Finish draft-sans-ending

content/writing/thevoid.md

@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ The display was polarizing. Swaths of children, though initially enthralled by t
 
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-Like alchemists of the past, many of the remaining experimenters had a tendency to obsess. Even as the world --- with its track meets, birthday parties, and dances --- went on around them, they continued their close observation of the mysterious substance. The {{< thevoid "Void" >}} proved worthy of this sustained attention. The patterns that swirled in its depths were not entirely random; they seemed to respond, reluctantly and sluggishly, to the observer's mind. Anger and frustration tended to produce redder hues; sadness manifested in as a snotty shade of green. Focusing on a particular color made it more likely to appear, as well. Following its own peculiar kind of intuition, the {{< thevoid "Void" >}} responded faster when more individuals were present.
+Like alchemists of the past, many of the remaining experimenters had a tendency to obsess. Even as the world --- with its track meets, birthday parties, and dances --- went on around them, they continued their close observation of the mysterious substance. The {{< thevoid "Void" >}} proved worthy of this sustained attention. The patterns that swirled in its depths were not entirely random; they responded, reluctantly and sluggishly, to the observer's mind. Anger and frustration tended to produce redder hues; sadness manifested in as a snotty shade of green. Focusing on a particular color made it more likely to appear, as well. Following its own peculiar kind of intuition, the {{< thevoid "Void" >}} responded faster when more individuals were present.
 
 Other promising avenues of research also grew in popularity over the following days and weeks. The precise recipe for the {{< thevoid "Void" >}} was not, it turned out, very strict. Though soda and fast food remained a constant fixture, the precise ingredients could be substituted for alternates. Pieces of swiss cheese worked just as well as cheddar. A fragment of a turkey patty replaced the traditional 100% Angus beef in a pinch. The resulting substance was as opaque and inscrutable as ever.
 
@@ -44,11 +44,11 @@ Following much trial error, adolescent adventurers mapped the frontiers of {{< t
 
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-If all properties hereto described were the only notable aspects of the {{< thevoid "Void" >}}, it would have been a mere curiosity. Late-night History Channel shows might have shown it along theories of ancient aliens or telepath, filling inattentive viewers' dimly lit homes with comfortable background noise. The substance, however, had one final, crucial aspect. The discovery was made -- as is often the case -- in the midst of conflict.
+If all properties hereto described were the only notable aspects of the {{< thevoid "Void" >}}, it would have been a mere curiosity. Late-night History Channel shows might have shown it along theories of ancient aliens or telepathy, filling inattentive viewers' dimly lit homes with comfortable background noise. The substance, however, had one final, crucial aspect. The discovery was made -- as is often the case -- in the midst of conflict.
 
 The two parties could not be more different. One group consistent of the boys from Mr. Thompson's physics class. They were skinny, bespectacled, and dressed in graphic t-shirts and jeans. The other group was made up up the boys from Mrs. Leonard's biology class; they were skinny, bespectacled, and dressed in graphic t-shirts and jeans. Naturally, the two factions were sworn enemies.
 
-One rainy West Coast day, the two groups were engaging in customary lunch-break {{< thevoid "Void" >}}-viewing. By then, participants in the activity were relegated to the floors of a hallway in the back of the school, their sustain interested in staring-into-space taking on toll on their reputation. They were making use of advanced techniques; by then, experts were able to influence the {{< thevoid "Void" >}} not only to change color, but to form into shimmering images. The Thompsonians were constructing an image of a Christmas tree; the Leonardese were working on The Funniest Image Image to Ever Exist (something phallic).
+One rainy West Coast day, the two groups were engaging in customary lunch-break {{< thevoid "Void" >}}-viewing. By then, participants in the activity were relegated to the floors of a hallway in the back of the school, their sustained interest in staring-into-space taking on toll on their reputation. They were making use of advanced techniques; by then, experts were able to influence the {{< thevoid "Void" >}} not only to change color, but to form into shimmering images. The Thompsonians were constructing an image of a Christmas tree; the Leonardese were working on The Funniest Image Image to Ever Exist (something phallic).
 
 Neither group was having much luck. The tree's trunk was consistently much too short, and its bottom too curvy. The phallus, conversely, was quite sharp and somehow sickly looking. Each side mocked the other relentlessly. It took the insult-hurlers from the two camps several back-and-forth trips to realize the images they were ridiculing and the images their friends were conjuring were one and the same.
 
