I brush up on my Hyperdeutsch… Am I too young to like opera?
I'm just sitting on the couch, trying to enjoy the 4-D opera I can catch a glimpse of through the warp in the middle of the living room, and Germany has to be concerned about me again.
"What's… in the dimensional warp you've been staring at for an hour now?" He asks with that concerned crack in his voice.
"Shh, shh, the aria is happening! Oh, beautiful! What a way to kill off her character. Singing about death. Although their concept of a "hell" eludes me. They're clearly borrowing from 3-D metaphysics."
I feel two firm hands on my shoulders from behind, lightly massaging in a concerned way. Anything to help me, concerned Germany thinks. Anything to make me feel comfortable in my concerning times.
"Is… John Mayer there?"
He wants to be concerned-chatty. I shrug Germany's hands off my shoulders, then flop onto my side on the couch, closing the warp with a flick of my wrist. "John Mayer's not in 4-D. He's a medium through which 4-D vibewaves are channeled to 3-D. Like… imagine if Phil Vischer were using an iMac. That aesthetic—"
"I've heard 'iMac.' That's enough. What productive things are you doing today?"
"That was very productive! I was watching a 4-D opera and trying to understand what was going on! My Geophonion isn't the best."
"What about onions?"
"Geophonion. It's a language. One dimensional step up from German, actually. You know that when you speak, the soundwaves from your voice travel outward in 3 dimensions to interact with their environment. In 4-D worlds, soundwaves travel outward in 4 dimensions, and so on. It's a very different sound. I'm tempted to bloat into 4-D just so I can hope to understand it better."
"Well, I'll wholeheartedly support anything that lets you speak to late-90s computer game models better," Germany grumbles. It's been years since he's made a sarcasm. I thought people like him weren't wired for it.
"They just look like that because the year 2000 was the singularity! 3-D and 4-D space converged, and our world was elevated to interdimensional harmony!"
"You died sitting at an iMac in 2006."
"And?"
"Maybe that has something to do with why you're so overly attached to that era?"
"No, it means my process of ascension coincided with our world's process of ascension. I have the coolest destiny in the world."
Germany gives a quick exhale — his version of a scoff, then storms off to the kitchen clutching a vein's process of ascension.
I give a broad smirk and shake my head. Germany can't psychoanalyze me this time! My alibi is absolutely foolproof. 2000 was the singularity. Creepy old bouncy CGI is just what 4-D looks like here. And I like bananas because I really like bananas, not because I was torturously deprived of them for 40 years!
I open the warp again and stick my hand right in. It instantly stings and cramps. I hear the deep, bassy crunch of my bones expanding and warping to be more than just length, width, and height. There's Int, too, or, as it's known in Geophonion, «Fĝtḇ.»
I grasp around for a bit, translating the difference in space-time and reaching out for just the thing. Finding it, I pull it out and smirk as it shrinks to an almost 3-D appearance in my hands. It's a Geophonion Learner's Guide. Fine. Germany wants me to be productive. I'll practice my Hyperdeutsch.
I open the book and gloss over what looks like a pile of accented nonsense. It's a bit hard to understand from a 3-D point of view. Just as 3-D folks read 2-D characters, 4-D folks read 3-D characters. They don't directly translate into a pronounceable dialect on paper, but I've exposed myself to both modes enough where I can roughly voice what I see on these warping pages. Each word begins with a carrot, indicating whether a buzzing inflection ascends or descends throughout pronunciation. Seemingly mathematical symbols indicate stress.
«⩡Kkjaga(st)ar.»
That's a greeting for you! I roll it around in my mouth a bit. My tongue is attached to the roof of my mouth for the accent, but with only 3 dimensions of reverb, it sounds like I'm some kind of swamp creature.
«⩟Oö[st]ŕŕŕamu(sh)a.»
The word that woman kept repeating in the opera. Guess it means "Death." Come to think of it, I heard this word whispered a lot whenever I died and shot through 4-Space on the way to the cosmic checkpoint. Fritz's puppets whispered it whenever I sat in the waiting room.
«⩟aBŕicà=.»
Nation. Earth. World. A homophone with "Grass" and "The condition of darkness during the daytime." It's a whole-sounding word. I write it on my wrist with a marker to remember it.
