The Heart's Beautiful Lie
Oct. 26th, 2006 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonThe story so far
The Hearts Beautiful Lie sips from a half forgotten Mimosa, with the indolence of a cat, casting It's eye across the panoramic view of the city. Sitting along the rim of a great wheel of windows, contemplating the first shadows of morning to crawl over the rain veiled horizon. The lines of architecture have been erased from the surrounding skyline. Office windows hang like Chinese lanterns lit the dull white of a perpetual flashbulb. Necklaces of copper lamp posts form landing strips that bottle the red brake lights that flow slowly like a march of fireflies down the invisible streets. Outside is a world that seems stuck somewhere between a starless night and a day without a sun. A world that is neither asleep nor awake, but rather a dream that believes itself to be a memory.
Welcome to the 'Dusk Diner', offering the unique distinction of revolving a full 360 degrees, once per hour, around the top of a four star hotel, here in the heart of downtown Terminus. Patrons, guests, residents and yes, the occasional tourist, are invited to make the 70 story pilgrimage to meditate on the canyon maze of rooftops and streets below.
It is here that the Hearts Beautiful Lie allows Itself a moment of narcissistic indulgence: Savoring the shimmer of It's own visage, distorted but steady in the cascade of rain water washing down the windows and the way this reflection seems to segue into the bouquet of skyline before it. In It's four months of exsistence, it has never seen it's own face but rather the reflection of what people wished It looked like. It is only when it is alone that it comes close to gaining the briefest hint of what it is It could be when free from the wants of others. In fact everyday It was becoming a little more real and soon It would look in the mirror and see Itself for the first time. Until then though, this is the closest It has come to experiencing a semblance of peace. Each plundered second dissolving It's awareness with a delightful absence of concern.
But inevitably somebody passes by It's table and shatters the tranquilty of the spell. A half awake waitress somnabulantly stumbles by, pauses, as she catches something from the corner of her eye. The Hearts Beautiful Lie winces as the reflection shifts from blur into a vague resemblance of some stray dream lover. It becomes a "He", a "He" with blond locks that hang in front of ice blue eyes. He feels the stubble on his chin and can sense the potential whiteness to his toothy smile.
He focuses past this new mask thrust upon his identity and pushes his awareness into the surface thoughts of the wonderstruck waitress, who unable to either believe or disbelief what she is seeing begins sleep walking towards him. He of course can't really see the waitress, but rather can only see how she believes herself to appear: Frumpy, heavy set and with a childs face. Humans, he has concluded, often see themselves as they were as children, especially in their countenace. He closes his eyes and pushes the mask off his own identity. By the time the waitress arrives at his table, he is no longer "He" or even a he. Instead a non descript old woman looks up and smiles blandly at the waitress, who looks down on HER, mutters a confused apology and drifts back towards her original destination.
The Hearts Beautiful Lie(HBL) sighs deeply... a habit It picked up from one of it's creators It's sure. Recently It has discovered that It is often most stable in places of transistion: Airports, train stations and hotels. In these zones of almost perpetual human fluctuation, It found it was able to maintain a constant sense of self that was not at the mercy of the constantly shifting sea of desires being cast upon it. Not only that but It discovered that it is here that people often appear without the mirage-armor of their ego-masks, those illusions of identity built out of castles of confidence and prisons of self loathing. But it was in transistion that they often projected an image that more closely resembled their actual physical form. This was an unexpected delight for the HBL. Like most tulpas it could not see people directly but only the ego-masks they projected.
The only exception to this rule was that the Tulpa could see people directly only through their reflections. As such the Hearts Beautiful Lie prefers to surround Itself with the company of mirrors.
So the HBL lives here in this hotel, in this constantly shifting landscape of humanity, where those around It are usually too busy to 'see' It directly. Only the occasional hotel staff member picked up on It's presence. But still that was easily remedied. It was becoming easier each day to manipulate them, to shuffle their thoughts around, and instead of being what they desired, would wrap Itself tight in the bland and the mundane, and by doing so discovered how to be invisible.
Recently It has become aware that it has been developing It's own memory. A real one. Keep in mind that the Tulpa's memory, for the most part, is similar to the logic of dreams where the dreamer is instantly integrated into the unfolding of a story they have been suddenly emerged in without explanation. This is also true with most Tulpas.