@@ -60,11 +60,39 @@ The {{< thevoid "Void" >}}'s interconnectedness led to a renaissance of sorts. B
 
 It was not until weeks later that the first glimpses of a post-{{< thevoid "Void" >}} future revealed themselves, to no one's attention or particular interest. A groggy, not-yet-caffeinated Mrs. Leonard walking into class one day to find a sea of red fabric. Nearly every girl in the morning section showed up to class that day waring a red dress ~~all of a similar style~~. Not a single one of the students could provide a concrete method by which they chose the day's wardrobe; feelings, whims, and even coin-flipping were cited as reasons for wearing the outfit. What's more, the same happened in Mr. Thompson's class, and in a number of scattered schools throughout the country.
 
-Being a scientist at heart, and rejecting wholeheartedly the possibility of coincidence of paranormal involvement, Mrs. Leonard spent the rest of the day distractedly overcorrecting for her earlier lack of coffee. At lunch she pondered about mass hysteria; while grading papers she envisioned a convert mind-control test by some three-letter agency. Nevertheless, a satisfying answer eluded her, and she came home jittery and defeated. Walking past her son's room she noted that he was indulging in his habitual {{< thevoid "Void" >}}-gazing. In the depths of the pitch-black bowl, the glimpsed swirls of that very same shade of red.
+Being a scientist at heart, and rejecting wholeheartedly the possibility of coincidence of paranormal involvement, Mrs. Leonard spent the rest of the day distractedly overcorrecting for her earlier lack of coffee. ~~At lunch she pondered about mass hysteria; while grading papers she envisioned a convert mind-control test by some three-letter agency.~~ A satisfying answer eluded her, and she came home jittery and defeated. Walking past her son's room she noted that he was indulging in his habitual {{< thevoid "Void" >}}-gazing. In the depths of the pitch-black bowl, she glimpsed swirls of that very same shade of red.
 
