Of the Greataway, a Machine, and WeaveMothers

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

In the beginning was the Void…and Uncertainty.

So there either was or was not.  Thus the Void was not void.  There was a bit.

It was a very small bang.

The first bit, together with Uncertainty, generated more bits.  SpaceTime erupted, a boil on the butt of perfect emptiness.  The Rainbow computer that is our universe existed.  Or exists.  Or will exist.  Or will have existed.

Tense often doesn’t matter that much in SpaceTime.

Thus were the bones of the the universe laid down, the warp threads of the Tapestry of Life.  This was the Way it was done, in as much as the Way can be described…which is not at all, of course.

The Greataway leapt into existence.

The WeaveMothers have appeared before.  In what passes for chronological order, they are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Having ready the several volumes of Michael Greatrex Coney’s Song of Earth could also prove helpful, though it could also just point out the faultiness of my memory.  Or you could just relax and accept the possibility of the Celestial Steam Locomotive passing through the Greataway.

The beginnings of the Song concern the adventure of the Triad: the Wild Human Manuel, also known as the Artist, the cuidador Zozula, also known as the Oldster, and a neotenite, one of the Dream People, known only as the Girl.  And it included the stories they told as well.

Once upon a Wherewhen, perhaps in a BigWish of one or more of the Dream People…but perhaps not…the Celestial Steam Locomotive was created.  The mechanical metaphor that it is, was and will have been allows transportation between and travel along the various happentracks of the Greataway.

“You make the Locomotive sound fusty and ordinary and dull, no better than a mechanical llama.”  The wheels had no rails beneath them.  They spun above a bottomless void that dropped sheer from the platform edge.  “The Locomotive is the most beautiful thing in the world, and at first it was the best thing Mankind have ever done.  Everything about it was perfect and had its purpose, and the decorations add to the beauty of its shape, instead of hiding it.”

Her fingers traced the brass beading around one curved splasher.  The warm metal was vibrant and alive.  “This Locomotive is the distillation of everyone’s idea of what a machine should look like.  It’s composed of a million smallwishes, a million dreams of beauty.”  Above her the huge boiler throbbed, tapering from the square-topped firebox to the black cylindrical smokebox.  The boiler like the cab and tender, was a warm green lined out in gold and black.  Above the buffers sat a large brass bell.

“And the worst thing is,” said the Girl, “that this lovely machine is used to provide pleasure for idiots.”

–Michael Greatrex Coney, The Celestial Steam Locomotive, pages 138-139

I stand corrected.

Once upon another WhereWhen, or maybe several times upon many different WhereWhens, I imagined the WeaveMothers into existence…or maybe you did…or maybe they Caused us or me to imagine them.  One and many, they appeared.  And they used the Locomotive’s ability to defy the restrictions inherent in causation in order to travel to the many Stations along the Tapestry, along an uncountable multitude of happentracks.  Their job, as they…or we…or I…have imagined it, will have been to add the weft threads to the Tapestry.  One and several, for they are simultaneously just that, they will have added the colors of existence between the pixels of the Rainbow.

In order to carry out this onerous yet joyful task they gave birth, perhaps in reality, perhaps metaphorically, to the self-programmable, autonomous units which are you and I.  And in so doing, of course, we come full circle to the inexplicability of the Way.

Our life paths contribute to the vibrancy and texture of the Tapestry we shall never see completed.  But so too do those lives threaten the integrity of the Tapestry’s structure.

Next up?  The Engineer, the Storyteller, the Listener, and the Passenger.