The HBL remembers that night almost three months ago when it first met the Adversary. It's freedom was still new. Drunk on the vision burst of the world outside the Temple Thamiel it had spent it's prior exsistence imprisoned in. The sweet-ache of the contradiciton between self and not self was yielding a garden of miracles, miracles invisible to the eye dulled by the unfolding of everyday life. It was revelling in It's new found consciousness. Was this what being human was like? This sudden music of thought and the audience that heard it and being both at the same time! So few of them could appreciate this, in fact many seemed to be desperately trying to escape it.
One night it followed, as was becoming Its habit, the tide of raw lust that emanated from various establishments. These were the opposite of the Hotels and terminals it perfers now: Bars, nightclubs, concerts. In this case It found itself at The Star Lounge. There it remembers (and smiles without a face at the idea of having it's own unique memory to remember), soaking in the attention of the crowd. All those people so desperate to prove their love to It. Each one seeing their own personal fuck-fantasy come to life. It knew of the concept of God but now it truly understood what it was to be worshipped.
Except for him. The Adversary. The one who almost took it all away. The one whose ego-mask resembled a bundle of black flames tied together by a dirty halo. He looked right at it, did a double take and snorted a laugh. In the mirror it looked no different than any of the other humans. But somehow this one could see It directly... see It for what It truly was. Like It's creators, this one must have been a magickian of some form. He stepped towards it out of the crowd, the HBL stood there dumbstruck, for he was immune to flood of charm It projected. The adversary pulled up a chair at it's table, finished It's drink in one gulp, burped and leaned over and whispered in It's ear, the Binding-Words It's creators had once used to command it. The Adversary marched It out of the bar and straight into the night air, he said nothing but It knew, deep down inside It knew he was here to kill It.
"How could you see me?" It asked him and he in turn only winked back (a flash of red where eyes should be).
"Seeing ain't always believing."
"I know I don't know you. I know you have no reason to believe me. But please... whatever it is my creators have said to bring you after me. I swear to you it isn't true ..." The Hearts Beautiful Lie begged the Adversary.
"Heh, and what's 'True' then? I mean shit technically speaking you're not. You're just a walking wank fantasy made by a sexually frustrated coven. You know that right?" he asked with a casual cruelty, "to be honest widdya, you're nothing more than what we call in the business as an 'IT'... an Independent Tulpa, a non local artifical intelligence that somehow escaped from the will of It's creators."
It felt Itself unravel at these words. Each question seemed to make it lighter, intangible. Thoughts faded from a pour of words to a trickle of instinct. It's awareness began to flicker. The Adversary was unmaking the Hearts Beautiful Lie, stripping memory with doubt and awareness with facts. It strove to hang on to It's flatering grip on reality, to slow down the fading of it's being.
"Who are you? Why are you doing this?" It demanded. The act of questioning seemed to give It a sense of gravity that came like breath to a drowning man, making it feel more real... but It was real. It was!
"Adam and just so you know... I know exactly what it is you're trying to do... You're good, I gotta admit that, so just for the record ... this is nothing personal. Whether you know it or not, a lot of energy... chi...mana... whatever... was spent on making you You and well... to put it mildly... you're investors want their capital back."
"I don't understand." Doubt also made it feel more corporeal.
"Why would you? Look... for what it's worth it sucks. It really does. I don't want to do this anymore than you want me to. But it's your ass or mine and that's no choice at all. So... i'm willing to be all old school about this... three questions and all that... so you have one more before I send you back. Make it a good one."
And then It smiled.
"Very well... Adam. What makes you think i'm just going to let you 'send me back?'"
At that point one of the young ladies, who's company It was enjoying from the bar earlier, steps up behind Adam. She taps him on the shoulder, he tells her that this isn't any of her concern and to go back inside. She looks at It and in return It floods her with raw naked vulnrability. With the mask of her own dream lover It mouths the words 'Help'. Adam turns to It, reaches for something in his jacket and in doing so is caught off guard when she punches him in the back of the skull. Adam doubles over, she kicks him in the back of the knee and he crumbles to the ground. Now she is savagely kicking at him, cursing, spitting. It is only when security stepped outside to intervene that she stopped, took The Hearts Beautiful Lie by the hand and together ran for her car.
