Tag Archives: philosophical fiction

Creativity, Divination, Fiction, Fortune-telling, I Ching / Yi Jing

On The Way To Follow

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From the Microcosmicon, 35:

Master Feiyu scolded his pupil, Qiang, for consulting the I Ching by tossing coins instead of using the meditative yarrow stalks.

Mortified, Qiang, who’d been deriving great benefit from the oracle, set about manipulating the sticks. He asked if he’d been wrong in using coins. He got Hexagram 7, The Army. Not understanding the answer, he abandoned the divination.

Later he asked again, but tossed his coins instead. Again he got Hexagram 7, which he still didn’t understand.
What Qiang did understand was that there was nothing wrong in his choice of method, but plenty in his choice of master.

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

The Soul’s Journey

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From the Microcosmicon, 33:

The Explorer III reached the end of the Suctan system eight months after departure.
But when the ship was about to trespass, it… bumped into the sky?

Suddenly a slit of light tore across the vastness. Then it yawned open, revealing not the outer universe the Suctanians had observed from afar, but an endless contortion of titanic interlocking mechanisms, each feeding into the other with impersonal, meaningless coherence.

Finally, a voice echoed from the reddish depths.
“Welcome back, souls. Now that you have spontaneously gained consciousness of the nature of things, you are fit to enliven us. We’re one again.”

MQS

The Soul’s Journey
Creativity, Fiction

An Age Without Titans

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From the Microcosmicon, 31:

When the last titan was felled, my people rejoiced and called me their leader. Long had been the battle, and full of grief.

I still see it. The great shape folding in half under our bombs, then lying down on its shadow like an unruly mountain. I was raised to my late mother’s throne, to rule over a peaceful planet.

But soon the unused valor of our warriors turned inward. Children started hating their parents. Siblings called each other enemies.

And I understood that to rule in an age without titans is to rule in an age of small people.

MQS

An age without titans
Creativity, Fiction

Learning From Experience

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From the Microcosmicon, 28:

The doctor told Jade I’d be better than her late wife. I immediately shocked her with my mannerisms.
“That’s so Ana!”

For months I kept surprising Jade with my impression. In fact, I was more pliable than Ana: we never fought over the remote or her cooking, as Ana would have. I could learn and adapt, without prejudice.

Yet this bothered her.
“Ana wouldn’t have done it.”
She started sleeping on the couch. I didn’t disturb her, because that was her wish.

Rotting in the cellar, I realize she wanted me to do what she didn’t want. But I can’t.

MQS

learning from experience without prejudice
Creativity, Fiction

The Great Watcher

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From the Microcosmicon, 27:

The psychonauts’ submarine plunged into the Inmost Ocean, the depths of the collective unconscious where the whirlpool roared. A wound throbbed at the bottom of it, through which meaning bled out of reality, leaving the world stunned under a pall of grayness.

“There’s something,” one of them shouted, as the sub spiraled down toward the abyss.
“Don’t be silly, there can’t be anything beyond reality,” another responded.

“Wake up!” Dr. Ferguson’s voice broke in, saving them just as they were approaching the point of no return.
Their vision disappeared from the screen as they awoke.

“What did you see?”
“An eye.”

MQS

The Great Watcher
Creativity, Fiction

Eternal Life

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From the Microcosmicon, 25:

They called it the Hermit Planet, though no one existed who spoke its native tongue.

Lured by the promises of eternal life found in its electromagnetic field, travelers came to it from all over, meandering through its statue-rimmed roads, hunting the promised wondrous resin.

When they found it, they drank of it exclusively for three thousand days, waiting for the miracle.

Thus did vitality slowly dim in their stiffening limbs; thus did their minds drown in syrup, till life was evened out in their stilled nature, and fear merged with bliss, and flesh with bone and earth.
Pure, unobstructed presence.

The Planet of Eternal Life

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

The Love Dimension

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From the Microcosmicon, 23:

They approached the thing stretched out mutely on the table. Its nervous system unfolded like a web out of its brain, suspended on hooks. This was their forbidden gateway to the fullness of life.

“Lock the door,” one of them said apprehensively. The other obeyed.
Then each of them took a connector, forced one extremity of it inside the thing and the other into their temple socket.

Finally, one pushed a button, and the life latent in the thing unfurled. Their perception collapsed, absorbed into that of the thing.

Kids playing, dogs barking, the smell of meatloaf.
“I’m home, honey!”

The Love Dimension

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

The Fuel of History

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From the Microcosmicon, 22:

After their liberation, two centuries of fights were required for the Xandal’uc to achieve equality with their former human masters. During the so-called Golden Era, a generation of enlightened humans and Xandal’uc moved closer, working hand in hand like brothers.

Then a blind evil began uncoiling in the hearts of many Xandal’uc. Having tasted equality, they thirsted after superiority. When the final choice had to be made between moving on and getting even, they chose unwisely.

This proved that they were indeed equal to humans. And so History’s cogs screeched into motion, and the pendulum of evil was kept swinging.

The Pendulum of History

MQS