted.
"Really?" Shigeru raised his eyebrows from his station.
"Yeah," he continued. "I mean, to me, generic black metal is like Darkthrone's second, third, and fourth albums. Burzum's stuff doesn't really sound anything like that stuff—it's a bit more textured, and the drums aren't nearly as pronounced."
"I have to admit, the only black metal stuff I ever got into was Emperor." Shigeru pressed a few buttons at random. "And Agalloch," he added as an afterthought.
"Well, Emperor practically redefined black metal with each album they released—and essentially made all the purist assholes look real dumb in the process." Makoto sighed. "That sure was one amazing band. As for Agalloch, I think they kind of grew out of black metal after their first album. They really diversified—that's one the reasons I like 'em a lot anyhow; they didn't feel the need to constrain their style."
Shigeru nodded as he pretended to work on his report on the recent psychograph tests. "Yeah, I noticed that they incorporated a lot of post-rock stuff from thereon out," he said.
"Yeah… what a great band." Makoto stretched his arms and cracked his neck, then he hit a few buttons on his keyboard. The Commodore-64 terminal buzzed and a few lines of text hit the screen.
Shigeru sat at his workstation and stared at green pixels, imagining he was someplace else. He imagined that, instead of being one of the last lines of defense for all of mankind, he was a mundane and blasé salary man with no aspirations toward career enhancement or promotion. It wasn't hard.
"I watched episode thirteen last night, finally." Makoto's voice stirred him out of his reverie.
"Oh yeah?" he asked.
"Yeah," the coworker confirmed. "I uh, thought it was okay."
Shigeru nodded his head tiredly. "Yeah, that means you're into the third DVD right?"
Makoto nodded and quietly yawned.
"That's cool," he said. "That's where it starts getting good. The first two discs are a pain in the ass, if you ask me. The protagonist whines too much without any reasonable provocation, and when that redhead shows up, the whole thing turns into some kind of cliché." Shigeru punched a few more buttons. "Episode eleven, though. That blackout? That's where it starts getting good." His chuckle was dark and guttural.
"I did notice that," Makoto responded. "It's like the writers finally decided on showing some depth to the characters. And the humor improved too—it wasn't so…" he searched for a proper word, but Shigeru provided it for him.
"Stupidly dependant on clichés."
"Yeah," Makoto confirmed. "Yeah, like that."
Shigeru leaned back in his chair. "So what'd you think of the episode?"
"Well, I mean, I thought it was pretty creative having that sort of living computer idea." He shrugged. "If it weren't for the fact we've already faced a similar situation, I'd probably have been a lot more impressed than I was. Besides, we've got the Magi—and they're biomechanical circuits anyhow."
Shigeru nodded. "But…?"
Makoto sighed. "But it just seemed like it hit a little too close to home, you know? The characters all look a little too much like… well, like us, really, but that isn't what gets me. Except for all the scenes with that uh, that guy—Flax Hardseed, or whatever his name is—most of the series practically rips off our lives." He paused. "…Except for all the weird religious references. I don't know where they got all that stuff."
"I know what you mean," Shigeru said. "That's what my impression of the whole series was the first time I watched it. The end is great though. I always get nostalgic when I watch the very end, and I've never really figured out why." He made a grunt. "Strange."
The vice-principal of New Hideki High School stared down at the most recent batch of rather dismal national test scores. The dreary packet of paper hung loosely off the side of his desk like a rag drenched with gasoline, mocking him, waiting for him to pick them up and start an angry conflagration of accusations and hatred that would engulf the rest of the school's staff. He knew that much already, and he hadn't even broken the seal yet.
"Fuyutsuki," his intercom buzzed, and it was the only guy in the whole building that could pull rank over him.
He sighed and punched the button to speak. "Yes?"
"I have a report on my desk," the voice replied. "The superintendent is under the impression that our cafeteria budget is too big."
"So what's the report on your desk?"
"His suggestion on cutting costs." The voice blinked out, but returned—as if in afterthought. "Did we receive the latest national test scores?"
"Uh… yes."
"Excellent. How do they look?"