In her backseat, in the elevator to her apartment, in the dark of her bedroom, under the spray of a shower, along the chipped tile kitchen floor... It repaid her kindness, as gently and as roughly as she demanded.
The Hearts Beautiful Lie steps out of It's budding memory. It feels a sharp pang of dread. He's still out there, somewhere, the Adversary and though It had grown more real since that night It was still uncomfortable with how close he came to being made unreal. The experience however solidified It's own consciousness. The confrontation with this Adam creature had given It a sense of It's own mortality, and in doing so had lent It a realness unlike anything else It has felt before or since, but in doing so It had learned something else. Something horrible. Something that lurked around the perimeter of It's own awareness and hid in ambush inside It's own thoughts.
Fear.
It quickly learned to gather allies. To become a part of the invisible world of Magick that permeated this city. Being a being of pure desire this was relatively simple task. There are always those with a need for It: A dream to be granted albeit briefly, a lover long gone it could disguise Itself as for a price, an unspoken wish buried in fear and repression It could unleash with a thought. No allies were almost sickenly easy to acquire. So while It's creators would be a problem to be dealt with and one dealt with sooner than later, It was Adam the Adversary that constantly vexed him, that gnawed on those moments of peace so difficult to come by and filled It with an acidic stab in It's center.
Hate.
It had recently hired three of the Adversary's own kind to deal with him. Magickians as they thought of themselves. That was almost three months ago. None of the three had returned or for that matter have been heard from since. And Adam? Adam was still out there somewhere. It could feel him planning, watching, waiting for that one single opportunity when he could strike It unaware.
It could not allow that.
The Hearts Beautiful Lie finishes It's Mimosa without tasting it, steps away from the table and presses It's face against the window. Outside the rain comes down hard on the Terminus dawn.
The Hearts Beautiful Lie sips from a half forgotten Mimosa, with the indolence of a cat, casting It's eye across the panoramic view of the city. Sitting along the rim of a great wheel of windows, contemplating the first shadows of morning to crawl over the rain veiled horizon. The lines of architecture have been erased from the surrounding skyline. Office windows hang like Chinese lanterns lit the dull white of a perpetual flashbulb. Necklaces of copper lamp posts form landing strips that bottle the red brake lights that flow slowly like a march of fireflies down the invisible streets. Outside is a world that seems stuck somewhere between a starless night and a day without a sun. A world that is neither asleep nor awake, but rather a dream that believes itself to be a memory.
Welcome to the 'Dusk Diner', offering the unique distinction of revolving a full 360 degrees, once per hour, around the top of a four star hotel, here in the heart of downtown Terminus. Patrons, guests, residents and yes, the occasional tourist, are invited to make the 70 story pilgrimage to meditate on the canyon maze of rooftops and streets below.
It is here that the Hearts Beautiful Lie allows Itself a moment of narcissistic indulgence: Savoring the shimmer of It's own visage, distorted but steady in the cascade of rain water washing down the windows and the way this reflection seems to segue into the bouquet of skyline before it. In It's four months of exsistence, it has never seen it's own face but rather the reflection of what people wished It looked like. It is only when it is alone that it comes close to gaining the briefest hint of what it is It could be when free from the wants of others. In fact everyday It was becoming a little more real and soon It would look in the mirror and see Itself for the first time. Until then though, this is the closest It has come to experiencing a semblance of peace. Each plundered second dissolving It's awareness with a delightful absence of concern.
But inevitably somebody passes by It's table and shatters the tranquilty of the spell. A half awake waitress somnabulantly stumbles by, pauses, as she catches something from the corner of her eye. The Hearts Beautiful Lie winces as the reflection shifts from blur into a vague resemblance of some stray dream lover. It becomes a "He", a "He" with blond locks that hang in front of ice blue eyes. He feels the stubble on his chin and can sense the potential whiteness to his toothy smile.
