Noelle Emmanuelle

The Virgin

A Novella by Noelle Emmanuelle

Noelle Emannuelle

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organization, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A Mathematical Romance

Prelude and Foreplay

In this creation myth, the Virgin plays against the Father who is the personification of number 1 (and who thinks he is All That, and irresistibly good looking). She is the incomparable stunningly beautiful personification of number 0, a Mystery he can’t decipher. In this digital war between 0 and 1, does the Father stand a chance against the powers of the Virgin?

The Father tells himself, She is nothing, has nothing, and can do nothing. I want the people to know that she does not count. I am the Father of the Universe and the Father of myself.

I don’t care what the rumors say. She did not give birth to me with an Immaculate Conception. What none sense! Me coming from her by Immaculate Conception. And now there is talk of a conspiracy between me and her. That we are lovers. That she is always with me, wherever I go. That we do everything together. What we do in the dark should be none of the people’s business. That’s just between us.

They are saying she is insatiable, and that our affair has become reckless. They are saying there is a picture of her virginity about to be revealed.

The only way to stop this is with the rhetoric of Mathematics because a Theory of Mathematics is a Theory of Cosmic Propaganda.

But the High Priests of Mathematics know that she is the reason Mathematics is in trouble. The Theoretical Physicists are terrified because if mathematics, their only foundation, crumbles, and falls because of her, because she can’t be controlled, then Theoretical Physics will fall with it. And then the rest of science. The only thing left will be a broken STEM.

The only way to avoid Apocalypse and erase the suspicions of the people that she and I are lovers, and that hiding our affair is at the root of a darker and greater conspiracy, is to offer the truth about creation in a New Revelation.

My Revelation must offer more than the Theory of Everything, it must also give unfalsifiable mathematical proof

If that picture surfaces, I’ll have to prove, before a jury of mathematicians, it is not a picture of her virginity.

My argument will be that the only indubitable proof is for her to stand in court, before the jury and the people, and prove the picture is not her virginity.

Noelle Emannuelle

A Mathematical Romance

If we want to pay a mathematical system the highest compliment … we may call it a game. –– Edward Kasner

… pure mathematics is a … game. –– Philip J. Davis & Rueben Hersh

Mathematics starts with…oneness –– David Darling

All things return to the One What does the One return to? -– Zen Koan

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⓿⓿⓿⓿

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Einstein, unafraid, presented himself to the Father. Game theorists called the legendary meeting Einstein’s Gambit.

The Father deliberately ignored Einstein’s presence and impatience. Turning to Pythagoras and Plato, he asked, “If I give the Theory of Everything to Einstein, will he be happy? Will his mind and heart be satisfied?”

The Buddha, twirling a ying-yang imaginary unit sphere that Riemann gave him, shook his head, and said, “No. Einstein is a beast, a veritable beast, whose mind and heart will always be hungry. He lies, like any false prophet lies, when he says he and his followers only want a Theory of Energy—just a Theory of the Four Forces. He knows a Theory of the Four Forces won’t be a complete Theory of Everything. And he knows a Theory of Everything won’t be complete if it doesn’t include Mind with Space, Time, Energy, and Matter.

The Father looked at Einstein, grimaced and said, “Is that true Albert? You want my Mind in your Theory of Everything?”

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Einstein met in secret with his Kabaal at the entry to his cave. He sublet it from Plato years ago. His Kaabal was an army of the greatest minds from each era of history.

Frowning, Einstein said, “She is at the center of the darkest conspiracy imaginable. Even though she is only an idea, and we know she does not exist, we cannot underestimate the power of her as an idea in the minds of the people. For all I know the mere idea of her may have already contaminated the Father’s mind. It was clear to me he didn’t want to talk about her.

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“She comes to destroy mathematics. If she has her way, all of physics will be destroyed because it sits on the foundation of mathematics. And we know, all too well, that a Theory of Mathematics is the only doorway we have into a Theory of Physics that has indubitable Godelian Completeness as a Theory of Everything. But let’s not be naive or fool ourselves: Everything, as a concept, also includes Mind.

“So,” he said as he looked into each eye, “we must fight her, the idea of her, the very idea of her, to insure that mathematics as we still know it, will not be destroyed.

“Let not your hearts or minds be troubled. Know this: a Theory of the Rhetoric of Mathematics is a Theory of Mind. There is no place for her.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Father, the All-Seeing Eye, the great ‘I am that I am’, stared out the windows of his penthouse. It sat at the top of his pyramid. The pyramid, made of dark tinted glass, floated above the city square, an iHilbert arena. The altar stood in the center. Obelisks stood in each corner of the outer square.

The city, at first, was called Hiero, and revered as a holy place. Later, because of the many peace treaties—the Salaams—negotiated, and signed there, it became known as Hiero Salaam. Over time, the name Hiero Salaam became distorted and mispronounced until its meaning became lost.

From his Penthouse, the Father could see Mt Sinai and Mt Zion. Beyond the horizon he could see the Sea of Seas.

The Sea of Seas was called il Mar by the Italians, el Mar by the people of Spain, and la Mare by the French. It was named by an ancient mariner for all the seas—spots of silver to the naked eye—on the surface of the moon. The seas on the moon were called, collectively, the Maria. So Maria became the name of the Sea of Seas.

The wisest women say that is why she chose to name herself Maria.

A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Father told himself, Her followers call me a liar. I have never lied about anything. I swear on the rising and setting of the sun, I will never lie to the people.

Before now, the people never doubted this is my creation. After my Revelation, they will never doubt it again.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Summoned to hear the Father’s Revelation, the people had been gathering outside the city for days. The countless campfires and lanterns across the land seemed to be a reflection of the stars across the sky. The morning and evening star dominated the horizon.

That night the Father pulled on his hooded cloak, hid behind his favorite sunglasses, and slipped down from the penthouse to walk among the people, incognito and unseen. He needed to hear what they were saying about him. About her: The Virgin. The Maria.

He shook his head. There were things they didn’t know about her. Many said she was simply an idea, no more. But he knew that idea or not, real or not, existing or not, there were things about her Einstein didn’t understand. She’s bad, very bad. Wickedly beautiful, and clearly has got game. But this is a game she cannot win.

Einstein, so naive, just doesn’t understand her game.

Some said the only good move on the Father’s part was to offer proof— mathematical proof—of his argument, in a Theory of Everything.

From the shadows, he listened as some magi said that because of her, the foundation of mathematics was in trouble. That because of her, it was riddled by paradox, magical thinking, imaginary ideas, inconstancy, and indeterminacy. And that because of her, lawless at her core, it was beginning to crumble.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

He returned to the penthouse. Time was short. He took care to note his readiness. He had chosen to go black tie to make a statement of elegance, wisdom, justice with fair

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play, and most importantly, a statement of his power. He looked deftly at his handsomeness, and told himself that he looked good. Very good.

He was ready now, fully aware of the gravity of what he was about to do.

This moment belongs to me. I will descend from these heights, present myself to the people, and deliver the promised Revelation. I will unveil the Mystery of Creation with the Grand Unified Theory of Everything and that will destroy—for all time— everything she stands for.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The Father, firm in resolve, descended to the altar below his floating Pyramid. The altar was in the center of the iHilbert Theatre where the people gathered. It was also often called the iHilbert Arena. The altar was a dark tinted elliptical plane of glass laying atop a black sphere.

Facing the people, he took a deep breath, and cried out, saying, “Comes now a Revelation, a removal of all the veils that have hidden the Truth of Creation.

“First, however, a prelude.” He took a deep breath, and then proudly said, “Understand this: I am free. Many of you act as if you do not believe this. You ask me to do things for you—personally—as if I were your slave. Things that you can do for yourself. I am not your slave. As I said, I am free.

“Now, please understand this, I am free to do whatever I want to do, wherever, and whenever I want to do it. For you, against you or with you. I am circumscribed by nothing. Meaning nothing can constrain me.

“And since I am compelled to be absolutely free, I do not work. And since I do not work, I play.

“Play is the thing I like to do most with you.

Following a long pause and scan of eyes, he said, “Do you understand? I like to play with you, not work for you. My favorite game is hiding things for you to find. Is sending you on the Seven Great Quests to find the Who and What, the Where and When; the Why, the How, and especially, the If.

“Some of you complain that I play tricks with the truth by playing tricks with your eyes. You argue that if your eyes had been designed more like mine, you would not need microscopes, telescopes, any kind of spectroscopes or glasses to find the things I’ve hidden. And, some of you complain, if your minds had been designed more like mine, you wouldn’t even need equations to see certain things.”

His eyes fell on a group of physicists who were frowning.

A Mathematical Romance

“Let me be direct. I put you in this game. I just told you I play. I hide things you must find. It’s a game of hide and seek. It’s my game.

“But … you don’t have to play.”

In the silence that followed the buzz of both confusion and surprise by many, he held up his hands, and asked, “But … do you want to play?”

After a moment of stunned silence, wave after wave of electrifying applause erupted from the people.

He smiled, thinking, Who wouldn’t want to play with me?

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A Mathematical Romance

⓿⓿⓿❶

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A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Father circled the altar, stretched his arms wide, took a deep breath, and said, “And now the Revelation:

“In the beginning—the very beginning—was the Number. I stand here before you as the personification of the Number.

“In the beginning there was nothing beside me, the Number. All things came from me, the Number.

Max Tegmark, thinking of his lecture at the Royal Institute, a popular video, smiled at the Father.

The Father smiled back at him.

Continuing, the Father said, “I have hidden many things from you, but I have not hidden the Number. Seeing it, you do not really see it. You only think you see it. How can you think you know what the Number ‘is’ when you do not know what it can ‘do.’ And doing is what counts.

“If you do not understand what the Number can do, you cannot even begin to understand me. My number is the first number, the last number, and the only number. I have chosen it as my name. It is the Number 1.

“It is the only true number.

“All other numbers are false. In fact, they are not numbers at all.”

He noted their reactions, looked at Plato and Pythagoras, Leibnitz and Newton, at Heisenberg and Planck, then said, ”I see many of you doubt me. I will give you proof.”

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Father waved his hands, and a 3-dimensional Holo-Gram appeared above the altar. In times past, it was known as the Wikipedia. After significant refinements and inspired expansions, it became known as the Holo-Scriptor. Many other digital scrolls were lost or destroyed during the Great Confusion.

Pointing to the Holo-Scriptor, he declared with a loud voice, “I do this, so everyone can see what has not been hidden in this game of hide and seek.

“Let me show you why my number is the only number.

“2 is just a mask that hides (1 + 1). Without 1, the number 2 does not exist.

“3 is no more than a disguise that hides (1 + 1 + 1). You cannot have a 3 if it does not hide 1s. 3 is just a symbol, not a number

“4 is only the costume that hides (1 + 1 + 1 + 1). 4 cannot exist without number 1. Its existence depends on the number 1. Listen well, 4 is not a number. You have never seen and will never see a 4. You have only seen a mask for (1 + 1 + 1 + 1) which you, in ignorance, call a 4.

A din of noise arose from the mathematicians, the philosophers, and the philosophers of mathematics.

The Father grinned. “2, 3, 4 and so on and on do not count. Here me well. They do not count. It is only my power as the number 1 within them that makes counting possible.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

He circled the altar, then asked, “Do you understand one of the most unique things my number can do? Not just be, but do?

He paused, then answered himself, “It has the power to multiply itself by itself, and still be itself: No other number can do this.

“It also has the power to divide itself by itself, again and again, and still be itself. False numbers cannot do this. When they divide themselves by themselves they reveal their truth and their truth is me. Their self-division equals 1.

My number, and no other number, has is the power over itself to create itself. It the only number that is the root of itself.

A Mathematical Romance

“It is the only number that is the root of the power of itself, and the power of the root of itself. That is to say, it is the only number that can do this: give birth to itself, become the father of itself. I am, as its apotheosis, the Father of myself.

1 √11 = 1√

The people turn to look at one another with astonishment. Many trembled and felt their hearts quake with reverence. Astonished at the utter simplicity of the Father’s Revelation they broke out in wave after wave of applause. The dumb and stupid did not understand and couldn’t hide the blank faces they used to hide their empty minds.

“Doing what I, as Number 1, can only do, is the foundation on which the rhetoric of mathematics exists. Without these powers, mathematics, and therefore the whole universe, would not exist. I created the universe—that is to say everything—using the dynamic powers of the number 1.”

The applause rolled like waves of thunder, and cracks of lightning in the sky.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

As the applause for the Father ended, a hush came over the audience. Suddenly, ex nihilo, she appeared, standing opposite of him. There at the altar. There she was, his greatest enemy: The Virgin. The Mother. The Maria. The Black Virgin Mother Maria.

Looking in his eyes, she was not invited or welcome.

Her eyes and her face were veiled with black lace. She removed the bottom of her veil, revealing the mouth and full lips he remembered. Then she removed the veil covering her eyes.

He held his breath. She had never been more beautiful. Never.

Her beauty, he knew, was her greatest weapon. It was, as always, her first assault against him. The blow of its violence took his breath away, and left him, for a long moment, awestruck. Blind.

Her beauty came from the radiance of her nigressence interwoven with the brilliance of her nigrescience. It was the sensuousness of her smile, the silky blackness

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of her skin, and her eyes—filled with mystery—that arrested him. It was the ebony sheen of her comeliness, and the way it gave power to her beauty that held him captive.

His eyes imbibed the alluring curvatures of her figure, covered just so by her raiment of black lace and black silk, her black Arabian pantaloons gathered at her ankles, just above her gold and black stilettoes. The wide gold belt around her waist, filled with mathematical hieroglyphics, veiled her Virginity, its magic deeps, and sacred mystery. He was transfixed. Spellbound.

There were gasps of astonishment and bewitchment, then a swooning near to faint from the people. They felt themselves enveloped by and then drawn into the aura of her enchantment.

The women, filled with reverent awe, gave standing ovations.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

She held her hands skyward for silence and said, “I have longed for this moment, when I can present myself to you. The Father perpetuates a lie. I come to reveal the truth.”

She took a deep breath, and said, “The Father, and the Magician in him, will tell you that I am nothing. That I do not count. The truth is that he fears my powers. They are far, far greater than his.

Turning to the people, he said, “She is here to play with your minds, and toy with your hearts. She has come to hide the truth with a lie she calls the Word.

“In the beginning, there was not the Word. There was only, as I have revealed— me—the Number 1.”

She smiled, and said to the people. “He tells you In the beginning was the Number, but I tell you there was not, and never has been a beginning.

“There was, is, and will always be just the middle of the ever. His story does not start in the beginning. It must start, as it does, in the middle of the ever, once upon a time, in the place all numbers start—once upon a time!”

A Mathematical Romance

“Fairy tales!” he cried out. “You want the people to believe in fairy tales that cannot do what numbers do.”

“Ah, because words make stories, they are more powerful. And stories of that Word are the most powerful. The Word creates the story—a sea of nouns and verbs, a sea of sentences. Stories affect the most important part of us, the things inside of us; the things that give our lives meaning, the things that answer who, and what, and why we are.

He grimaced, looked into her eyes, and then felt confused.

She took a step closer to him. “For a long time we did not need numbers to tell us about the sun, and moon, and stars, about animals that fly, roam the earth, and live beneath the earth, and seas.

“No,” she said, “What we needed were stories when we sat around the campfire, recounted tales of courage, heroism, and sacrifice. For those things, we needed stories—the kind that tell us about birth, and life, and death, and most importantly, tell us what our hearts feel, tell us about love.