After fifteen minutes of skimming, I can form a few sentences. The practice is really jogging my memory. I've tried so many times to make friends with this mouse-looking guy who lives in Germany's toilet, but he's always speaking super fast Geophonion! I can't keep up!
«Hello. How are you. I am Ascended Prussia,» I voice quite unnaturally into 3-D air. The particles distort before my eyes, shriveling a bit. Even if it's not true Geophonion in a 4-D sphere, it's uncanny enough to negatively affect the environment.
«My brother has three dogs. I eat the bananas. Gorpa is not a happy sport.»
(You need 4 dimensions of aerodynamics to play Gorpa… I want to throw up just thinking about it.)
A few warps open up, and various 4-D creatures peep out to see what I'm up to. I expand my vision to see them better. Shimmery egg-shaped pigs with no legs wearing hats. I wish them a happy «⩡Kkjaga(st)ar,» and they reply with mouths full of human teeth, which in 4 dimensions look pretty cute, actually. There are a lot of things that make much more sense in 4-D than in 3-D.
«Hello. How are you. I am Ascended Prussia,» I say to the pigs, very slowly and carefully. They nod and introduce themselves as ⩟Mör(ß)k, ⩟Ppork-S=, and ⩡Yo(sh)a. Perfectly good Hyper-German names for a perfectly good Hyper-Germany.
Which begs the question again… is every universe replicated exactly 11 times for 11 dimensions, or does each dimension have its own unique millions of universes? It's something I'll never know.
Germany comes back into the room and hands me a sandwich on a plate.
"What are you doing now? What's that buzzing noise?"
"Buzzing?"
"You're making this terrible high-pitched buzzing noise. It's scaring the dogs."
"What? Like this?"
I repeat my greeting. Instantly, Germany covers his ears. Oh boy…
I see his molecules going wonky. Looking around, I notice the same thing is happening with the rest of the room. Matter is decaying faster than normal, pushed by a force that isn't supposed to exist. There is no 4th way matter can be pushed here, and so it's being endlessly shoved by my soundwaves. Left and right. Up and down. In and out. But not ⩟Fĝtḇ and ⩡Hṽa.
Ha! I discovered the Ancient Language! One word, and I could destroy everything!
Germany kneels and looks at the book in my hands. "What does this look like to you? I can only see a page flashing black and white."
"You can't see the words?"
He shakes his head. "I can't even see a book half the time. It looks kind of like… an old computer game model. It's angular, and the texture is odd."
"4-D object forced into 3-D appearance, ya dingus. Kesesese~"
I ruffle up his hair until it falls into its true form — the bowlcut I've trimmed for him since the first time he woke up on the mad science table in Austria's basement. This was a bad move because then he's concerned again and shifts around to massage my shoulders. Now, on those days when I just want to be lazy in bed, should I make something up and have him massage me?
Ach, thin ice, Prussia.
I lean my head back and say it again. «My brother has three dogs. I eat the bananas. Gorpa is not a happy sport.» Ach, I'm becoming so cultured!
"That's… nice to know," Germany says after wrenching his hands off his ears a second time. In the background, the dogs are screeching.
"What did I say?" I ask, turning around. Oh boy, his legs are wobbling. He's going all squishy!
"You made that buzzing noise and said the banana dog plays sport."
"Ah, well, there's a prime example of post-post-modern surrealism. Random bullshit in a 3-D world is actually quite commonplace in a 4-D one, and so—"
Germany's bones lose all rigidity. His arms flop at his sides, and his body repeatedly deflates and bounces back like a rubber bowling pin. Okay, maybe I can't destroy everything with a single word. Maybe I just turn everything into VeggieTales. Which honestly is still an absolutely terrifying evil power.
"WHAT. IS. HAPPENING."
"Don't worry, Germany! This is only a technicality! My Hyperdeutsch is trying to push your molecules to places they can't go, but it's okay! You don't have the power to warp, so all of you is staying in this dimension!"
"GET ME OOOOUUUUT!"