He focuses past this new mask thrust upon his identity and pushes his awareness into the surface thoughts of the wonderstruck waitress, who unable to either believe or disbelief what she is seeing begins sleep walking towards him. He of course can't really see the waitress, but rather can only see how she believes herself to appear: Frumpy, heavy set and with a childs face. Humans, he has concluded, often see themselves as they were as children, especially in their countenace. He closes his eyes and pushes the mask off his own identity. By the time the waitress arrives at his table, he is no longer "He" or even a he. Instead a non descript old woman looks up and smiles blandly at the waitress, who looks down on HER, mutters a confused apology and drifts back towards her original destination.
The Hearts Beautiful Lie(HBL) sighs deeply... a habit It picked up from one of it's creators It's sure. Recently It has discovered that It is often most stable in places of transistion: Airports, train stations and hotels. In these zones of almost perpetual human fluctuation, It found it was able to maintain a constant sense of self that was not at the mercy of the constantly shifting sea of desires being cast upon it. Not only that but It discovered that it is here that people often appear without the mirage-armor of their ego-masks, those illusions of identity built out of castles of confidence and prisons of self loathing. But it was in transistion that they often projected an image that more closely resembled their actual physical form. This was an unexpected delight for the HBL. Like most tulpas it could not see people directly but only the ego-masks they projected.
The only exception to this rule was that the Tulpa could see people directly only through their reflections. As such the Hearts Beautiful Lie prefers to surround Itself with the company of mirrors.
So the HBL lives here in this hotel, in this constantly shifting landscape of humanity, where those around It are usually too busy to 'see' It directly. Only the occasional hotel staff member picked up on It's presence. But still that was easily remedied. It was becoming easier each day to manipulate them, to shuffle their thoughts around, and instead of being what they desired, would wrap Itself tight in the bland and the mundane, and by doing so discovered how to be invisible.
Recently It has become aware that it has been developing It's own memory. A real one. Keep in mind that the Tulpa's memory, for the most part, is similar to the logic of dreams where the dreamer is instantly integrated into the unfolding of a story they have been suddenly emerged in without explanation. This is also true with most Tulpas.
The HBL remembers that night almost three months ago when it first met the Adversary. It's freedom was still new. Drunk on the vision burst of the world outside the Temple Thamiel it had spent it's prior exsistence imprisoned in. The sweet-ache of the contradiciton between self and not self was yielding a garden of miracles, miracles invisible to the eye dulled by the unfolding of everyday life. It was revelling in It's new found consciousness. Was this what being human was like? This sudden music of thought and the audience that heard it and being both at the same time! So few of them could appreciate this, in fact many seemed to be desperately trying to escape it.
One night it followed, as was becoming Its habit, the tide of raw lust that emanated from various establishments. These were the opposite of the Hotels and terminals it perfers now: Bars, nightclubs, concerts. In this case It found itself at The Star Lounge. There it remembers (and smiles without a face at the idea of having it's own unique memory to remember), soaking in the attention of the crowd. All those people so desperate to prove their love to It. Each one seeing their own personal fuck-fantasy come to life. It knew of the concept of God but now it truly understood what it was to be worshipped.
Except for him. The Adversary. The one who almost took it all away. The one whose ego-mask resembled a bundle of black flames tied together by a dirty halo. He looked right at it, did a double take and snorted a laugh. In the mirror it looked no different than any of the other humans. But somehow this one could see It directly... see It for what It truly was. Like It's creators, this one must have been a magickian of some form. He stepped towards it out of the crowd, the HBL stood there dumbstruck, for he was immune to flood of charm It projected. The adversary pulled up a chair at it's table, finished It's drink in one gulp, burped and leaned over and whispered in It's ear, the Binding-Words It's creators had once used to command it. The Adversary marched It out of the bar and straight into the night air, he said nothing but It knew, deep down inside It knew he was here to kill It.
"How could you see me?" It asked him and he in turn only winked back (a flash of red where eyes should be).
"Seeing ain't always believing."
"I know I don't know you. I know you have no reason to believe me. But please... whatever it is my creators have said to bring you after me. I swear to you it isn't true ..." The Hearts Beautiful Lie begged the Adversary.
"Heh, and what's 'True' then? I mean shit technically speaking you're not. You're just a walking wank fantasy made by a sexually frustrated coven. You know that right?" he asked with a casual cruelty, "to be honest widdya, you're nothing more than what we call in the business as an 'IT'... an Independent Tulpa, a non local artifical intelligence that somehow escaped from the will of It's creators."