Fuyutsuki thought they looked like a natural gas leak just waiting for that spark from a cell phone that would start an uncontrollable inferno. "I haven't opened them yet," he said carefully. "I've been preoccupied with… managing the school's cafeteria budget." He winced, knowing that was a stupid thing to say.
His only reply was that of a brief "ah". A minute later, the voice returned: "Very good, as you're handling that already, I'll have my secretary run this report over to you."
Fuyutsuki winced again and sighed. Yet another thing that he had no intention of actually getting done. "Understood," he confirmed. "I'll make it a point to get you copies of the test scores."
As the intercom clicked off, Fuyutsuki leaned back in his chair and sighed.
"This bureaucratic nonsense is bullshit," he said.
Shinji spoke. "I don't understand what you're trying to imply."
"All of existence—as far as our brains are capable of understanding and perceiving—is a living organism. The fundamental problem you keep running into is your belief that reality is singular in nature—and that it's structure adheres to your concepts of 'order'. Basically, the whole fault of each argument you throw up is the very foundation of your perspective." He reached for a cup of coffee on his desk and took a sip. "You're all aware that multiple realities exist, and you all know that your actions affect and are affected by the events that transpire in these other universes, but you seem to shut that awareness out of your conscious mind in favor of stupefying ignorance. I guess you simply haven't learned how to rationalize that sort of world-view yet.
"Anyway, as I was saying, think of the universe as a living being. Well, actually, think of the universe as you know it to be merely a piece of a much larger living being. Okay. Now, think of the realities introduced thus far. Each one exists as a byproduct of each other one, but none of them take priority in terms of survival. Each of these 'universes' is dependent upon the others, surviving through an intricate set of metaphysical mechanisms that keep the whole thing in working order. It's literally a living entity, so incomprehensibly vast in size that we're smaller than bacteria to its intellect."
The West bled across an evening sky. A menstrual lunar sphere hung in the star-punctured abyss, like some overseer of a dead and barren world. There was a head on the horizon, and its pallor was rivaled only by the audacity of the false sea that lapped at his feet. Naked, he stared across this rotting world, and he breathed. It was the very first breath of his entire life.
Shinji awoke with a start. His heart practically leapt out of his chest as his eyes snapped open, and his limbs shuddered and twitched into alertness. He fell onto the floor and grunted when he hit his head.
Toji leaned against the kitchen counter as Kensuke fixed himself a pot of coffee. Shinji adjusted his collar as he rummaged around for a coke from the fridge.
"Do you think we're missing something?" Shinji mumbled.
"What?" Kensuke hit the side of the coffee maker with the palm of his hand. "The damn thing's broken again. I swear, it's just like the last place we worked at…"
Toji grunted a short smirk.
"I mean that it feels as though something's missing," Shinji replied. He sighed and straightened, leaving the refrigerator door open. "Apart from the coke. I guess I'll settle for a Dr. Pepper."
"Gimme one," Toji held out an empty hand, and it was filled with a can cool to the touch.
"Shinji, I think the only thing we're missing is some kind of vast, life-altering improvement," Kensuke commented. "You've got that, so I don't see why you're complaining."
Shinji popped the Dr. Pepper and took a sip. "No, it feels like something just isn't right. Everything's… different, somehow."
"We're tugged aroun' by immeasur'ble forces beyond our feeble comprehension," Toji slurred. "No doubt Shin-man 'ere feels jus' a 'int of da factors that led ta dis very moment."
"As eloquent as that might sound, I think the only factors that lead to this conclusion involved the twenty-five steps between the kitchen and our cubicle." Kensuke's deadpan response was accompanied by a low growl directed at the coffee maker. "Goddamn piece of junk."
Shinji stared at the brown label that comprised the side of the can, and the droplets of condensation that trickled down its surface reminded him of something vague and hazy and dreamlike, as if he recollected something from a life he lived only in parallel—as if everything in the room, everything in that moment was reflected in each bead of condensation and projected onto a bigger picture comprised not of sight or of sound, but of pure information that weaved and ebbed and solidified and condensed into everything that was perceivable—as if he observed his life from a fluid perspective that shifted and changed—as if all identity was nothing more than an indefinable parallax view.