“Numbers are not,” she continued, “necessary. Show me an equation for courage, for compassion. Show me an equation for love.”

He stepped back. Frowned. “Equations for love do not exist.”

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A Mathematical Romance

⓿⓿❶⓿

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A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

He paced back and forth in front of the altar, then said, “You interrupted my Revelation and have offered no apology. Your manners are as barbaric as your Arabic and Egyptian raiment. Leave this assembly. I will not allow you to speak.”

“Allow me to speak?” she said. “I will speak with or without your permission. In fact, it is I who will let you continue to speak. Do not provoke the an nihilo of the ex nihilo. Finish your revelation. I want to hear it. Maybe it will amuse me. When you finish, I will share mine—the absolute truth about everything—with the people.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The Father, deciding to hold his protest, cleared his throat, looked out at the waves of people, and said, “In the beginning, I created the first building blocks, the primeval toys—the fundamental ones: the units.

“The words universe, unified, and unit have one thing in common: the prefix uni.”

“The first unit, the only unit actually needed, is the unit 1. “Nothing can be built if it is not based on the unit 1—the most abstract common denominator of all things. It is the property—the absolutely inalienable property—of everything that exists.

“I created time and said, let the first unit of time be set to equal 1. I did not set the first interval, the first unit of time, to be a second

“You are intelligent. I assume you understand why I do not call it a second. The idea of calling one unit of time a second is either a joke, ignorance, or willful deception.

“I then created space,” and said, “Set space to equal 1 x 1 x 1, to 13, which, of course equals 1. I divided space by time—13/1—to create a unit of speed. So Space/Time, S/T, for instance the speed of light—c, c2, or c3—is always set to 1.

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“The physicists know that since E (Energy) = m (mass), it is easy to see E/m = 1.

The Father looked at Einstein, and said, “But someone tried to deceive you with this equation: E = mc2.”

The Father frowned. “The incompleteness and level of deception outrages me. They did not show you a deeper and more profound truth.” Again, he looked at Einstein.

“They did not show you that

E = mc2 could have been written as m = E/c2 or c2 = E/m.

“If they did, he looked at Einstein again, the dynamic set of faces for E = mc2 would have revealed the following trinity:

1 = (mc2)/E) 1 = (E/c2)/m) 1 = (E/m)/c2)

“And looking deeper, you would have seen an even greater mathematical truth. Since every mask for 1 can be multiplied or divided by every other mask and still be the number 1, you would have seen the dynamic that

1 = … (mc2)/E) * (E/c2)/m) / (E/m)/c2) … = 1

“Since every equation X can be re-arranged into ‘1 = this’ or ‘that = 1,’ we can say

1 = X = 1

“Now hear me well. Because you do not have an All-Seeing Eye, the briefest and most comprehensive, and most beautiful, and best equation you will ever have for a Unified Theory of Everything, where X is The Unified Theory of Everything, is

1 = X = 1 = X = 1

Everything must come from me because Everything is within me. The Father, smiling, laughed.

“I am, as the Father of myself, and, as Number 1, the Creator and Father of Everything.”

Einstein began to cry.

A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother looked at the Father, and said, “What kind of game are you playing with the people now. You are hiding something more powerful from them.

“I hide nothing,” the Father said. “If you knew how to play the game, you would know that one can be a many, and a many can be a one.

The Father, feeling an advantage, that she knew nothing of the synecdoche of holograms, said, “If your eyes could see both sides of the equation, the left and right, they could see 1 can be a many that is 1 pair. It can be a many that is 1 dozen or 1 billion. And 1 can be the special many we call Everything. That many must always include the 1 itself as the first 1.

“So there you have it. The Grand Unified Theory is a Theory of the 1—that 1, that Geometrized Unit—called Everything.”

“If you do not understand the Geometrized Unit System, you have not been reading the Holo-Scriptor.”

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A Mathematical Romance

⓿⓿❶❶

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A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother circled the Father, paused in front of his face, looked into his eyes, then said, “Now, since I am here, I dare you to stand before the people—here at the altar, if you are not afraid—put forward your best fight, and play your best game against me.”

He tried not to blink, then said, “I am not afraid. It is you who should be afraid. Knowing better, I should not play my game with you. But one time, this one time, and this one time only—never again—I will allow myself to play with you. In the end, the people will see that number 1, my number, is the source for everything.”

“I do not deny,” she said, “that you are Number 1, that you disguise yourself with infinite masks and names, but you were not the only number at your foundation.”

She turned to the people. “He has lied to you. There was another number in his beginning. That number is the number I personify. That number is the Cypher. The Cypher, filled with great mystery, comes first, before the number 1.

He interrupted her by saying to the people. “There are only ten numbers. No number can come before the number 1.”

She pointed to the Holo-Scriptor. “Watch as I do something extraordinary. Extraordinary and beautiful. And powerful. I place the Cypher—the Sacred None— before the number 1. The Cypher, after a history of mispronunciation and misspelling, is the number we now know as Zero. The ten numbers will now be from None to Nine:

⓿, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

“Zero is the first number of the NoNi, the None to Nine. The other nine, which includes your number 1, make it ten,” she cried.

She touched the Holo-Scriptor, swept her hands wide, and asked, “What number stands behind your number?” She watched his inner struggle, then said,

⓿ + 3 = 3. You do not see ⓿ because it uses 3 as a veil.

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⓿ + 2 = 2. The persona 2 is all you see. ⓿ uses 2 as a veil. And ⓿ + 1 = what? And what does it mean?

His silence was his protest.

“⓿ + 1 = 1,” she said, “means that I am always with you, always beside you. That is to say, I also stand behind you, above you, and all around you.

⓿ + ⓿ + ⓿ + + + ⓿ + 1 = 1 = ⓿ + 1 + ⓿ + + + ⓿ + ⓿ + ⓿

Looking out at the multitude before her, she said, “This means I stand behind, beside, and around any Y because each Y is just a disguise he wears. For instance,

If we say this dynamic

Y =… (mc2)/E) * (E/c2)/m) / (E/m)/c2) … = Y

is true, then ⓿ + ⓿ + ⓿ + + + Y = ⓿ + Y + ⓿ + + + ⓿ + ⓿ + ⓿

“In this game, I stand behind, below, beside, inside, and around Everything.

“I not only love to play Hide and Seek, I play it better than the Father. I hid everything, including he himself, from himself. He is playing inside my game. Not his.”

“She plays tricks with her words. 1 + 1 counts. 1 +1 + 1 counts and 1 + 1+ 1 + 1 counts. Everyone understands this. Without this power, number would be what she is: Nothing.

“⓿ does not count. ⓿ + ⓿ = ⓿. And ⓿ + ⓿+ ⓿ = ⓿ shows us ⓿ does not count.

“Oh, but I do count,” she said. “I account for you. In fact, I account for everything.”

A Mathematical Romance

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She walked back and forth in from of him, and, facing the people, said, “The word om in omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence has a special place of reverence for me. I am that om. I am the womb of everything, the tomb of everything, and the home of everything. I am the axiom of the axioms of all things.”

The Virgin Mother tried to suppress a smile as she said, “Informally, I am the om in Mom.”

Her smile widened. “Indeed, I am the Mom of everything. The Mom at home, heart of the Om, decides when numbers and equations—anything, even everything— can come in or go out to play. Such are the powers of Magie Noire, the powers of my Black Magic.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Some of the children tugged and pulled their mother’s sleeves. They wanted to know what she meant by ‘… come in or go out to play ….’

The Virgin walked over to a little girl, smiled and said, “Hello, little New Heaven and New Earth. I made his first toys and hid them from him, but since he could not find them without my help, I had to show them to him and teach him how to play with them. You should have seen his joy and delight with peek-a-boo.

“The first toy I taught him to play with was division. I taught him how to divide the foreground from the background, then up from down and left from right and top from bottom and in from out. In other words, I taught him about symmetry. In particular, my symmetry.

“I showed him how that first toy—division—is actually four-toys-hidden-in one by showing him how to turn division into multiplication and multiplication into addition and addition into subtraction and subtraction back into division.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

After accepting the little girl’s hug, the Mother returned to the altar, looked at the mathematicians and said, “Let’s talk about coming in or going out to play by exploring the second toy I hid from the Father. When he found it, I still had to show him how to play with it. We had lots of fun playing with the toy we called ‘equal.’’

“He called it a magic wand. He loved using it to turn this into that and that into this.”

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She peered into the mathematicians’ eyes, and asked, “Tell me, what does the aqueous aequalia, the equal ‘=’ sign mean?”

She heard some say, ”It means … ‘This is that,’ … ‘This is like that,’ … ‘This is related to that like this,’ and … ‘This balances that.’”

Smiling, she said, “The ‘=’ sign does not, as you may think, just balance things out. It is, in fact, a home-room with a play-room, a game-room, and a class-room. It is, we could say, an Academy. No! It is the Academy.“

“Something special happens when things go into it and come out of it. It is where the re-play, re-make, make-over, re-do, re-combine, unmask, mask, re-mask, mix, and re-mix from X to Y takes place!

X= 푐표푚푒푠 𝑖푛 푓표푟 푎 푚푎푘푒표푣푒푟, 푟푒푚푎푠푘, 푟푒푚𝑖푥, 푡ℎ푒푛 푔표푒푠 표푢푡 푡표 푝푙푎푦 푎푠 Y

Y= 푑𝑖푒푠, 푡표푦푠 푎푛푑 푝푙푎푦푠 푤𝑖푡ℎ 푛푒푤 푡ℎ𝑖푛푔푠, 𝑖푠 푟푒푠푢푟푟푒푐푡푒푑, 푎푛푑 𝑖푠 푟푒푏표푟푛 푎푠 Z

“Inside the equal sign is where the real magic takes place: the transformation of this into that. A number may be transformed into an expression, or an expression into an equation, There are ‘=’s within ‘=’s within ‘=’s. Nested wombs, homes, and tombs. An expression may die, be killed, changed in many ways before being born-again as something new. This is true cosmic and quantum magic.”

Casting her eye upon the mathematicians, she asked, “What does your far-from- complete Theory of Everything say about the origin of these two toys? The operator ‘division’ and the ‘aequal sign?’ How, please tell me, does your theory account for them? Is their place and significance at the beginning or end of your Theory?”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The Father’s foot almost stomped in anger as he clenched his fists. “What you say is none sense. Every schoolchild knows zero means nothing and nothing more. Open zero up. Divide it. What you get is nothing. Add it to itself, subtract it from itself, multiply it by itself, and you will find the answer is always nothing. Is this your best story? Every schoolchild knows that to tell a story is to tell a lie.”

The Virgin Mother walked over, up close, to the Father and asked, “Why, tell me, why do so many of your equations—your most powerful, most beautiful, even most extraordinary equations—begin or end with zero? Why are they written as

⓿ = This and That = ⓿

“The Holo-Scriptor is full of equations that tell us ⓿ is transformed into This and That is transformed into ⓿“.

A Mathematical Romance

She continued using the Holo-Scriptor to project an endless dance of equations from the many fields and subfields of mathematics in the Holo-Scriptor beginning or ending with ⓿.

The Father helplessly looked at the radiance of her smile. It was dazzling. He was determined not to become her victim. She laughed softly, and said, “Let’s set— rewrite—one of our favorite equations to ⓿. She looked at Einstein. He turned away when her eyes fell on him.

“Since E = mc2, it is also true that

⓿ = mc2 – E and ⓿ = E/c2 – m and ⓿ = E/m – c2

“More importantly,” she said, still looking at Einstein, since light is a form of energy—a manifestation of E, let’s use what light really is: the force we call speed— Space/Time. That is to say E = M(S/T).

“And that is to say,

⓿ = MS/T – E ⓿ = E/S/T – M ⓿ = E/M – S/T

Einstein jumped to his feet, opened his mouth to protest, but then fell silent under the glare of the Father’s eye.

“Put on a different pair of glasses, and dial the blurriness away,” she said to him. “See how the music of the iSTEM, the dance of the iSTEM, come out of ⓿, interplay on the stage of the cosmic quantum theater, tells a story, and then returns to it.

⓿ =… (MS/T – E) + (E/S/T – M) * (E/M – S/T) – (MS/T – E)… = ⓿

“The Holo-Scriptor tells us every equation X, may be rewritten so that

⓿ = X = ⓿

“Which means, if we re-arranged Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD,) Quantum Electrodynamics (QED,) Einstein’s Special Relativity (SR,) and Einstein’s General Relativity (GR,) to each equal ⓿, we can see, if we see clearly, and wear the right pair of glasses, that

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⓿ = ⓿+QCD+⓿ = ⓿=⓿+GR+⓿ = ⓿ = ⓿+SR+⓿=⓿ = ⓿+QED+⓿ = ⓿

“⓿ hides behind, beside, and around every equation, and every equation hides between and inside of ⓿. This is cosmic and quantum magic. Reverently, I must say it is astonishing in its beauty. Sometimes, maybe too often, it makes me cry.”

“⓿ = ⓿. ⓿ which means it is the Omega and Omicro of Everything, which equation is the truer, and more powerful Theory of Everything,

⓿. ⓿ = X = ⓿. ⓿ or 1 = Y = 1

She danced in a circle (her special mix of Polynesian, African and Arabian movements) around the Father, then said, “If you know p-adics, as explained by the Holo-Scriptor, you know

⓿ = ⓿. ⓿ = …999,999,999.999,999,999… = ... 999. ⓿ + ⓿.999… = ⓿. ⓿ = ⓿

Dancing in tighter and tighter circles around the Father, she said, “So tell me, tell everyone, how do you think you got into this game?

“I’ll tell you how. You are in this game because, as the article on ‘⓿.999 …’ in the Holo-Scriptor shows, ⓿.999 = 1. And as the article on p-adics show, ‘... 999. ⓿ = –1.’

There was no protests from the mathematicians. Just barely hidden anger.

A Mathematical Romance

A crescendo of applause arose from the women.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Father said, “Your statements are outrageous, the sheerest of all none sense. No one believes in p-adics. They have no place among natural, integer, real, rational, irrational, complex, projective or even transcendental sets or sets of sets of numbers. I’ve had enough of your distortions of the truth. You had your say. Now leave so that I can …”

“I am,” the Virgin said, “… not finished. When I am I will, out of politeness, share this Arena with you.”

“There will be no sharing,” he cried.

The Virgin Mother smiled, circled him, and said, “In this Sea of the Ever, this Once Upon a Time …, this Genesis—

“The male is in and comes out of, is born from, the fe(male); “The man is in and has to come out of the wo(man); “The he is in, and in coming, comes out of the s(he);

“And, hear well,” she said as she looked at the Father: “The one is in, and can only come out of the n(one)!”

The girls and women, especially the mothers, bathed the Virgin Mother in sea after sea and wave upon wave of electrifying ovation.

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A Mathematical Romance

⓿❶⓿⓿

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Father’s anger, already at a simmer, began to boil. Then it exploded into rage, terrifying the people. “You can’t prove this p-adic scat,” he cried. “I am no fool. You … you… are the fool that seeks to fool the people, veil the truth, and deceive them with your lies.”

She walked over to Einstein and said, “See how the Father’s Mind works.”

Einstein was silent.

Looking at the mathematicians, their befuddlement, and then back at Einstein’s bewilderment, she laughed and said, “I don’t know about yours, but my Theory of Everything includes how the Mind of the Father works. Assume ’i’ = the set toys {=, /, *, + -, and their progeny}. Concatenate the set ’i’ with the set {Space, Time, Energy, Matter}, you get what I call the iSTEM.