"Ha! Reference! Okay, seriously, this should be pretty easy. All I have to do is stabilize you like I stabilize myself in the mornings…"
I reach out and seize his rubbery wrist. A vibration zings up my arm, and my whole world jars. I see the carpet, then Germany. Carpet, Germany. Carpet, Germany. I whip myself around for a change of scenery and take in the wonky sight of three bouncy balloon dogs… shaped like bananas?
The kickback's turned me into a bouncy vegetable, too! I can't feel my limbs, and my torso is oscillating so rapidly I may as well be a flower at a rave! Guess brushing up on my language skills isn't too productive after all! Ach, well, I'm already fluent in German, Hungarian, Italian, English, Bad French, and Bad German, which is probably actually Dutch.
My innards cringe. I have to stabilize my body, and the easiest way to do that is to bloat up to 4-D and come down again. The problem is, that fucking hurts.
"Okay… breathe in… breathe out… WARP."
My body falls. It's not the gentle caress of the Anticanon claiming me. It's the shooting sensation I've learned well from dying so many times. My universe peels away, and I'm floating upward, heart racing and eyes closing tight, preparing for the sensation.
This is it. 4-D space. To be stylish here, I need a 4-D body. Lightning forks through my being. I see the grid of reality, shaking, glowing, destabilizing, breaking apart. The synthwave intensifies, then grows, shifting in frequency. My ears are bleeding, but not as much as my limbs as they're forced up one dimension. It really is like a bloating sensation. My own gridwork is disintegrating as I advance. My hands are stretching into infinity. I take a breath. Ignore the pain. You screwed up Germany's form again, and you made a vow long, long ago that you would make him smile whenever you can! He is not smiling right now!
A final jolt, and my head explodes. I steady my breathing. The 4-D universe stops shaking so much. For a few moments, I take in my advanced body. It's more or less the same, except for the extra way of measuring me… and the rainbow highlights in my hair. More colors in more dimensions, you know. Alas, the stress isn't over yet. I've stabilized myself, but I have to stabilize Germany and the dogs. I can't do that by touching them, so I have to warp the fabreality until they're normal again.
Before I return to my own dimension, I speak those lines of Geophonion I learned. The reverb here is so beautiful that hypercubic tears leak from my infini-spheric eyes.
«WARP!» I screech. I fall back to 3-D, and my body is crushed back down to its former state. Gah! All the colors here are so dull and bland! But I'm not one to move on to something better once it comes along. A dead nation is a nostalgic nation. I loved all of this once! I'll make myself love it forever!
The living room has gone to shit. Every object is either mercilessly bouncing or looking like it's straight outta Pangea Software. In seconds, I calculate the rate of cosmic distortion. It's accelerating. If I don't act fast, I'm gonna have a lot more than exploded chocolate tanks and Frau Froemming's bras haunting my dreams.
I could reverse entropy, but that would erase my memories, and we might end up with the same problem. I'll have to bend and stretch the fabreality manually. I may not be an artist, but I'm a pretty great engineer!
I expand my consciousness and assert my power over the universe. I'm standing inside the world, outside the world, which is the right side of the world? Go Sonic!
With practice, I'm getting better. Now space-time is even more visible, visible as a fabric. With sparkling hands, I squeeze the stuff of Germany, molding him back into the shape of a chiseled Adonis. I take the dogs and remove the banana peels, making them fluffy and waggy again. I make the TV look more or less like a TV and the decorative vases look more or less like decorative vases and the butter knives… mmm, tempting, but I go ahead and give them butter knife appearances.
When all is said and done, I flop, exhausted, backwards onto the couch. Germany rises up from the floor, trembling and checking to see that his cheeks won't inflate if he touches them.
"Y-you… I just… can't… You need to stop doing things like this."
"I know," I groan. "But hey, now we have a cursed book we can tie some ribbon around and lock up in the basement for the future owners of this house to find."
"You look like shit, and you still have the breath to say that."
"Do I look like shit?"
Concerned Germany bends over my upside-down body. He gestures for me to right myself, and when I'm sitting correctly on the couch, he concernedly massages my shoulders.
This time, I'm thankful.
~N~
Come on, that bouncy late 90s CGI resonates with us... we have been touched by dimensions unknown...
Updated by Syntax-N FanFiction . Net August 2nd, 2020. Don't be a vegetable! Review, don't repost!