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-The mechanism that precipitated the red-dress curiosity was not all that sinister. The {{< thevoid "Void" >}}, it seemed, was not unlike an ocean. In hot weather, it absorbed the heat, and cooled the surroundings. In cold weather, it released the stored heat to mitigate the chill. After a day in which red was prevalent in the collective thoughts of {{< thevoid "Void" >}}-viewers, the color dissipated like heat through the material of the dark realm, was stirred somehow by the convection of its hidden currents, and re-entered the minds of practitioners in its altered form. They averted their gazes and went to put on red clothes.
+The mechanism that precipitated the red-dress curiosity was not all that sinister. The {{< thevoid "Void" >}} was not unlike an ocean. In hot weather, it absorbed the heat, and cooled the surroundings. In cold weather, it released the stored heat to mitigate the chill. After a day in which red was prevalent in the collective thoughts of {{< thevoid "Void" >}}-viewers, the color dissipated like heat through the material of the dark realm, was stirred somehow by the convection of its hidden currents, and re-entered the minds of practitioners in its altered form. They averted their gazes and went to put on red clothes.
+
+There was another way in which the {{< thevoid "Void" >}} resembled an ocean. Locations within it drifted through the darkness like rafts. Each day, some recipes would move closer or further apart. ~~When they came close, they formed surprising connections~~. Whenever others occupied a nearby place in that ocean, their thoughts ~~and wills~~ echoed in the silences between one's own ~~the words of one's own inner monologue~~. {{< thevoid "Void" >}}-voyagers, their eyes directed at customary, comforting blackness, would encounter each other there, often without knowing. With each encounter, they exchanged unnoticeable fragments of their minds.
+
+If the Thompsonians or Leonardese were chemists rather than physicists and biologists, and if they were more inclined towards introspection or calm, deliberate thought, they might have observed this gradual exchange, and seen in it the physical process of diffusion, with its particles and collisions. They might have thought of drops of dye in water, swirling in beautiful patterns until finally there were no recognizable shapes, nothing to see at all except a gentle haze of red in the erlenmeyer flask. The final stage of diffusion, was, after all, uniformity.
+
+---
+
+The viewers of the {{< thevoid "Void" >}} were as much connected to each other as they were disconnected from the rest of the world. They were distant, sitting in exile at lunch, looking for hours on end with mild expressions into their bowls of inky soup, talking about their latest journeys with each other on the phone. They spoke in references to landmarks in {{< thevoid "The Ocean" >}}, to happenings in their shared dimension. At the same time, they knew little of parties and dances, and they seldom --- if ever --- went to cheer their peers in athletic events. It was hard for others to hold a conversation with them.
+
+It was not only children that sought to explore the {{< thevoid "Everpresent Void" >}}; adult interest in the substance was growing. Grownups heard about it from their children, their students, or news reports. They could understand the desire to be seen, the ability for anyone --- as long as they could afford the copious amounts of soda --- to impose their identity and thoughts upon countless others. More than that, though, they say potential in the {{< thevoid "Void" >}}.
+
+The substance was unprecedented. It was one thing to call someone on the phone, or come to their door; it was something else altogether to create a scene, in three crisp (with practice) dimensions, and to set it adrift in the populous sea of black. The {{< thevoid "Void" >}} was an invaluable tool for promotional material, advertising, and even storefronts. Adults adept at {{< thevoid "Void" >}} manipulation found themselves employed with various large companies, and sometimes even created their own. Though preconceptions about them --- largely negative, and often substantiated --- successfully made the jump across the age gap, these men and women became sought after and well-rewarded for their talents.
+
+With adult influence, of course, came adult concerns. Though recipes for their windows into the other world remained permanent reminders of that first day at the arcade, older practitioners were too used to thinking about elections, taxes, and mortgages. What's worse, the presidential candidates, tax collectors, and banks did not stop thinking about _them_. As months went by, it became more and more common to see blue donkeys and red elephants as motifs in the {{< thevoid "Void" >}}. These drops of color swirled with all others, splashing from raft to raft on their predetermined path to joining the haze.
+
+---
+
+Among some practitioners, there was a growing sense that the {{< thevoid "Everpresent Void" >}} was alive. It didn't speak, or think, or breathe. Sometimes, though, its movements and currents were too deliberate to be mere chance. The connections that it made, the glimpses of nearby islands that viewers saw in the corners of their eyes, must've been chosen on purpose; chosen to entice. {{< thevoid "The Void wanted to be seen">}}. It spoke to its sailors in echoes of others' words, it showed them films whose frames were others' images. Encountering another voyager with his nearby recipe, it was insufficient to simply extricate his thoughts from one's own; it was also necessary to determine why he was sent as the {{< thevoid "Void" >}}'s emissary.
+
+More sinister was that the echoes or films were not sent to convey a message.  The {{< thevoid "Void" >}} didn't have an agenda or ideology to espouse. It was not aware of human logic or values. It was not even aware of the physical reality in which our world resided. It was indifferent to such things, and continued to behave according to some incomprehensible laws. Somewhere near the core of these laws was the desire to command human attention.
+
+Voyagers were entirely unprepared for the {{< thevoid "Void" >}}'s tactics. The stories they learned each day were spoken by a chorus of voices, so loud and numerous that it seemed the whole world was speaking to them. How could anyone deny that unified narration? In truth, however, what each person heard were the voices they longed to hear, the stories they sought to learn. Though the {{< thevoid "Void" >}} reflected no light, staring at it was looking into an endless mirror.
+
+---
+
+Through this process, the modern-day alchemists' demeanor began to resemble their ancient counterparts' mercury-induced insanity. They spoke in baffling absolutisms. Their language, already rich with {{< thevoid "Void">}}-specific jargon, grew further removed from the words spoken still in coffee shops and bars. Anger and anxiety attracted attention, and so they were angry and anxious, exploding at times at seemingly innocuous occurrences. Sometimes, as with the red-dress incident, hundreds of alchemists were compelled to eat a certain food, or dress in a certain outfit. They swayed like kelp with the invisible waves of the {{< thevoid "Void" >}}.
+
+Concurrently, the {{< thevoid "Void" >}}'s influence grew, its versatility and power proving impossible to surrender. More and more learned to create viewports into the blackness. As they did, the prevalence of madness grew. It was soon a common experience to speak to an old friend or parent and realized that they were no longer the person they were months ago; that somehow, gradually, they had been transformed into someone else.
 
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