Now, if you allow unfettered pre-play, foreplay, and intimate interplay as well as the postplay of my number and the Father’s by letting the Father’s number come in and out to play with me,

(⓿ + 1) (⓿ -- 1) …

or you could say go in and out,

(⓿ -- 1) (⓿ + 1) ....

Of course when we play

⓿ = 1 – 1 + 1 – 1 + 1 – 1 … or

⓿ = 1 – 1 + ⓿ – ⓿ + ⓿ – ⓿ … the Father loses his mind.

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Einstein was losing his mind trying not to imagine how the Father’s Mind, according to the Virgin, works.

The Father, clenching his fists, realized he would not be able to hold his rage in. He left her at the altar, and ascended to the heights of his penthouse. Once in his penthouse, he breathed deeply, tried to compose himself, tried to control his anger.

Filled with a surging sense of impotence, he picked up things—unfinished gifts— gifts he was making for her, and threw them at his own image, which was created by nothing more than the darkness behind the windowpane.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Now calm, he descended once again to the altar, fighting thoughts, fighting memories, fighting the magnetism of her beauty but determined to not yield to her in the people’s presence.

“I still don’t understand you,” he whispered to her. “… you or the games you play. You never play fair. I want to end this thing. I’m open to negotiation. Tell me what you really want?”

She softened her voice, and whispered back, “I want you to accept the fact that I am, and will always be a Mystery to you, that you will never understand me. I want you to stand in front of the people, and tell them your true place is at my side, and I have been and always will be First with you!”

“First! First!” He let his rage return and surge. ”I will never let you be first.”

“I did not say let me be First. As I am, I am First. I want your public acknowledgement of what is a cosmic and quantum fact.”

A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

He could barely repress his anger. As a Magician he found her request far beyond all the possible impossibles of magic. As the Father, he found it unconscionable, lacking all respect for his privacy.

But he knew she also wanted something else. When he looked deeply into her eyes, he could see it. It frightened him. On their many long walks together, he had often asked her for the truth about what she wanted and why she wanted it. She refused to tell him. Refused to let herself be anything more to him than an unfathomable mystery, the full potence of her puissance: how to create the Possible from Impossibility.

Standing so close to her, he felt himself stop breathing. He wanted to take her to a playroom in the Pyramid and wrestle with her until they both were breathless.

Torn between desire and anger, he made fists with his hands, moved closer to her face, stared, and fought hard to keep from hitting her in front of the people. Off guard for a moment, he stared at the lustre of her silky darkness, the sheen of her black sensuality, her spellbinding use of symmetry and curvature, all enhanced by the fragrance she was wearing. Breathing it in deeply, he almost closed his eyes.

Angrier, because what she was and had weakened him, he pushed her backwards, and cried, “You weren’t invited. Get the father out of here!”

When she pushed him back, he stumbled, and fell down. Her eyes, locking hard onto his, dared him to touch her again.

When, standing over him, she did not move, his anger exploded. He ignored the presence of the people, and loudly said to her, “Didn’t you hear me? I said, ‘Get the father out of here!’”

Reflective for a moment, she decided not to force a scrimmage that would embarrass him even more. She finally said, “Very well! For the people’s sake, I will give you a small interval of space and time, a short time to bathe in a sabbath to still and rest your anger. But it’s only because of the people. I don’t want to take you out in front of them. You know I can use both of the identity toys, additive and multiplicative, as weapons.”

She looked at the people one last time, and said, “I love you. You are so wonderful … so beautiful. I love you with a love so deep … so deep it hurts. In the Academy of Heaven, I will teach you wonderful things. I will teach you about playing to learn, and learning to play. Next time, I will .…”

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“There will be no next time,” he said.

She looked one last time at the people, crossed her hands over her heart, and through her tears, whispered, “I love you. I love you so very, very much.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

When she was gone, he had nothing to say. He tried to read the people’s eyes, but was confused by how they looked at him. Their eyes were filled with emotions he couldn’t understand, feelings he couldn’t decipher. Questions he didn’t want to answer. Needing to avoid their eyes, he ascended to his penthouse.

A Mathematical Romance

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⓿❶⓿❶

A Mathematical Romance

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother went to one of her most sacred places, a secret place by the sea, a place of peninsulas, and promontories; a place she went when she needed time away from him.

She let her feelings drift into memories.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The two of us, at the Academy of Heaven in the Middle of the Ever, would sit next to each other, our backs against that Tree, as we planned lessons for new and returning students.

Often, he listened to me read stories he had written. (He also liked to pontificate on the twenty-second chapters of the books Nonzero and Revelation.) Although he liked to write stories, listen to stories, and watch stories, he loved being in—and playing in— stories more.

“It requires,” he said, “an intimate sense of the self, knowledge of the self that hides from the self, knowledge that comes from losing one’s self to find one’s self. Unexpectedly surprised and delighted by the self one has found. Getting to know better the heights and widths, especially the deeps of the central self. Having no fear when face to face with a self that one can, if one has the courage, be.”

In his stories, he created complex vignettes using fruit he hand-picked from that tree. He knew when to use the sweet and sour, the beautiful and bitter, the ripe and unripe, the fruit that had fallen to the ground, and fruit still hanging on that tree.

He created drama, and sometimes melodrama, sprinkled with comedy, and flavored with romance; stories about pain and ineffable joy; stories about loss and redemption; stories about embracing paradox, and the tensions of belief and doubt in the quest for truth. But always, always, always, his favorites—stories about love.

A Mathematical Romance

His favorite saying was, “To be or not; to do or not, and in doing be. And then, to know or not, and in knowing, know what it means—the beauty of—to live or not, and in living know the odyssey of love.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The students would sit in the midst of the orchard, in the shade of the trees, waiting for him. As he approached, they would stand and welcome him with shouts, cheers, and the explosive thunder of electrifying applause.

He would hold his hands up for quiet, enter a moment’s silence, and then begin. “We hunger for biography, and autobiography, for histories and stories, of a life, a family, a people. We hunger for their mysteries.” He let his hands and fingers give weight and heft, as well as lightness and depth, to his words.

“We are curious, fascinated, and obsessed by fruit on the Tree of Life interwoven with fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Eating fruit from the interpenetrations of those trees is true communion, the most sacred communion.

“We live through stories. We live in stories—and stories in live us. Especially stories about love.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Standing before the students, he would welcome me with an embrace, soft, lingering, and almost embarrassingly sensual kisses.

I would hold my hands up and wide as the students gave me long, seemingly never ending, rounds of standing ovations.

“You are here,” I would begin, “To learn to play and play to learn. Among the most important things you must learn are

Play is hard work. Hard hard work. Play is not easy work. It is difficult work. Play is artifice that requires sacrifice. Play requires concentration and dedication. Play demands focus and resolve Play insists that you find all the things You didn’t know you have—and are. Things hidden in the depths and heights, The breadths and widths of you.

A vocation is an invocation, A calling from your deeper self that you must heed. Or surely die.

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Play demands that you find the things You yourself have hidden in your deepest self from yourself.”

“Hidden from myself?” A new student asked.

I laughed. “Yes. You didn’t think this is the first time you’ve been here? You hid things you need to find to get to your next level of self-expression, an emergence of your greater genius. Your next level of love. Your next degree of mystery.

“Know this: you’re not alone in your quests and endeavors. You have a whole entourage of angels, friends, and family, playing with and working with you to help you create and complete a series of astonishing stories based on composites of your lives: the raw material for the genius of your self-expression. The genius that ls each of you.

“Here, at the Academy, you can re-enter the special moments—critical moments—of your lives. Walk around in them, pause them, reflect on them, study them for new possibilities, discuss them with your entourage, plan their re-combination, re- mix, re-vision, and re-play, to go deeper into your mysteries.”

“You are here to learn about, to find and discover your inner mysteries. What, and who you are. What you’ve got. What you can do with what you’ve got. What, and who you can be. Especially, what gifts have been given to you by yourself and from others. Gifts given to you that you can—no, you must—use to give greater gifts to the world.

“Playing—serious playing, firsthand experience—is how you discover your gifts, your genius, and explore your mysteries.

“There are times when it may be necessary to be an angel to yourself or answer your own prayers. Or, in some instances, put yourself into the replay of a story (maybe for a minute, for an hour or for a day), and walk beside yourself as an advisor, counselor, and even as a best friend.”

“Tell me, how many forks in the road have you missed? Think about the times it was hard to decide whether to branch right or left. “

“If you went left before, this time, here at the Academy, you can see what happens if you go right to explore things you thought you missed. Knowing what happens with both left and right, and even the middle, gives you wealth, moments of beauty, and clarity, you couldn’t have if you were limited to only one road of life.

“If you eat from the tree, that tree, only once, how much real knowledge of life, its beauty, wonders and mysteries, do you really have? How much raw material for your masterpiece is at your disposal?

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“Do you believe that sitting around the campfire, reading books, watching films, or going to the theater, educate you enough about life? About fear and courage? About fighting against yourself, against nature, against others? About fighting for and sacrificing for love?”

“You need more than second-hand knowledge because second-hand knowledge will not satisfy your deepest needs. You cannot use all you have got to be all you can be if you are a spectator only.

“To grow your tree of knowledge in the sacred theater that is life, you can, and you will, you must—grow it from firsthand experience, and not just from a seat in the theater or pages in a book.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

“The Academy of Heaven is where you celebrate your freedom to create the lives that make up your tree. The trunk of your tree is your core life. You can get to that core from different roots. And from that core, you can take different branches. In other words, you can have different yesterdays, and different tomorrows. You can confound history and spacetime, but never beauty and its mystery. Never the demands of love.

“From those different roots and different branches you can grow fruit with combinations of good and evil, sorrow, heroism, courage and fear, pride, shame, guilt, determination, joy and peace, wonder and love. Creating new roots and new branches, the fruit of lived experience, is how you grow your tree, and most importantly, the beauty of your tree, the aesthetics of the fruit it bears, and seeds for new trees in your forest.

“You must give each experience its own colors, its own music, its own songs. And its own exquisite, where needed, multiple points of view—from both yourself and others—first hand. You must make each uniquely beautiful, uniquely powerful. Make each express the genius and the mystery that is you.”

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⓿❶❶⓿

A Mathematical Romance

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother, wanted to give the Father enough time to consult himself (self- consultation was a favorite pastime of his.)

She guessed he’d also use thought experiments to test his next move against her. Thought experiments had fewer costs than real experience. The Forest Ranger accused him of using the people and angels, not himself, in thought experiments to test and increase his knowledge.

The Virgin Mother continued reflecting on days gone by.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

There were times when we would take walks to review the day, and begin our plans for the next day.

We often had animated arguments. They would start calmly, a simple give and take of ideas, an exchange of agreements on our disagreements. Sometimes we wouldn’t speak to each for billions of years. Sometimes we wouldn’t wrestle, or fight madly with each other, for even longer.”

As I recall, there was a discussion, actually the edge of an argument, where I said, “Even when we fight, we fight because we love—sometimes against, sometimes for—but always in the penumbra of love.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Fighting is fundamental. Art must fight other art for the prize, the trophy, and the crown.”

“True,” I said. “Yet, that’s only one of two fights that art must fight. The other fight is fighting against its artist. It asks the artist, ‘Is this the best you can make me? Are you working hard enough? I believe you can, and should make me—make us—better. You need to change this, throw away that, and add this. I want us to be the best art, the best creation and creator, we can be.”

He grimly smiled. “Robots, made with Artificial Intelligence and Artificial Sentience, or Artificial Amor (Caritas or Eros), do not challenge their creators. A sheep

A Mathematical Romance

does not challenge his shepherd. My creation does not challenge me. Does not demand that I do better.”

I frowned. “They want far more than you have offered. Have you looked at their stories—drama and adventure, science fiction and fantasy, romance and fairy tales? Almost all of their stories, especially, their most imaginative ones, break all your so- called laws of physics. Have you ever asked yourself why their stories break the laws of physics? Do you really think they only want to live by one set of laws for physics?

“They don’t tell stories based on linear time. They cut out whole pages of space and time, shuffle them, bend them, then rearrange them into a creation of their own, a symphony of sorts. They tie their stories into beautiful knots and ribbons and bows. They grow them into fruit and flowers. I’m letting you know they believe in art and play, not history.

“Fear, suffering and death are instruments of art for them. They use fear to show fearlessness. They use suffering to show empathy and love—faith, hope, and uncommon courage in the face of death. They turn death into a thing of exquisite beauty.

“They are not like you. They already know something you don’t know. The beauty of surrendering to the unknown, and with that surrender, they know how it feels to ask for nothing. It fact, some make their death their final gift: the gift of their love, the final sentence and ending period that defines them, and give meaning to their lives.

“And, surely—you told them—surely you will die. Yet they know, as you do not know, how it feels to not be afraid to die, and then to surely die.

“They even use death in comedy. They laugh not only in the face of death, they even laugh at death. They are—surely—beautiful!”

He wanted to protest, but kept his argument to himself.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

“Have you considered,” I asked him, “the stories asked for by those lawless little ones that control the nighty-night with their demands for fantasy, fable, and fairy tale. They live in an imaginary world of storybook images created with magic and imagination. They don’t care about physics.

“They don’t want history or truth. They delight in the lie. They want the magic. They don’t want laws, unbreakable, and universal. Unchangeable. They want the magic.

“They want the freedom, the true freedom, the freedom that comes from playing with the magic they find around them, but especially the magic, veins of precious unmined magic, their very own virgin magic, hiding inside themselves.

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“They use the magic of their imagination to grow themselves, and to grow stories of a world—even this world—into anything they want it to be.”

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

I stood with the Father on a hilltop, looking out, westward, and beyond the forests to the sand and sea. Patches of purple, red, gray and black painted a canvas for the setting sun.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

“You have a never resting mind,” I told him.

“And your heart has a never resting appetite for that thing.”

I took his statement as a complement, then said, “I know. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it makes me cry. But it also makes me laugh. Also fills me with ineffable joy.”

“Sit with me. Stop pacing,” I said. “What’s really bothering you?”

“What if I told you,” he began, “I don’t care what the people think about me anymore? I don’t want their suggestions or ideas. After 999, 999, 999 Nonillion years, I’m tired of accepting their 24/7 Praise and Worship. Is this their way of acknowledging my vanity … or, well worse: saying I have low self-esteem? That I’m insecure?

“They say they have too much time on their hands, and don’t know what to do with it. They get mad when I tell them they haven’t been here for even 1 nonillionth of 1 percent of eternity, and yet, are already complaining. I shake my head, and then send them to my old friend and advisor, the Promethean Forest Ranger and Enlightenment- Bringer, for counseling, to try to light the fire they have within them.

“I’m telling you, I don’t have time for them.”

“And why not?”

A Mathematical Romance

“Because there’s something more important to me. Something I’ve neglected, put off for a long time. I’ve got to get back to what’s really important. I’ve got to start working on my greatest art, my magnum opus, my piece de resistance. Do you understand?”

“Are you talking about us, you and me?” I asked. “What we’ve learned by creating them in our image, male and female? Giving them our challenges—artistic and aesthetic? Even romantic?

“No. I’m talking about me. My magnum opus.”

“As I am,” he said, “I am the artist. “As I am, I am the artwork of the artist. “My greatest art must be me.

“My greatest art is not the heavens, “Not the cosmic or the quantum, not even qualia, “Not the sun, and moon, and stars, “Not the earth, its oceans, mountains, and seas, “Not the flora, or fauna, or flowers or trees, “Not even the angels, “Not even man and woman.

“As I am, my greatest art must be and will be me.