It felt Itself unravel at these words. Each question seemed to make it lighter, intangible. Thoughts faded from a pour of words to a trickle of instinct. It's awareness began to flicker. The Adversary was unmaking the Hearts Beautiful Lie, stripping memory with doubt and awareness with facts. It strove to hang on to It's flatering grip on reality, to slow down the fading of it's being.
"Who are you? Why are you doing this?" It demanded. The act of questioning seemed to give It a sense of gravity that came like breath to a drowning man, making it feel more real... but It was real. It was!
"Adam and just so you know... I know exactly what it is you're trying to do... You're good, I gotta admit that, so just for the record ... this is nothing personal. Whether you know it or not, a lot of energy... chi...mana... whatever... was spent on making you You and well... to put it mildly... you're investors want their capital back."
"I don't understand." Doubt also made it feel more corporeal.
"Why would you? Look... for what it's worth it sucks. It really does. I don't want to do this anymore than you want me to. But it's your ass or mine and that's no choice at all. So... i'm willing to be all old school about this... three questions and all that... so you have one more before I send you back. Make it a good one."
And then It smiled.
"Very well... Adam. What makes you think i'm just going to let you 'send me back?'"
At that point one of the young ladies, who's company It was enjoying from the bar earlier, steps up behind Adam. She taps him on the shoulder, he tells her that this isn't any of her concern and to go back inside. She looks at It and in return It floods her with raw naked vulnrability. With the mask of her own dream lover It mouths the words 'Help'. Adam turns to It, reaches for something in his jacket and in doing so is caught off guard when she punches him in the back of the skull. Adam doubles over, she kicks him in the back of the knee and he crumbles to the ground. Now she is savagely kicking at him, cursing, spitting. It is only when security stepped outside to intervene that she stopped, took The Hearts Beautiful Lie by the hand and together ran for her car.
In her backseat, in the elevator to her apartment, in the dark of her bedroom, under the spray of a shower, along the chipped tile kitchen floor... It repaid her kindness, as gently and as roughly as she demanded.
The Hearts Beautiful Lie steps out of It's budding memory. It feels a sharp pang of dread. He's still out there, somewhere, the Adversary and though It had grown more real since that night It was still uncomfortable with how close he came to being made unreal. The experience however solidified It's own consciousness. The confrontation with this Adam creature had given It a sense of It's own mortality, and in doing so had lent It a realness unlike anything else It has felt before or since, but in doing so It had learned something else. Something horrible. Something that lurked around the perimeter of It's own awareness and hid in ambush inside It's own thoughts.
Fear.
It quickly learned to gather allies. To become a part of the invisible world of Magick that permeated this city. Being a being of pure desire this was relatively simple task. There are always those with a need for It: A dream to be granted albeit briefly, a lover long gone it could disguise Itself as for a price, an unspoken wish buried in fear and repression It could unleash with a thought. No allies were almost sickenly easy to acquire. So while It's creators would be a problem to be dealt with and one dealt with sooner than later, It was Adam the Adversary that constantly vexed him, that gnawed on those moments of peace so difficult to come by and filled It with an acidic stab in It's center.
Hate.
It had recently hired three of the Adversary's own kind to deal with him. Magickians as they thought of themselves. That was almost three months ago. None of the three had returned or for that matter have been heard from since. And Adam? Adam was still out there somewhere. It could feel him planning, watching, waiting for that one single opportunity when he could strike It unaware.
It could not allow that.
The Hearts Beautiful Lie finishes It's Mimosa without tasting it, steps away from the table and presses It's face against the window. Outside the rain comes down hard on the Terminus dawn.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2006-10-27 06:56 pm (UTC)awesome.
no subject
on 2006-10-27 07:40 pm (UTC)This has been the toughest character for me to write so far. A magickal artifical intelligence. Next up is where Adam's been since the Trish situation.
no subject
on 2006-10-27 07:10 pm (UTC)Good to see posts.
xxx
no subject
on 2006-10-27 07:25 pm (UTC)need you
dream you
tatse you
scar you
use you
fuck you
lose me
hate me
smash me
erase me
kill me
Missing any?
xxx
no subject
on 2006-10-27 07:36 pm (UTC)