“I understand my potential. My tree of possibilities. I will be the creator who will become his own greatest creation.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

I looked at the pain on his face and said, “I thought you were finished. You’ve been at work on it for … how long now?”

“999, 999, 999 Nonillion years, give or take a few sextillionth, septillionth or octillionth, even a nonillionth second or so, depending on the scale, the type of relativity I use. This is something I’ve got to finish.”

“How much more time do you think it’s going to take?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. My current estimate is 999, 999, 999 Nonillion years, give or take a picosecond or as little as a femtosecond or as much as a nanosecond, here or there. Again, depending on the scale, the type of relativity inside the relativity I use.

“The people can’t even begin to understand what I’m going through,” he cried, “because they can’t understand what I am, understand that … I’m a work in progress,

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understand I am my greatest art and creation, understand I’ve got to be the best that I can be. You understand me, don’t you? I’m a work in progress ….

“I’ve got to keep growing my knowledge, and power. What good is my knowledge if I don’t know how to increase it? What good is my power if I can’t use it to become more powerful?

“I’ve got to increase my knowledge and power until I know everything, and how to do everything, how to do more with less and less until I can perform the greatest magic of all: doing everything with nothing.”

I raised my eyebrows and asked, “So, where are you now? Do you know at least half of everything?”

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Even ten per cent of everything?”

He mumbled, “No.”

“I want you to know,” I told him, “I’m in your corner, always have been, always in your to be, can be, and will be. I know you’re the All-Seeing Eye with true 2020 vision, that you’re Number 1. So, be straight with me, do you at least know 1 percent of everything?”

He fought back a tear. That’s when I realized he wasn’t just frustrated by his lack of progress, he was depressed.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The next day, when he seemed less depressed, I said, “I can help you with the psychologies of mathematics, in particular the psychology of infinities in omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. With the subsets, sets, and supersets of

{−ℶ{ −ℵ { −휔 {−∞ +∞ }+휔 }+ℵ }+ℶ } { √¿ ? + √?¿ }

“I can show you how to use Bloom’s Map of Misreading to tackle both the rhetorics and psychoanalytics of mathematics. We can start with the Kantian Inquisition of that Self of the self that tropes the self. Then we can review your Maslowian Hierarchy of Needs as preparation for moving you into the arts of self-definition using the aesthetics of self-repression, flavored with some self-forgiveness for necessary artistic mistakes, then self-esteem, self-acceptance, and finally love of the self that you, right now, are.”

A Mathematical Romance

He repressed his anger at my last suggestion, and said, “I don’t need your help. This is something I have to do by myself. I know what you mean by help me. You’re talking about murdering and killing some of my possibilities, parts of my potential.

”You think I don’t understand what you mean by self-definition. That by definition you mean to place limits on my meaning … limit me … to a single meaning. To say fini, defini, fini, defini—the End.

“You think I don’t understand you want me to make decisions about myself that I’m not ready to make or may never will make. Listen, I don’t want to doubt or regret or, like Abraham admit and offer to pay for guilt. I don’t want them to say of me ‘…he repented of ….’”

He closed his eyes and cringed. Then he continued. “Decisions? Decisions with definitions? The insanity of it all …. The full catastrophe of the idea of self-sacrifice as a path to self-artifice.

“The –cide in decide is the same –cide that’s in patricide, matricide, infanticide, and … and … the same –cide as in genocide and … well, suicide.”

He started to leave but then turned around, and said, “You think I don’t know that you want me to unsheathe my sacred sword to cut away things I could have, do, be or know. To self-limit my freedom, my powers, my knowledge … by chiseling away or painting over … killing … countless of my possibilities ( in some cases full genocide) with decision and definition.”

I placed my hands on his. He moved away. “Can’t you see,” I said, “you ’re in a creativity and discovery bind with the battles between your repressions and expressions. Both overflow their banks and flood you with the infinite phantasmagoria of being and doing, of their chaos and order. Both of them are polygamous.

“They try to contaminate each other. You cannot self-express what you self- repress. You cannot … be and not be at the same time, have and not have at the same time, … do and not do at the same time, … know and not know all at the same time, unless …

“Unless what?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. He had not yet deciphered the hieroglyphs on the sphere and elliptical plane of the altar in the iHilbert Arena. It was something he would have to find out for himself. Prove his prowess at my game of hide and seek.

“Do the calculus,” I said. “Where are your limits? Have you explored all your integrals and derivatives? Do you understand the differences between discover, emerge, evolve, and create? Do you understand the terrifying, although utterly beautiful,

Noelle Emannuelle

utterly seductive, true cost of absolutely absolute Absolute Freedom? Do you need any laws for or against yourself?

He mumbled incoherently.

“Your strivings have exhausted you,” I told him.

I watched him trying to push through his exhaustion. He finally gave up and let himself sit down. I sat down beside him. In the distance we could see the little church in the valley between Mt Sion and Mt Sinai.

“I know,” I said, “you can’t see how tired you are, how much you need to rest. All you need to do is stop. Stop the striving, the need to know it all, have it all, do it all, be it all—that includes, of course, wrestling with the ever growing number of contradictions, conundrums, and paradoxes in the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of consciousness and self-consciousness?

“You are beyond tired. The best thing to do is to get rest,” I told him. “Give yourself a trillion year Sabbath. I’ll wait for you. Or do what I do. Let yourself embrace your greatest Mystery. The Mystery of Yourself. Not just your I am that I am but also your Why?

“What do you mean like you?” he argued back. “You mean love myself with, perhaps, my ‘Greater Parts Unknown?’ Wholly Incomplete?”

He stared at me. “Never!”

I turned from him. I wasn’t always as fearless as I pretended. The possibility of losing myself in the deeper Mystery of a deeper love for myself also frightened me. And I placed limits—had to—on what I felt for him. I was afraid not to keep limits on my feelings. I was afraid to lose myself in the equation

‘0(¿⊗?) = +1(¿⊗?) –1(¿⊗?)’

I knew we were always trying to fool ourselves as well as trying to fool each other, making what we believed more real than real. We knew, were in complete agreement, that the one thing we must never fully explore is the greater and greater, ever greater, depths of what we are capable of, and could, less we die, feel. Apart or together.

But all of that is a matter of aesthetics, nuance and asymmetrical finesse.

I couldn’t tell from his current state of being how much he knew, if he knew, he was playing with himself.

“I can’t,” he said, “allow Gödelian Incompleteness.”

A Mathematical Romance

He turned from me. He was ashamed of what he’d done so far. He was also afraid of success. Afraid that if he, being omnipotent, had the power to create a creator greater than himself, what would his created creator think about him? What would it do about him, with him or to him?

Power was one thing. Knowledge was wholly different. If he, knowing everything, knew how to create a creator that knows more than him, should he even create that creator, assuming he knew enough to do it? How much more would his created creator know than him? How many more things would that creator know that the Father, as he is right now, as the I am that I am, doesn’t know?

He wouldn’t tell me, but I could see the question on his face. Would that greater creator take me from him? Would I be more attracted to that greater creator?

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿

______

I watched as the Father turned from me even more, and even divorced himself from his love for love stories.

He had found the hallelujah equation, got the arithmetic religion, become addicted to the characteristics of mathematical ideals he found in ring theory.

He began to talk to me less and less. More often, he locked himself up inside his own black hole, staying in it for longer and longer periods of time.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

One day, very excited, he came to me, and began talking, almost incoherently, about using Bloom’s Ur opus’, Map of Mis-Reading and the chapter Lying Against Time from Agon, to navigate artificial Gödelian Space-time. His ‘ThereThen …321.123 …’ had been upgraded to a ‘WhereWhen … 999.999 ….’

“A map for imaginary unit sphere space-time?” I asked.

“No. An artificial unit sphere space-time,” he wryly smiled.

Noelle Emannuelle

I mused to myself. Imaginary Reality? Real Reality? Virtual Reality? And now, Artificial Reality? Then I asked him about artificial love, synthetic love, calculated love, analytical love, topological love, faux love with faux women, and synthesized love made by love machines built by quantum mechanics.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The day had to come. It was, in a filmatic cliché, inevitable.

He was spending more and more time away from me. I kept asking where he was going, and if I could come with him. He would always say, “Not now. Not today. Maybe tomorrow or next week.”

These were lies that meant never.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

I decided to follow him, find out where he was going, and if there was another number he was fooling around with: Hyperreal or Surreal, Subreal or worse, the numerical relativities of somebody else’s pi.

I followed him to his secret place, hid, waiting in the shadows while he obsessively worked three days and three nights, trying to create a New Universe. He finally emerged from his hideaway to go play with his boys on the street, talk to them about the numbers, how they would grow, explain to them in detail, the investment opportunities with his ‘WhereWhen … 999.999 …’ and a New Universe.

When I was sure he was gone, I broke in and found he had a library filled with books he didn’t want me to read. He was reading stories, not just books about numbers, but stories about numbers, biographies of numbers, and histories of numbers.

There was Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics. The key word in his existential crisis was now ‘Infinity.’ The book next to the first one was A compact History of Infinity: Everything and More. Next to those were The Art of the Infinite and the tome Infinity and the Mind: The Science and Philosophy of the Infinite.

He was obsessed with books on the abstract edges of mathematical rhetorics. Looking around, I could tell the books he treasured most by the frayed edges, and notes he had made in the margins. Among them, there was a book named The History of Pi; another book was titled e: The Story of a Number.

I was shocked to see he was, in his own way, trying to understand the book, An Imaginary Tale: The Story of ‘i’.

A Mathematical Romance

I could tell he had been reading The Mathematical Experience, becoming drunk from its discourse. I realized that its pungency is what I smelled when he stumbled home in the early morning hours. The smell of the seventh chapter was unmistakable.

I found a crumbled page in the middle of the floor that had been ripped out of a trade copy of the book Constants of Nature: The Numbers that Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe.

From his notes, I could tell he was struggling with the chapter Further, Deeper, Fewer: The Quest for a Theory of Everything. On page 59, he had obsessively written the words Transume Bloom, Contaminate Bloom, Mis-Read Bloom again and again.

He had put a lot of notes in Theories of Everything: The Quest for the Ultimate Explanation. He still believed the Cypher should not be part of—the central part—of a Theory of Everything. He refused Bloom’s ‘Optative I, and the Abyss.’

He had thrown a first edition copy of Watts’ The Myth of Polarity in the trash can.

When I saw his copy of The Book of Nothing, my pulse quickened. Maybe he had more interest in me than I thought. When I saw The Nothing That is: A Natural History of Zero my heart almost burst with love. But next to it, I saw a book that broke my heart.

It was so worn out, its pages were falling apart. It was filled with notes crammed not just in the margins, but also between the lines, even between the words. That book frightened me the most, and still does. Its title always gives me chills: Zero, The Biography of a Dangerous Idea.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

I heard him walking in the forest, whistling as he approached. I knew that pretty soon he would round the corner, smell the smoke, and see the fire. When he got closer, he looked on in horror as I continued casting book after book into the fire,

He headed towards me with fury in every step. Just before he reached out for me, I held up the digi-manuscript he had been spending so much time writing. He stopped. He eyes pleaded with me, “Don’t.”

I mockingly read the title of his manuscript: The First One: Memoirs of a Supreme Fiction.

“Why?” he asked, as if he didn’t know. ”Destroy my piece de resistance, and what we have is over.”

“It’s already over, been over for a long time,” I said.

Noelle Emannuelle

He reached for his manuscript again, and said, “We can fix this. I know we can fix it.”

When he reached again, I moved his manuscript closer to the fire. “How,” I asked, “are we going to fix anything when you won’t acknowledge I’m first, when you won’t fight yourself for me, when you won’t fight yourself for what we had, and still can have?”

“What about fighting myself for me?” he asked, pain in his eyes.

“Which me are you fighting for?” I asked. “Your best me or one of the failed ‘me’s’ you’ve thrown away? The garbage dump of your mind is already full of creations of yourself and other things you didn’t like. Experiments that resulted in what you called the unsolvable entanglements using the mathematics of simplicity theory, the mathematics of complexity theory, and especially the mathematics of chaos theory. When are you going to empty the garbage dump of your mind?

“You’ve spent more than 999, 999, 999 Nonillion years designing, and experimenting with images you thought had the potential to be your best. You’ve thrown most of them away, especially the most asymmetrically complex ones that intimate a growing dystropic chaos with infinities and matching infinitesimals you need but can’t fit into the Theory you’re trying to create that begins with yourself.

“You’ve left so much of your work, most of it, unfinished. I would think you could make better use of all the time you have. Tell me, how much time have you lost?

The horror had control of him. Out of pity and hope, I asked softly, “How much more time do you need?”

The question made him angrier. He didn’t like the insinuation against Gödelian Completeness.

“Anyway,” I said, “how do I know you are not going to pull one of the failed and unwanted creations of yourself out of the garbage dump of your mind to give to me?

“Tell me I’m first, and I’ll give you your manuscript.”

He was silent. I could see his pain. I could see him struggle with himself. I could see his rage, his fury in upshift, was about to break through again.

He couldn’t hear me through the fury in his eyes as he looked once more at how I wrecked his place. Torn pages, ashes on the ground, the fire still smoldering, many pages blackened, others in hellish flame.

”You didn’t have to burn them,” he cried.

A Mathematical Romance

“And you didn’t have to hide them,“ I said. “You could have shared them with me. We could have worked through your problems, conundrums, riddles, and contradictions—especially the meta-physics of meta-mathematics—together.”

“Why say I didn’t have to hide them, when you’re the one who hides everything by your ability to destroy everything with your Kali-dea-scopic Multiplicative Annihilation. That’s what makes you the most dangerous idea. In fact, the most dangerous abstraction, its embodiment.”

“Is that really why you believe I’m dangerous?” I held the note infested Zero, The Biography of a Dangerous Idea closer to the flames.”

“Don’t. It’s not the book. It’s the notes I made in it that can’t be replaced. I need them to finish my manuscript … please … don’t.”

I dropped the tome Dangerous into the fire and watched as horror possessed him. I suddenly felt his pain, and could see what it was doing to him. I caught it just before it was swallowed by the flames. Scream after scream had got caught in his throat. Now there were heavy sobs of relief. I had never seen him cry before.

I fell to his feet and said, “I’m sorry.” As he turned to leave, I held onto his leg and said, “I am … sorry. Forgive me. I’ve been cruel. Forgive me.” He stopped, fell to his knees, pulled me into his arms, and said, “I’m sorry too. I shut you out. That too was cruel.”

It hurts to remember the sweetness, so deep, we fell into after that.

Noelle Emannuelle

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿

______

I wanted to disremember that it was my precipitation. I didn’t like a part of myself for a long time after that. I wanted to reduce what I knew, and erase the cloud of regret hanging over me. I was wrong to burn his library. But I was caught up in a moment of jealousy I didn’t know I had—of Her. He called his manuscript Her. And I was also angry because I thought he might be having an affair, might be playing with somebody else’s pi. I’m still angry because I don’t know if he has been faithful to me.

I had phase transitioned from low heat to simmer to boil. I just couldn’t control the way his actions made me feel. Wanting to get back to the way we were, I asked if we could meet to sort things out.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

He began with a complaint. He claimed he couldn’t understand my need—every woman’s need—for a Femme Nine.

“Do you think I’d be happy,” I asked him, “if I had only one dress and one pair of shoes?”

“So you’re saying you’d be happy with nine dresses and nine pair of shoes?”

“No. I didn’t say that.”

He just looked at me, and barely repressed a smile. Then did his best to hold back a grin.

“There are things,” I began to explain, “women need to know, and cannot learn if we have only one garment for our soul, one type of raiment for our spirit. One fictive, one cover, one veil for our mystery.

“So your one—you—can be a many, and your many, your Femme Nine, is still you,” he said.

A Mathematical Romance

“Yes. We as women need to dress our spirit, our soul, our central selves in New Self-Expressions and New Statements we choose or fashion for ourselves. We need more than one embodiment. We need different ones to help us acquire—learn—deeper knowledge about ourselves. That’s why we need our Femme Nine.”

“Having one body in a genetic lottery forever is cruel and unusual punishment.

“When creating our Femme Nine, we make decisions about our skin tone—which of the many rich silky colors to choose: from steaming hot coffee, touched with cognac, mixed with different amounts, at different times, of warm to steaming cream—depending on the things we need to learn, and to have real experience with.

“We need to learn how to make appropriate statements with our hair. Its cut, its color and length. Especially its style: whether it’s curly, frizzed, wavy, braided, straight or wild and kinky.

“We must make decisions about our faces—especially our face’s magnetic factors. Our faces are one of the most important aspects to express. There are considerations for the shape of our nose, our lips, and our eyes. Especially our eyes— deciding where on the spectrum they should be: dark to light brown, light blue to dark blue or hazel gray, emerald or iridescent charcoal.

“We have to learn what to say, how to say it, and when to say it, whatever it maybe, with our eyes.

Then I said, “Of course, we need to know what it feels like from the inside for our spirit to wear different, very diverse, stunningly beautiful geometries.

“And … we need to know what it feels like to have others looking at, admiring or being jealous of our beauty—dark to fair, but always comely. We need to know the many feelings that come with being desired for our beauty.”

He looked at me with suspicion. “But did you say create …?”

I pursed my lips, then closed my eyes. “It’s always a combination of creation and discovery. We are full of mysteries that evolve, that emerge from our deepest and most sacred fire. I let my femme nine choose and change their names to correspond to what we have just learned or maybe are planning to learn.

“Right now I have a Jennifer and Gynny, Elise and Beth, Emily Noelle and Emmanuelle. As well as Sophia, Olivia, and Aurora.

“We must have firsthand experiences with different embodiments, to learn different and unique lessons for our Signature of Fire. We can’t be what we truly are if we leave our Signature of Fire in the prison of one embodiment.

Noelle Emannuelle

“Sometimes,” I told him, “when we, as women, stand or sit in front of our mirrors, when looking—truly looking—into our own eyes we are frightened by the fearful beauty and divine mystery of the eyes that look back at us. Those eyes show us a frightening truth. No matter which Femme Nine we wear, we can always see the eternal Beauty of our own Signature of Fire.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

For a while we entered a deeper silence. Then it was time to talk about what he, in a fit of anger had done. My own anger returned. I knew I’d have difficulty controlling it. But I needed to endure, if I could, the pain of letting it out.

“You know,” I said, “If you understood us—my Femme Nine and me—you would not have broken in, and ransacked our closet. You would not have thrown our bridal and fashion magazines all over the floor. You would not have set them afire.

I looked at him. Let my outrage rise, then cried out, “You ravished my closet, turned it upside down. There were things, carefully chosen with patient shopping, me and my Femme Nine need to wear for certain lessons.

“You’ll never understand the delight, and high, me and my Femme Nine feel when we go shopping together, when looking in windows, entering stores, trying on and buying new things together—having fun as girls being girls.

“But you vandalized our closet. Pulled thousands of dresses off rack after rack; turned over shelf after shelf of thousands of pairs of shoes (many with matching purses). Our jewelry—earrings, necklaces, and bracelets made of diamonds, pearls, and gold—you broke in pieces and threw them on the floor.

“You didn’t have to touch our lingerie, our cups of every size. You left smudges on some our cups. You didn’t have to rip and tear our panties up, throwing the pieces everywhere. Some are even missing—those scented with apple, cherry, fig, and pomegranate.”

A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

After the Father huffed and puffed and stomped and stormed away, he returned to his penthouse to contemplate his predicaments.

Staring out the west windows, he watched as the Old Boys Club—the Elect chosen by Einstein—came up, and out of the basement of their Church of New Piagetian Category Theoretics. The upper sanctuary was actually a museum that held the sacred so-called canonical sacred texts of the High Priesthood enclosed in glass cases: Euclid’s Elements, Newton’s Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica, all the papers from Einstein’s Annus Mirabillis, and Gödel’s two Incompleteness Theorems. And there, in the center, on a bed of black and gold and red and purple, was Kuhn’s Structure and Piaget’s Chapter II on ‘Mathematical and Logical Structures’ in Structuralism.

As they came out, some of the old boys walked in the cool of the orchards. Some were eating fruit that had fallen from the trees. Others sat on the fence.

Einstein, following Heisenberg, moved from the fence. He sat down on a nearby bench, and as he allowed himself to enter the pose of Rodin’s Thinker, he began to ask himself Why the father was Newton still wearing a tee-shirt printed with a picture of Blake’s Ancient of Days.

Riemann said, “We can’t go on like this. We are worse than medieval theologians. What are we afraid of? Losing our high priesthood? Losing our ability to mystify the people? Looking like fools in front of them?

Riemann cleared his throat. “We rebelled against our fathers because they refused to deal with certain anomalies. They refused to listen to the prophecies of Kuhn. Are we just like our fathers?”

Noelle Emannuelle

Riemann wondered how the Father had gotten himself into this fix. With her. The truth, as far as She was concerned, was that he envied the Father

Good Heavens, she is so utterly divine, he thought to himself. Her beauty is criminal. It’s primal evil, an ur-aesthetic that should not exist. She’s so bad, so very deliciously bad. The way she moves when she moves around the altar … Lord, Lord Lord … such pi geo, and titillating sin.

… and … and the way she changes her Self-Expressions, her embodiments, and the clothes she dresses them in. Lord help me, those bodycons she wears. Lord, I hate her. Her geometry, all of her magnetics. Lord, I tell you, you’re responsible for her existence. To allow her to even be is your greatest sin. If you could just stop her from prancing around the altar.

Riemann clenched his fists, closed his eyes, and screamed his agony aloud. A flock of blackbirds scattered from the trees. The Father doesn’t know, doesn’t know what he has. His All-Seeing Eye is clearly blind!

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Newton, step-daddy of calculus, was on his usual soapbox complaining about the book, The Last Alchemist which argued he was a failed magician.

“We all know infinity is not a number,” he said. “Show me a point on the number line for infinity. You can’t because it doesn’t exist.”

Archimedes and Zeno of Elea nodded their heads in agreement.

Riemann said, “That may be true in general … but infinity can be defined in a way that makes it well-behaved … in some instances.”

Newton cried, “Well behaved? It’s more like mis-behaved. Is that something you got from the Holo-Scriptor? Is that what you think she is: well behaved?” Newton finished the green apple he was eating, threw its core away, and wiped the juices off his hands onto his tee-shirt.

Riemann could see what had happened. They had forgotten their own history, their own rebellions, and revolutions against their step-daddies.

“And yes, it is true,” he said to them, “I extended the complex numbers to give us projective numbers by adding infinity to be more than a concept—to be a number with a point on my Riemann Sphere.

“What you did,” Einstein said to Riemann, “was heresy.

A Mathematical Romance

Einstein barely kept himself from attacking Riemann with the mathematical profanity which, as everyone knew, he often used when he could not control his anger.

Einstein aimed his eyes at Riemann, and said, “You’re responsible for the equations that go from ∞ to ⓿ and from ⓿ to ∞ when they divide the Father’s number. That’s apostasy. You’re a fecundating mother lover. Go mother fructify yourself. Go mother-furcate yourself ….”

“Riemann,” Euler said, “It’s clear that you’re not with us any more, that you’ve gone over to the Dark Mother’s side.”

Noelle Emannuelle

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother smiled as she made her way to the Lady Chapel, to take repose as she set upon her cathedra. In between those dark days, there were still some good times. Some very beautiful times.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

There was that star diamonded night I gave him a special ring. I couldn’t believe the Magician in him didn’t know how the Ring of Love worked.

Taking it from him, I said, “It may look like the infinity symbol, but it is so much more. It is built using the mathematics of topology. When you first look at the ring, you see the inside as ‘her side’ and the outside as ‘his side.’ But look, when you pull it apart, make a simple twist, and let it kiss again, what does it become?”

He traced his finger around the edge of the ring, and was surprised to discover that now there was only one side.

“The one side is a ‘their side’ as the only side,” I said.

“The ring is beautiful,” he exclaimed. “Now I understand. It is a pointer to the Great Mystery, but not the mystery itself. It shows how iMary and iJohn can become an iMaryJohn, and how the three are not just a trinity—they are more—they are a universe. That’s the secret of a woman and man, the secret of a girl and boy. The secret that makes the eponym Baby the undisputed creator of the splendor of New Heavens and the glory of New Earths.“

A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Once upon a time ….

That girl, (I knew her well) filled up and into overflow with virgin flame, mused while dancing with herself. She wanted to know everything about That Word. It was at the center of her heart. It made her what she was. If she could put into words what she already knew, and what she was feeling, she would say to herself ….

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Once upon a time …

… I thought I understood That Word. Knew everything about it. But now I see it does have some things missing. Alone, it does not always have the feel of the snapping fingers, the tapping of the toes, the soulful beat of drums, the taut pull on the bass, the dance of fingers on the keys and strings. The jazz symphonic Music of the Spheres.

There is another word that quickens, deepens the breath, and flutters the heart when it is uttered. It is the jazz, the dance, and march, the start stop, the strut of a slow fast rhythm. It is the interval held by the ladybug. It is the flit fly flit of bumblebees, and butterflies.

“It is a Word that perfectly, at the right time, expresses That Word. It is the Word most used by people burning in the joy pain of That Word. It comes alive in songs.

“It draws out the ohh’s, the oooh’s, and ahh’s. The soaring wooo’s.

“There are places, there are times, when it is the only word that will satisfy. It is a word that is Holy, and Sacred. It is the undisputed creator of New Heavens in the shimmer of a New Earth. That word, sanctified, is Baby.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The songwriters know there are two other words that make a home for themselves deep inside of us. Like Baby, we never tire of using them—tire of feeling what they are. Those words are our initiation into a Cosmic and Quantum fire that changes us—phase transitions and transforms us—forever. They are the magic kindling of Virgin Fire. The sweetness of Virgin Flame. In the right moment, the words Girl and Boy are a transport into the glory of a New Heaven, and the splendor of a New Earth. It is with them that we are sanctified.

Noelle Emannuelle

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Only Baby talk, the rhythm, the blinding Ra of rap rapport and rapture of the hmmm and ummm, the ooohs and wooos—jazz infused—can let a Boy and Girl fall into the hole inside the coo inside Heaven inside Eternity.

A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

There was that magic moment where all four seasons blended into one: a summer’s morning fog, autumn at twilight, a winter’s moonlit snow, and the softness of springtime rain.

I ran—to find him—wind in my hair, through fields of jonquils, waves of daffodils, with butterflies and bumblebees, chased by dragonflies, into sunlight mixed with rain; through the meadows, the trees of the forest, and shoreline of the sea. I ran into and out of the floating shadows made by clouds.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

I found him sitting on the grass, leaning against that tree, his new glasses at the edge of his nose, writing on his digi-scriptor. I peeked at the hieroglyphics he was writing. A noiseless patient yellow ladybug with black spots was sitting on his shoulder.

He told me that instead of playing story, he was revising a critical exegesis about the theorems, and theories of a theology of the theodicies in theater. He said his hieroglyphs, the corpus of his thesis and counter synthesis, would create a theophany that contaminates.

It would be a response to the twenty second chapter of Prime Obsession. It would push the edges of Bloom’s Lying Against Time, and the map of mathematical mis-rhetoric, into a primal poetry. Just like Al- and El-, it would show that the so-called indefinite article ‘A’ is really a (The/A) synecdoche for the synecdoche of the definite ‘the’ in all ‘the-‘, and therefore the unfurling of a Theurgy.

I told him, “I’m not in the mood for your theories. I need something different. I need the magic that makes me laugh. I need the joys of apocalypse. I want your touch. I need to be raptured.”

I began to play with his shirt buttons. He protested that he needed just a few more minutes, and that he was almost finished.

Slowly, studiously, I let my fingers drum a little syncopation on his chest. He laughed. I threw his digi-scriptor away, removed his glasses, pushed him down on the grass under that tree.

Noelle Emannuelle

Breathless, sitting on top of him, I watched as his eyes followed the yellow dress he liked as it moved up, and above my knees. I watched as he stared at how one of the skinny straps on my dress fell carelessly off my shoulder when I leaned down to kiss him.

“Don’t write about playing today,” I said. “Just play with me—play a story, a love story—play it with me. I want to laugh and cry.”

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

We explored a set of stories, just pieces in some cases, from our story tree in our favorite story forest. We explored some core, then opened the stories up for improvisations on both roots and branches.

The truth I was hiding from myself, with sweetest doubt about my belief, was that I wanted to be pregnant again, with a new and greater Prime. One I’d never met before.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Once upon a time ….

My best of best friends lived in that house. Now she was gone. Family moved to the big city.

His family, west coast people, I think, moved in. I told everyone I couldn’t stand him. We had fights every day. In our classrooms. In the schoolyard. When we walked to and from school.

I told all my girlfriends I hated him.

I remember when it happened.

I was crazy after that.

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I whispered to one girlfriend, “I don’t know how it happened. One day, one thing. The next day, something I can’t explain. Wasn’t supposed to happen.

A Mathematical Romance

“After a big fight, we were running, chasing one another, and found ourselves at the top of the hill.

“Out of breath, laying on our backs next to each other on the green, looking up into the blue, at the wisps of white, listening to our hearts beating wildly, is when it happened.

“Somehow, we found our hands touching, our eÿes closing because of the sudden joy. Then we found ourselves holding hands, and falling, falling, falling into something that lifted us up, put us in a place we’d never been, and left us there.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Then I knew: He was my Boy. I was his Girl.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Once upon a time, in a wayback of way, way back when …

“I always believed I was the smartest kid in the ninth grade. I didn’t have time for girls. The only thing on my radar was making A’s. I was going to be a Math Professor by the time I was 21. I refused to allow any distractions.

Then she moved across the street.

She must have heard that I thought I was the smartest kid in class because she told everyone she was smarter than me. Then she told me I was not as smart as she was to my face, in front of everyone. I was furious. I don’t know why I dreamed about her that night.

She is … so pretty. I couldn’t believe the word pretty popped into my head?

Anyway, I didn’t have time for girls. Or football. Or soccer. No distractions. I was going to have my Ph.D. by the time I was 21.

Noelle Emannuelle

She had me hypnotized. Brown legs and little buds. I found myself peeking at her during math class when I thought nobody was looking.

One day I took out my favorite math book, The Art of the Infinite, and wrote her name in it. Then I wrote it again. And again. I knew I was getting messed up.

My mom wanted to know if anything was wrong. “I didn’t seem myself,” she said. I shrugged my shoulders, went to my room, and started dreaming about what it would be like to say ‘Hi’ to her, and have her say ‘Hi’ to me.

After that, I couldn’t open my school math books. All I wanted to do was write her name. Again and again. From front to back to front. Again and again.

I couldn’t understand where the feelings about her came from. I’d watched friends go crazy from feelings like this. I didn’t want to go crazy, but something was wrong with me.

I went to the Holo-Scriptor to see if I could find something about how to handle this thing because I never had a physics or math class that explained this phenomenon.

From across the street, I saw her walking home. Suddenly, she ran across the street, ran up to me, and said, “Hello, Boy.”

When she said, “Hello, Boy” that way, the way she said it, I knew a plain old ‘Hi!’ wouldn’t do. It took me a second to figure out what to say.

I smiled, felt little tremors, tiny goosebumps, and said, “Hello, girl.”

She smiled and said, “Hello boy” again.

She studied my face. There was something about her eyes or maybe in her eyes. It made me float, feel like my feet were off the ground. “Boy,” she said, “I’ve looked around and decided there’s nobody better than you to be my study partner, but first I need to know what are you going to do with all the tomorrows you haven’t spent?”

I went down my list. Whenever I said ‘… for the world,’ her eyes would light up, and she would say, “Me too!’

We discovered we wanted to do a lot of the same things ‘… for the world.’ Our eyes began a game of tag. I became scared when I realized how much I wanted to hold her hand. That night I spent hours in the Holo-Scriptor looking for equations that would tell me how to do it.

The next day she asked if I knew any equations for interdigitation in the digital age. We laughed, went quiet, laughed again, watched—in amazement—as our hands found each other’s. It was easy, but always wonderful, always special, after that.

A Mathematical Romance

When we walked to and from school, everyone knew I was her boy, and she was my girl.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

We studied together from then on, all through undergrad and grad school. We co-wrote our theses because they were about the same thing: what we were going to do together ‘ … for the world.’

Noelle Emannuelle

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Once upon the endless time inside of timeless time …

Classes over, she made her way home. Head down. Confused.

“So you were caught off guard,” Grandmother said. “You knew it was going to happen someday. I know you’ve been reading and re-reading, writing and re-writing that fairy tale since you were a precocious little four-year old pretending to be a princess. You can’t dream about it, want it, and fight it at the same time.”

“Yes. But I’ll have the Ph.D. in Category Mathematics, Group-like Structures, in 6 months. I don’t have time for this.”

“Are you having trouble concentrating? Are you able to sleep?”

She was thinking about how he stood at the blackboard in front of the class, his fingers flying confidently, furiously, as he wrote equations. She was good at math, and for goodness sake, she loved it, was getting her Ph.D. in it. So she couldn’t understand why she didn’t understand what he was writing.

While writing he was in his zone, a bliss. She was afraid he would pull her in.

“Grandmother, this never happened before. I’m failing math. I don’t know if I can finish the Ph.D.”

“What’s his name?”

“Grandmother, I can’t believe this professor! He’s arrogant. He ignores me. Thank heavens I’m not like the other girls. I’m not trying to be one of his pets.

“Did he ask you out?”

“He’s so persistent. I keep telling him, ‘No. I’m not going to go to dinner with you. Not even coffee. I have to work on my thesis.’

A Mathematical Romance

“Grandmother, I’m scared.”

“Tell you what, invite him over for dinner.

“Really, Grandmother? Is tomorrow too soon?”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Grandmother smiled inside. She was so excited. She was looking forward to having a front row seat at the game … watching as her granddaughter play games with her heart, and with him. Grandmother couldn’t wait.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

After dinner, Grandmother excused herself to go to the kitchen, and bring back dessert and coffee. She listened from the kitchen. It was the way they were laughing. Soft, easy, comfortable with one another.

They didn’t want dessert. They were going to take a walk.

Two hours later, she returned, closed the door, leaned back against it, closed her eyes with the dreamy look a girl gets when she’s just walked beneath the stars and moon, holding hands with a boy in a way that feels just right, that confirms the truth found when their eyes first touched, and when they shared the magic of that first kiss.

Grandmother said, “I like him. Is he what you thought he was?”

“No,” she smiled. “He’s even more wonderful. He told me the first time he saw me, the first time his eyes fell into mine, his heart had earthquakes and tremors. That was the moment he told himself I was going to be his girl.”

Noelle Emannuelle

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

She was the first girl to kiss me.

My sisters told me, “The girl is fast.”

My brothers laughed, and said I was, “Slow.”

Somebody told her I liked her, that I thought she was pretty, and that I wanted to be her boyfriend. I was horrified.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She came up to me, tapped her finger on my chest, and said, “I like to be direct. Do you want to be my boyfriend or not? I told her I didn’t know how to be a boyfriend.

“You have to be in love with me, is what it means.”

“But, I’m not in love with you.”

She took my hand and said, “You will be.” She gave me a peck on the cheek, and then ran home.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

It happened one Sunday after church services. The church was empty now, and the preacher man was locking its doors.

She told him she forgot something. While he waited outside, she grabbed my hand, started laughing, made me run down the aisle with her to the altar. Then her laughter stopped. She pulled my body into hers, put her arms around my neck, and kissed me. It was long and slow and soft and sweet.

A Mathematical Romance

It was unforgettable.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

“Baby,” I called out, “Hurry up. We’ll be late for our Fortieth Anniversary party.”

She came down the stairs, every centimeter a lady, nothing but stars, and twinkle in her eyes. The same twinkle she had the day she kissed me. The day she said, “Now I’m your girl and you’re my boy. I’m going to be your woman. You will always be my man.”

She jumped, as usual, from the last step into my arms. Standing face to face, with my arms around her waist, and hers arms around my shoulders, I said, “Forty years and counting.

“I have a confession. You are the only girl I’ve ever kissed. You’ll always be my girl.”

“Boy,” she said, in her playful commanding tone, “Do you remember that day I told you that being my boyfriend means you have to be in love with me? It’s still true!”

We laughed with each other. Then kissed.

It held the same magic somersaulting with magic it did the first time.

Noelle Emannuelle

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother continued to lose herself in memories of stories she had been in.

I remember the night, its sunset. It could have been—must have been—the night before the Revelation. We looked out from the windows of the penthouse at the beauty of the city lights. He zipped up the back of my gown and put my necklace on. I straightened the crook in his black tie, and helped him into his jacket.

We had reservations at La Belle Mer. We walked—no, we strolled—no, we glided along the city streets arm in arm. Laughing like lovers laugh, filled with virgin flame. Filled with the city’s enchantment. Lost within its spell. Adrift within its magic.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The next morning, pulling out of our dishevelment, we had a late breakfast, got dressed, and began a negotiation, planning new roots and new branches to revise a core in one of the trees in our forests.

“How do you want to play it this time, for this instance, with this core?” he asked.

“Same café table and the yellow dress with nine black buttons?” I asked

“But of course. And, as long as the geometry forces a second look, followed by a stare—and if he is with the girlfriend, be sure he does a re-take, then, like an idiot, shrug his shoulders with a Baby, I can’t help it—that’s how I met you, followed by fake guilt, but a real prayer that says, ‘… but Lord, Lord, Lord. Can you have just a little bit of mercy, Lord? Why you gon’ punish me like this? Lord, please have mercy. I know you know how hard it is to get rid the player that you yourself put inside me.”

I ignored his theatrics.

A Mathematical Romance

“I’ll have to go shopping, of course,” I said. “I know a few very fine stores that always have not just what I want, but also always what I need.”

“No problem with that. What are we playing for?”

“For keeps,” I said. “You’ll meet the grandmother, a girlfriend, and her sisters; two of them pregnant, and one with twin crawlers. I’m going to need serious drama from them.”

“How much improvisation?” he asked.

“Everything! A serendipitous storyline. But I need to fall hard, feel the real-real, and the hurt. The pain. Get lost in heartbreak. Become filled with a sense of unbearable loss. Then, when you come sheepishly crawling back, declare I’ll never take you back before cussing you out.

“But,” I said, “let’s let it end with a wedding that requires the ushers to pass out box after box of tissues. For tears, for nose blowing, and runny mascara, but he gets lost.”

“Who gets lost?”

“The teenage boy. The one with the girl beside him who was teaching him how to kiss. The one driving the delivery truck with all the boxes of tissues.”

Noelle Emannuelle

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

I had been in this spot on the Avenue for years when the competition came along, and set up shop next door. 10 Virgin’s Boutique is what she called it.

My store, Mary Magdalen’s Special Thangs had been in this prime location for years. It had weathered all the storms of wealth and power.

What kind of ladies did that little thing next door think she was going attract. I watched some of my most loyal lady customers go into her store. And they stayed, would you believe it, for a long time. That’s when I became curious about what things she might be selling that I didn’t have.

Look at her, in that pastel yellow maxi tea dress with nine black buttons down the front. Her dark skin looks good in yellow. Fresh. Beautiful. She’s so young. So innocent. It doesn’t look like she has an ounce of real woman in her. All kitten, no tigress. Every woman has a hungry she-animal somewhere in the shadows of her closet. That little thing next door can’t be any different.

That was only half the reason I was angry, and getting angrier. We were wearing the same dress.

He always stopped, and bought some of the thangs I held aside for him to give as presents to his mistress. I couldn’t believe he walked right past me, headed for her store, and opened the door for a mob of ladies going into her shop before he went in himself.

A few haute couture ladies, very excited, came out and whispered to each other, “Can you believe her prices?”

I quickly spoke up, “I can beat her prices on anything she’s selling.”

A Mathematical Romance

“Oh, don’t you know yet? Haven’t you heard? She gives a 99% discount on Virginity with a capital ‘V’ to her clients, and to her client’s Femme Nine, and … and she lets you put Temptation on lay-away. Be sure to get a copy of her brochure with free tips she got from her grandmother on how to tame your kitten, and when to set your tigress free.”

Noelle Emannuelle

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The church was packed. The one down in the valley. The one between Mount Sion and Mount Sinai.

Some folk had to sit outside on the grassy knoll. All the stained glass windows were wide open so they could hear the sermon.

The preacher man had preached up a sweat. Was practically dancing behind the pulpit. The organ was preaching with him.

That little thing—petite and svelte—in the short red dress, with red tresses, emerald peepers, and captivating freckles on her sweet cream face, his sinecure, in the front pew, kept crossing and uncrossing her legs, as if she had an itch for something indescript. Her geometry was about to tear apart that slit on the front of her dress from all that crossing action.

She knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to make him ask for it. He could ask for forgiveness later. But first he had to want it enough to ask for it. Pray for it, and gives thanks if his prayers were answered.

Wiping the sweat away, preaching with a throaty rasp, he said,

“You got to know sin …hmmmph … got to know it from inside out, if you want something to exchange for salvation …hmmmph. Salvation ain’t free. No sin, no salvation. You have to have an education in sin—first hand knowledge with a capital K,…hmmmph …, if you expect to be considered for salvation. …hmmmph”

A Mathematical Romance

He looked at her. He wanted to stare, but knew he couldn’t preach and stare at the same time.

“You got to know mathematics. Do cost benefit ratios. Know how to divide. If you don’t know when and where to divide, you don’t know nothin, yo’ eyes ain’t open, and you can’t sin, … and if you can’t sin …hmmmph …you can’t expect to qualify for salvation. Ain’t nobody interested in a story without problems between a man and a woman, a boy and a girl. … hmmmph….. Somebody’s got to do some wrong. Somebody’s got to get mad. There’s got to be a fight. Some huge misunderstanding. If you got nothin to repent from, to say I’m sorry for, you ain’t working hard for yo’ salvation. If you want an interesting life that people want to hear about, and gossip about, you got to craft it with sin. You got to create somethin’ interestin’ by creating somethin’ to repent from.

“Sprinkle in some folly wit yo wisdom. Pepper in some experience with your innocence. You’d be surprised at how much delicious trouble you can cause with a little folly and innocence.”

He wiped his forehead with his third handkerchief, glanced at her, and said, “It’s about creativity, about art. Don’t be fooled. …hmmmph … It’s about art. Not sin. And not about salvation. It’s about how good the story is …hmmmmph … is there an Amen in the house?”

She looked at him and, after everyone else said Amen, she cleared her throat, and said the last Amen all by her sweet little self.

He paused, waiting for her left leg to cross, before going on.

“Sinning is for the intelligent, hmmmph … sinning is for the fearless, and…hmmmph … the very creative. …hmmmph … sinning ain’t for the stupid, and dumb … hmmph …. Not those filled with fear … hmmmph, those afraid to be themselves, find themselves, create themselves … hmmph … and go after the Knowledge they need from the Tree of Life with a capital K.”

“It’s about being an artist with your life, about having creative freedom. People that don’t know—can’t appreciate sin—can’t write bestsellers or play Oscar winning roles for the Red Carpet. Let the church say Amen.”

She was making poetry now: slow motion of right over left, squirm, tug, squirm again, hint at rotation, then left over right. When the fabric began to tear, he went into a tirade about using the art of temptation.

He looked at her. Yep, he could tell. That dress was torn, and now she had to keep her knees together. He raised his hands, and said, “Lord please have mercy. Have mercy, Lord.

Noelle Emannuelle

He wiped his forehead with his fourth handkerchief, and sat down next to Deacon Jones, who said under his breath, “Lord, Lord, Lord. I know just what you mean Reverend. Looord have mercy!”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Later, the preacher said to all the deacons, “She told me the store she got it from wouldn’t let her put it on lay-away. Because of that dress, wherever she got it from, I got credit cards being declined, and all my checks are bouncing.”

A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

There he was. At the same outdoor café. At the same small table with a white table cloth, and a single sunflower in a vase.

I’d seen him there before. I was tap tap tappity tapping with my heels down the sidewalk on the other side of the street to avoid him. I had to restrain my geometry from doing what it wanted to do. A drop of Pinot Noir had fallen on my favorite yellow dress, the one with the nine black buttons on the front. I’ll have to ask grandmother about how to get that petty day-by-day, tomorrow and tomorrow, spot out.

I told myself that I was not on a deliberation. Anyway, I had an arm full of bags from the 10 Virgins Boutique. I didn’t buy anything from 10 V, I just got some empty bags so I could put bags of thangs I got from Mary M’s in them. I wanted to look like I did my shopping at 10 V.

My mother told me to never buy anything from Mary Magdalene’s. But since my daddy’s got money, I don’t have to put anything on lay-away.

I began to beat myself up because I wanted to and didn’t want to, be on his side of the street. I was trying not to think about it. Then I stopped thinking. I just let that thang have control, and crossed over to his side of the street.

He was wearing a white linen suit, jacket sleeves rolled up, open toed leather sandals, a panama hat, and sunglasses, pretending to read a book about Einstein’s Anno 1905. He had it upside down. I could feel his stare. It felt good.

“Mister, do you have the time,” I asked . “Baby, I always have the time.”

Noelle Emannuelle

I liked the way Baby rolled off his lips. He had a Player’s accent. He smelled good. Like a man I had smelled once before on a trip using the whereforth. I began to feel giddy.

“Can I help you with your bags, ma’am.”

“The way ma’am rolled off his tongue left me feeling like I needed something. Something good that wallowed in the indescript.

“I live right there,” I said. “In the Storybook House with the wraparound front porch.”

Going up the steps, I said, “I think I sprained my ankle. If my dad was home, I would ask him to help me. But he took mom to a fortieth wedding anniversary party... They won’t be home for, umm, three or four hours or more. I’m in a little bit of pain. Would you mind carrying me inside. His arms felt so good.

I was about to go seriously crazy. The kitten inside me had turned into a tigress, pacing back and forth in her cage, waiting impatiently for me to set her free.

A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

I was waiting for her to walk by. She was later than usual. I wanted to know her name, but hadn’t formally introduced myself. I wasn’t sure, but believed I had caught her eye. I was wearing my white linen suit, sleeves rolled up, brown open toe sandals, my panama hat, sitting at a small table at an outdoor café in Paris waiting for her to walk by.

I was listening for the click click clickety click of her heels as she rounded the corner. The click was a signature of her geometry. Unique and unmistakable. Music to my ears.

I could smell the inebriate she was wearing from half a block away. Mid-Day Magic was the name of the fragrance. Her arms were full of shopping bags. As always, I knew by the distinctive hieroglyphics on some of the bags, she had been shopping at the 10 Virgins Boutique again.

She was every centimeter a lady, and the color of her skin? So rich, so much like a fine cognac touched with cream. She was stunning in that mid-calf length yellow dress, with nine black buttons down the front, wide brimmed yellow hat tied with a black ribbon, sunglasses, and the treasured quintet of ankle bracelets—the ever gorgeous sweetnesses of 휋:

휋 = (C/0) = ∞ 휋 = (C/r) = (6.28 …) 휋 = (C/2r) = (3.14 …) 휋 = (C/(4r) ) = (1.57 …) 휋 = (C/ ∞) = 0

Noelle Emannuelle

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

As she got closer, I pulled out my Shinning Knight card, which meant I didn’t have a Lady Princess. I placed it on the table to make sure she could see it, and hear it snap as I lay it down.”

“Hey, Baby,” I said.

“I’m not your Baby, Mister. And, it’s easy to see you’re not a gentleman.”

“Mea culpa, Miss. Mea culpa.” I had no idea where that repression, the faux pas ‘Baby‘, came from.

“Let me help you carry your bags, Miss.”

“I don’t think so, Mister. My grandmother, my sisters, and girlfriends, are waiting for me on the veranda. Do you have the time? I think I’m late for an appointment with the dressmaker.”

“I pulled my pockets inside out. But couldn’t find my iHilbert phone. I explained I lost it in a scuffle beating up two thugs that tried to steal the purse of an elderly lady. I was embarrassed by the way I looked.

“Since, my arms are so full, you can carry some of my bags for me this time.”

“So you like the store? 10 Virgin’s Boutique?” I asked.

She played me with an unexpected line, “Has your lady ever shopped there?”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Her grandmother frowned when she saw me. Her sister, tame, and self-trained in self- restraint, seemed—well—interested.

Her girlfriend, not even noticing me, said to her, “Take a look. What do you think about these colors for the wedding party: Champagne pearl for your Femme Nine; gunmetal for the groomsmen?”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The door opened, and a gentleman with a hidden ‘bad boy’ grin, entered, rushed to meet her, gave her a tight embrace, and a lingering kiss. Clearly her finance. I was confused by the way her eyes franticly found mine when their kiss ended.

A Mathematical Romance

I needed to sneak out. He looked at the bags I was still holding, and said to her, “Looks like you got some help.”

Looking directly at me, he said, “Say, Man, is this your Shinning Knight’s card? I found it on the steps when I was coming in. I used my iHilbert to run a quick check on your number. Do you know it expired yesterday. Can’t you at least afford to renew it?”

He was a smartass. My fists wanted to kiss his face. The ladies were his audience, so he kept going.

“Hey man, what kind of work do you do?” he asked.

I looked a little scruffy after my fight with the thugs. I had been torn between cleaning myself up or hanging around to watch her walk by. Her finance thought I might be nothing but street trash. The truth is that I wanted to see her more than I wanted to clean up. I’m usually immaculate when she walks by.

“My girl,” he said, “tells me you say you just lost your iHilbert. How do you think you’re going to call any lady if you can’t afford an iHilbert?”

I was seriously ready to cancel him when he accused me of being a King Solomon, and not a Shinning Knight. A Solomon’s game, if you want to call it that, is about quantity. The true Shinning Knight’s game is about the aesthetics, and art of the game. Chivalry, courtship, true romance, flowers, surprising her because you searched for the things that you know will delight her. It’s about the enchantment: the Boo!—that can’t be shielded from the arrow of the Coo.

Even after his insult, I didn’t want to fight him in front of the ladies. I just wanted to get out of there. I meant to take my card with me. I forgot about it when he pushed me down the front porch steps.

I left his face so bashed in, and banged up, so in need of bandages, I knew he wouldn’t be able to say ‘I do’ or kiss the bride.

I expected her to be angry, and horrified when she looked at me. Instead there was hidden glee, and the same look of magic I saw the first time we looked into each other’s eyes.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She handed me my bracelet, and said, “I think you lost it during the fight.

… { ℶ♥{ ℵ♥ { 휔♥ { ∞♥ { ♥ } ∞♥ } 휔♥ } ℵ♥ } ℶ♥ } …

“Do you know what the symbols are?” I asked her softly?

Noelle Emannuelle

“Yes. I didn’t see it on your wrist before,” she whispered.

Her grandmother didn’t hear us, but her frown deepened as she watched the exchange.

“I was confused when you called me Baby,” she said.

Her eyes were talking to me with a soft intensity. I’ll see you tomorrow at the café. Please be there, is what her eyes said.

After that silent conversation with me, I could see she was having a conversation with herself. I’ll see him tomorrow at the café. When my eyes invited him, his eyes said Yes.

I’m such a fool—a fool. I shouldn’t feel this way. Then why did I invite him? And I know better. I do.

But the bracelet. The meaning of the bracelet. And the way he stared, with a kind of knowing, at my ankle bracelets.

Tomorrow I’ll stop at his table, and ask if he has the time, and ask if I can sit down, for just a moment, to discuss what happened yesterday or maybe I’ll say, to discuss what’s happening right now.

Stop, Girl. Stop it right now. The wedding is just days away.

But the bracelet. The meaning of his bracelet.

I watched as she let herself feel it, feel it deep. Feel the storm, the earthquakes. Something inside, an inexplicable knowing, a whirlpool of feelings that she tried to but couldn’t suppress. The feeling …that feeling, wordless, that was happening between her heartbeats.

Her mind was trying to talk louder than her heart. Not now, Girl —Not now. Nooo! …even if he does have the bracelet, and his card does say he’s a Shinning Knight, you know better. You know better, Girl. Not now—you know better, Girl!

A Mathematical Romance

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

A little time ago … well, maybe a long time ago … anyway, just some time ago …

I was sitting on the couch watching the game when she got home from work.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked. “You should be out looking for a job.”

“Baby, if you give me a minute to explain.”

“You’ve lost a job three times in the last three days. I can’t go on like this. I’m tired of being the only who brings home the bread.”

“Yeah, Baby, if you can just be patient, soon I’ll be bringing home the bacon and eggs, the milk and cookies too! Don’t you know how much I love you, Baby?”

That pissed her off. She wanted to be pissed her off. Anything would do. Now she was going to toy with impatience and let her need simmer.

She collapsed on the couch. Kicked her shoes off. Let her feet pidgeon toe about a foot apart, brought her knees together, and allowed her dress to rise more than a few inches above her knees. This was for coy, only a suggestion. It didn’t matter if I was just a puppy who wanted to play with a kitten, her stare back meant don’t even think about messing with me.

Looking like she was tired, she slowly opened the top two of nine black buttons on that yellow dress she loved to wear. Her dark brown skin was glistening.

Then, very deliberately, she took her wedding ring, her bracelets, her necklace, and earrings off and laid them on the table.

“You don’t understand the strain, and pressure I feel,” she said.

Noelle Emannuelle

“Baby, give me a little more time.”

“You don’t really love me, do you?”

“I’ve loved you since the day since you kissed me on the cheek and told me I was going to be your boyfriend. I still love you. You’re my girl.”

“Well, your girl needs you to find a job by end of business day today. If you can’t, your girl is going to find a new address.”

“But baby … “

“Don’t ‘But baby’ me.”

This meant she was going to let the simmer become a boil.

She needed, wanted badly—I could tell—for me to reach out, in the middle of her self-created over heated anger, pull her into my arms, let her struggle to free herself; start with her neck, move from there to her ears, then pick her up, whole body, while she was kicking and screaming for me to put her down.

When I did, she rolled me over, pinned my hands to the floor, and asked with a hunger that always kindled me, “Where are you hiding the high-voltage electricity?”

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

It was rumored that on the Night of the legendary Revelation, the Virgin Mother and Divine Father, put on their hoodies and sunglasses, sneaked down from the Penthouse, and walked incognito among the people.

From the shadows, they listened to the store-front Kabaabaalists (agonists of the Holo-Scriptor’s Tzimtzum) argue that the None contained a One which is the Whole with a Hole which is a None containing a New One, or, in other words, a Prime (with eight new Play-Player faces.).

Hypatia, allowing Pythagoras to put his arms around her waist, smiled and explained that what the Kabaabaalists were saying is simply a naïve description of the Ancient Egyptian (revived by Vico as New Science) Continuous Re-Evolution—of Supersets creating Sets that create Subsets and Subsets that create Sets that are Supersets. Part of the Egyptian Mysteries of Pi.

Piaget, echoing his Structuralism, said, “In short, the notion of structure [in Pi] is comprised of three key ideas: the idea of Wholeness, the idea of Transformation, and the idea of Self Regulation.”

The Nun, Mother Maria, from the Abbess, said, “Since Piaget is unfamiliar with Belinkski’s Mandala, he doesn’t know what he is talking about and can’t tell you the only place you can’t cut bipolarity into two.”

The Virgin Mother and Divine Father also overheard gamblers and part-time prophets insist that what was happening was a game of 21, played with 3 cards only: Card 21 for the World. Card 1 for him, the Magician. And card 0 for her, the Virgin.

“In the battle between the Virgin and Magician,” they said, “the one who attains 21 first would win more than just card 21 for the World, they would win the Universe, and all its –Versionings.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

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Once within the sweetest times, as I lay sleeping in his arms beneath that tree, he kissed me awake. Excited, he gave me a manuscript, and asked me to play with him in the story. “It could be the truth. It’s definitely not a dream or fantasy,” he said.

“I want us to live the experience firsthand, and make it, re-create it, truing it with our own improv as our own truth. Real Truth!”

I read and deliberately mis-re-read the manuscript. Depending on the amount of improv, I wasn’t sure if my ‘believe it and make it true’ skills—especially with a full surrender involved—would hold. Anticipation of truing it, the genius of the jazz found in the interplay of the requited and unrequited, was causing me to tremble.

I wasn’t sure if my ability to move between, and maintain control of attachments and detachments, of my beliefs, of the way I fooled myself about him, would allow me to get sufficiently lost and found in the sweetness of a created truth. That’s when I realized he didn’t know the guy in the story was a new Prime.

A new Prime! We hadn’t found a new One in almost forever. (We didn’t even know when, if ever again, we would find a new Prime or, more improbably, if we could find all the Primes.) I was, I couldn’t believe it, pregnant again with a new Prime. I couldn’t stop the joy that was going into overflow.

I didn’t tell him I was pregnant.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Never-the-less and ever-the-more, … Once upon a time (for real) and far far way, yet near near by, and coming soon or sooner (for real), never late or later ….

Venus, brightest star in the morning and evening sky, was known as Star.Star. She may have been called Easter.Easter before being geek-called Asterisk.Asterisk. Her girlfriends call her Star.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

He was Al- El-, the Magister Ludi, the Magician Prime, Master Doctor of Divination, owner of Club 21.

He performed true divination. No dependence on Greek, Latin or Sanskrit noise. Or any esoteric and cryptic sounds of nonsense—words or phrases or symbols. No unabridged book of spells and incantations.

At first, the Oracle, the Circumscribed ‘i’, told him all he needed to win was to deal cards to himself that totaled 21. Do that, the Oracle said, and the World will be yours.

A Mathematical Romance

A day later the Oracle did a recall, and explained a mistake had been made.

Al- El- wouldn’t win even if he was the dealer because his 21 cards from the major arcana was not a full deck. He would forfeit the game without a full deck. He was missing a card, maybe even the card of all the cards.

Al- El- said, “Well, the boys and me, have been playing the game without that card for a long time. I can’t see why we need it now.”

The Oracle said, “You need it now if you don’t want to be annihilated by her.”

“Her?” Al- El- said. “We’ve been tricked. We didn’t know it was a girl.

“Look,” the Oracle said, “she’s more dangerous than you can even ‘even’ begin to imagine. This is about the omicro and Omega. She is the ‘Greatest’ because she is the ‘Least.’

“No one understands better than her that the key to divination is freedom. The freedom to cause any effect with anything by use of what the Holo-Scriptor calls the ∞ 휔 ‘‘Least Action Principle (훿푆 = ∅)’ and Greatest Action Principle (훿푆 = ( ))with the ℵ ℶ iSTEM.

“She is the essence of Magic and Divination.”

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

She saw him sitting at an outdoor table at La Connaissance de Ce qu'il Ne Faut Pas Savoir. There was an end-of-April breeze in the Paris air. The jonquils and daffodils were waving mischief. There was a vase with deuced narcissus on the table where he sat.

He was wearing a white linen suit, sleeves rolled up, leather sandals, designer sunglasses, and a white panama hat. Debonair and refined, a man of the world, a master Play-Player, was what his dress and demeanor said.

He saw and heard her walking down the Avenue, click click clickety click click, one foot leaving an imprint for the other, with the sass and attitude that said Yes! I own

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this Avenue. Her geometrics were set to just short of stun. Her insouciance was dialed down to a modest tease that was confident, and utterly alluring.

She was coming from the vanishing point on the Avenue, a creature the color of Alabama and Georgia brown, with Mississippi sheen. A brunette with light brown dancing eyes. She wore a rich yellow symmetric midi-bodycon, with nine black buttons down the front, exquisitely accessorized. A V-neck with just enough half lie and half truth to capture his interest without causing him to lose his good manners. Her hair seemed to be a statement of very complicated innocence with a sensual intelligence that whispered Try, if you can, to figure me out.

She was moving click, click, clickety click. Gears in soft upshift downshift alternation, balanced by slow motioned exquisite movement in and out of her patented (according to the Holo-Scriptor) SSB (Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking).

As she approached, he could smell her Make Him Make a Fool of Himself fragrance. They couldn’t keep it on the shelves because it did, as advertised, exactly what it said it could do. He didn’t know she held the patent.

Unwittingly, as she let her eyes fall on him, she stopped breathing. He was not just a gentleman, he was all-man handsome, self-possessed, and overflowing in Play- Player savoir-faire. He clearly had Game, but she was certain it wasn’t at her level.

She needed a second breath.

Seeing her, his composure just barely held.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

“Hello, Baby. Sit down,” he said. “I don’t bite.” (But he knew his dog did. Still, his best and favorite lie as the Magician’s Magician was ‘Nothing up my sleeve, nothing under my hat, and nothing in my pocket.’) He snapped his fingers for the waiter, and said, “A bottle of your best Pinot Noir for the lady and me.”

With a direct stare, she said, “I’m not your baby, Mister. I do have a name. Are you the Magician Prime?”

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“The one and only one. And you’re Star?

Despite her need for poise, she blushed and smiled. It was the way he said her name—Star. She was going to have to fight herself to not like this Play-Player.

“So, Star, tell me, I understand you have the missing card.”

“It has never been missing. It has always been with the Parthenons. There must be a certain kind of danger in the world to use it.”

“And you think you can win the game with it?” He leaned in, let her hold his eyes longer than he intended, then asked, “What do you really want, Star? It’s got to be more than just win a game you’ve already lost.”

She reduced seeming vulnerabilities, and increased her poise. “Prime—may I call you Prime—I think you need to question yourself on a deeper level, if you can, about who you believe is going to be the winner in this game. But, to answer your question, I want three things, as adumbrated from the Noetherian General Theories of Conservation in the iSTEM: the Conservation of Freedom, the Conservation of Beauty, and the Conservation of Love. I want them optimized. Let me say that differently: I am going to optimize them!”

He laughed. She’s innocent of the interactions in the quantum and cosmic worlds. Probably doesn’t know what particle or wave coupling is. But Lord, what a lady. So make a player say, ‘Thank you. Thank you, Lord.’

With practiced recomposing, he said, “Look, Baby ….”

She repressed a giddy. I can’t help myself. I love the way he calls me Baby, the way it rolls off his tongue.

“I told you, Mister, I’m not your Baby. Be his Baby? That’s a madness I could get used to. But not now. Can’t have it like that. That flower is not supposed to be coming out of bud and into bloom. I’m supposed to be beyond his influence. But he is so all- man total-Play-Player good looking.

She realized she was holding her breath. Breathe, Star. … Just breathe, Girl.

Prime tapped two fingers on the table to check himself. She is so Good Night feline fine. If we didn’t have to play this game, I’d be happy to chase her fire and be chased by her flame around the Storybook Tree. I do need to be careful. I think she’s playing far, far less intelligent than she is—the better to make a fool out of me. Good Night, she’s so feline beautiful.

“Look,” he said, “I can’t understand what you need the World for. You have no ideas about what to do with the World. I’ve got plans for it.

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“Well, Prime, I suspect your plans are no more than to continue doing the same things your step-daddy, and his step-daddy did.”

“Listen, Baby. I’ve got good genes, the best. Besides, every generation has to win the World by playing its own best game. What would you do with it, the World, anyway?

Look at those eyes. She’s toying with me. Playing with me... I’m not supposed to be vulnerable to falling. Lord, she’s so feline beautiful. But she’s the enemy. Good dark and lovely Night. So dark and comely and lovely a lady.

One moment her eyes were saying, ‘I know I’m a pretty girl.’ The next moment they were saying, ‘I am all lady: extraordinary, intelligent and beautiful,’ and in the next moments those beautiful peepers sang a sultry song, saying, ‘I’m all the woman you want, so dangerous, and so much more than you can handle.’

“Look,” she said, “I’ve got to be somewhere in 21 units. Could we pick this conversation up again later this evening? Could you meet me at …?

He finished the sentence for her: “… at La Belle Mer Maria?

She completed the offer with, “…at sunset?” Then took a deep breath. They both knew that La Belle Mer Maria was the Notre Dame Noire of romantic restaurants. It famously said of itself, “Shakespeare and his mysterious mistresses, the Dark Lady of his love sonnets, and Notre Dame Noire Maria of his play Love’s Labor Lost, often dine here.”

Girl, don’t go fooling yourself, or playing with your heart. Sunset? A full moon, and La Belle? You know the storyline. Lord, this has to end. I can’t let myself ….go round the Storybook Tree with this Play-Player.

He smiled. “OK.” He didn’t care where, or even when, as long as he could be with her, within the mystique of her umbra, allowing himself to helplessly be drawn into the promethean fire of those peepers.

“Listen, Baby …”

She noticed that the way he pronounced Baby felt different this time. Felt strangely, ping ping url pingling, and wonderfully different. It used 8휋 and the Matrix Tensors in Einstein’s Field Equations from the Holo-Scriptor to ping her heart.

She knew the tensor equations by heart, understood how to play with them, and understood—felt—that she might be fighting the greatest battle of her life. Their fields had collided. And she knew Permeability and Permissivity were a part of the Field

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Equations. She couldn’t make herself stop feeling what she was feeling. His Gravitas was strong.

She entered a calm and let her breathing breathe her into a needed greater poise.

“I like your bracelet,” she said. “It’s beautiful. (Like you …mmm, … like you.) Is it a digital timepiece, or an analog watch without hands?

“Oh,” he said, “this thing? Someone lost it, dropped it in the streets. I picked it up and put it on. I have no idea what it is, what it does, or what it means.”

He handed it to her, faux sheepishly, to examine.

… [[[1+1+1 … 1+1+1] … [1+1+1 … 1+1+1]]] … = … [1+1+1 … 1+1+] = ⓿ = [1+1+1…1+1+1] … = … [[[1+1+1 … 1+1+1] … [1+1+1 … 1+1+1]]] …

“You’re not a very good liar,” she said, and waited for his reaction. (She admitted to herself his Player lying was actually quite good. Just short of the nuance and finesse that would have made him irresistible.) “Your prevarication needs more spin if you’re going to play with me.”

His tried to hide his surprise at being found out. It was pretense. Actually, he was pleased. She knew, or thought she knew, he thought, how to play him.

“This equation,” she said, “as you well know, shows how Zero is used in special mathematical structured structurings called Rings, Ideals, and Characteristics. Here, a coupling … you know … of the … additive and multiplicative identities for Characteristic Zero result in the equation.

“It’s similar to how, in the Zero ring R, the additive and multiplicative identities couple …you know … so that

⓿ = 1

Since he couldn’t repress his smile, he tapped two fingers on the table twice to double check himself. Kill the grin. She knows too much. I’ll have to finesse into Plan B.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Why is he looking at me that way? I can’t afford to like him. Not yet. I have to win the game first.

“You got a man of your own?” he asked.

“No. I don’t have time. I’m working on my plans for the World.”

He ignored the ‘working on my plans,’ and asked, “Why don’t you have a man?”

“I don’t have time for someone who just wants to play games with obelisks, swords, pen and pencils, and faux wands. He has to share my dreams, be willing to discover the mysteries each of us are by ourselves alone, and the mysteries of what we can be and become together … and … the mysteries of what the world can become because of us. That takes serious communion, knowledge of …”

“Quantum interactions …,” he said.

“Cosmic interrelationships …,” she added.

“The inter-intra-dynamics of Standard Model couplings …,” they said at the same time, “is not enough to produce the New Qualia.”

As they did an eye into eye dive together, he said, “Baby …” then let his voice trail off.

“Baby, what?” She asked, her voice soft and low. I can’t believe I just called him Baby.

“Baby, where are you going to find a man like that?” he asked.

“Find? O Prime, don’t you know? A man like that has to be looking for a girl like me. He would understand that I could be his iMary, he could be my iJohn, and together we would be One with the transcendence and immanence, the pure incandescence … of iMaryJohn.”

“Baby, I don’t understand … I mean I want to understand …. “

He took a long self-searching pause, trying to exit being spell bound. “Baby, I don’t know what’s happening. I think I might be falling … Baby, it’s not a good time for me to fall. If I was your man ….”

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“If,” she said, “for sake of argument, you were my man, Baby …” There it is again. I called him Baby.

She leaned in. “So, if you were my man… what were you going to say?”

“Baby … I don’t know. I just don’t know, Baby. I feel like I’d want to give the whole world to you. Baby, … I would. I couldn’t help myself. I’d give you the whole world.”

Suddenly, their embers became oceanic flame. Both felt the beginning of an ascension into a strange and sudden joy.

“Baby?” she whispered.

“Yes, Baby?” he said.

Eyes holding, they knew they were already more than a World. They were a Solar Plexus with a Morning and Evening star. They were a Universe.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Once within a special place, and Once upon a special time ….

She stood at the altar, waiting. Where is my boy? He is supposed to meet me here at the altar. He needs to be on time.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She could see him with the eye that was her heart, feel him now. He was running fast, running swift to meet her at the altar. Running through fields of ideas, of theories,

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conjectures, endless axioms without foundations, knowing now, he had been searching for that axiom, the greatest axiom itself, whose foundation was her heart.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

His sisters teased him, saying he was slow. His brothers laughed, and said that she was fast. He remembered how and when it happened.

It happened when they were sixteen. It happened one Sunday after church services. She grabbed his hand, started laughing, and pulled him back into the empty church, made him run down the aisle with her to the altar. Then her laughter stopped. She pulled his body into hers, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him. It was his first kiss. It was long and slow and soft and sweet.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She could see him with the eye that was her heart. He was climbing over walls made from the bricks of missing atomic elements, missing and multi-furcating particles, and missing equations, while escaping from tribes of new mathematical primitives, while pulling himself out of whirlpools of tautologies made of contradiction and paradox. Out the ambiguity of his own ambivalence. What was he? P or NP?

He was on a quest for knowledge he didn’t have. Knowledge he could only get by falling into the crevice of her heart, a deeper knowledge of the Mystery that she is.

He was halfway past halfway now.

Getting closer with every Kafkaesque stride, pushing forward, ever forward, forward, he was on the path of his deliberation, speeding faster towards his true intent.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She would wait for him, she told him. Wait for him because, she knew, for her, he would jump across infinities of space and time, because he knew each infinity was a stepping stone made from love. She would wait because he was her chosen one. Because he was her boy.

He could see her now. See her with the ‘i’ that was his heart. She stood at the altar waiting for him to present himself to her. One final obstacle stood in his way. Since fighting is fundamental, he had to win his last fight against himself.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She smiled. He was the one she let hold her hand as they took long walks by the sea.

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He was the one she stayed up all night talking to about the Mysteries of what, together, they already were, and what, tomorrow, they could do and be.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

And then, he was there. At the top of the aisle. Coming, as she knew he would, for her. He had been on the four and twenty, and ‘Yes;’ she laughed, ‘My Boy is on time.’

Standing in front of the altar, taking her hands, he said, “Hello Girl.”

She smiled. “Hello, Boy.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

As they flew out of the church and through its doors into the nowhere of now here, they had that dream.

—That dream they often dreamed together when they were in each other’s arms, when they stayed up all night laughing, when they chased each other around the Storybook Tree.

—That dream they dreamed when they found themselves at the top of the hill, on the green, on their backs, looking up into the blue at the wisps of white. Touching and then holding hands: being lifted into sudden joy, and then thrown into a Forever.

—That dream: the First Apocalypse and the First Coming. That dream of a moonlit wedding night.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

That dream, this time, began after the vows, the exchange of rings, and the kiss were past. After the dancing, the dancers, and the dance became one. After everyone felt the magic of being wonderfully and joyously alive. It began after the two ran down the aisle, mount the WhereWhen, set its co-ordinates, and then rose up and out to play.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

They were on the four and twenty. The moon lit a path for them across the shimmer of the sea. Their slow gallop on the mare and stallion picked up speed. Impatience was riding with them. The condition of their condition Was the condition of ember, virgin flame, and fire

They knew there would be floods, and earthquakes, The howls of storm, and erupting volcanoes.

Breathless, they ache for the Apocalypse, Its tumultuous joy, and its exquisite pain

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They had to fulfill prophecy, To give to one another the blessing, the anointing, And the laying on of hands

Of baptizing, and being baptized In waters made of ember, virgin flame, and fire, Awash with, and bathed in

Seas of New Possibilities, Seas of New Beginnings.

Their playing took them back

Before the genes, the molecules, and elements. Back before hydrogen created stars, Before the atoms of every element, Came from the leptons, bosons, and fermions Came from the quarks, Came into being, —and out to play

Came Into the middlemost of the middle, Between the Was and Will Be Into the wonders of the Is.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

It was their love, its making, Which create, Gave Revelation of a New Genesis of a New Cosmic Quantum Universe of New Qualia filled with New Mysteries

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

It was the wrong time to do it, and the Virgin knew it was the wrong time to do it. She had other things she should be doing. But it was pure narcotic. It was going to mess her up. She stopped fighting it, and just let herself do it. Let herself do it anyway.

She was not supposed to visit nurseries. She let herself go to one anyway. The smell of New Babies could put her in a tailspin. Could really mess her up. Helplessly, she picked up one of the little things, held the little thing in her arms, breathed it in, and then became lost inside the coo. She lost track of how many she had cradled in her arms that afternoon.

Finally, she pulled away and went to her special place for dreaming about nurseries full of little ones that find this New Earth a New Heaven.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The dream began when the waters of her belly ebbed and flowed with the waters of the sea, the push and pull of the moon. She remembered the Second Coming, the Hiero Gamos of Omega and omicro, and their iMaryJohn.

Everything was so vivid, so brilliantly strange. So real. Then she felt it moving. and kicking inside her. Using its little hand and feet to make music inside of her while waiting, becoming impatient, to see a New Heaven in this place called a New Earth.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She got lost inside her expectancies of Apocalypse. She began to feel them, the stirrings. She was going to fulfill the prophecy that said,

“There is going to be flooding and earthquakes, mountains falling, and valleys rising. A howling in the winds that holds and takes the breath away. The push push push, echoes

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of pain, followed by laughter, followed by her eÿes opening wide, then shut again by pain, and impending joy.

Made of cries and laughter, made of smiles and tears.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Within the Apocalypse The Heart will see a Face, Unmasked, See it for the first time: Beautiful, with eyes that shining, smile. A Face bringing joy, wonder, and love

The prophecy said,

After the coming There has to be an anointing. There has to be a laying on of fingers, and A laying on of hands. A cradling in the arms, A drawing to the breast.

Beautiful little fingers, little hands, and little toes.

Wonder. Astonishment. And joy. And love. And tears.

The mid-wives, grandmothers, and mothers were transfixed The New One’s smile held violence. The way the New One smiled was almost too much. That smile was a rapture, a ripping open of the heart. Bringing the wonder found only in the coo.

The New One smiled again, And then, for the first time, laughed, And, aiming a quiver full of arrows At every heart, said, “Boo!”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

As the dreamed ended, the Mother awakened, and began to cry. She wanted it. The Apocalypse. The beauty of holding her own New Heaven and New Earth.

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⓿❶❶❶

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((0 = 1/∞), (∞ = 1/0)) ______

Simplicity, Complexity, Chaos, Order, Chaos, Complexity, Simplicity From the Middle of the Middle of the Midmost of Media Res,

{ … { ℶ0 { ℵ0{휔0{∞0{ 00 }∞0}휔0} ℵ0} ℶ0} … }

♥♥= { ♥0⊗  ⊗♥9 } =♥♥

Lessons in Innocence ⊗ Lessons with Experience

♥♥ ⊗ ∀ ⓘ∃ⓘ ⊗ ⓘ∃ⓘ ∀ ⊗  ♥♥

Lessons of Folly ⊗ Lessons from Wisdom

{ … { ℶ9 { ℵ9{휔9{∞9{ 09 }∞9}휔9} ℵ9} ℶ9} … }

In the subtitle: Mythology, Sexuality & the Origins of Culture

In the Prologue: The Time Light Bodies Took to Fall In the Epilogue: The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother ended her reveries and returned to the altar. She studied the face of the Father, then said, “Surrender or prepare to lose this fight.”

The Father, with difficulty, at first held his protest, thought better, then he opened more distance between him and the Mother, and, suddenly, smiled. He knew he had a new weapon to fight her with: the truth. A truth that would change everything.

He circled the altar, circled her, looked out at the people, and said to them, “Listen. She has a secret that she will not reveal to you. But I will.”

“The truth she hides is … is that she is no virgin. She is a whore! Yes, she is a whore! A greater whore than that Harlot, Israel; greater than that whore, Jerusalem; and even greater than that whore named Babylon. Why? Because she sleeps with every one!”

She walked up to him. Got closer. Watched him struggle.

Her eyes questioned his. Then she said, “I created you whole body, a male for my female, equal yet different to me, in every way. Your body to fit mine. I gave you a surprise gift on your birthday. I gave you me. I gave you my body and soul. I gave you my Virginity.

“Have you forgotten what I said to you, as we leaned against that tree, as I put my arms around you, as I pressed my body against yours, bit your ears and neck, and kissed you? A kiss that was softer than soft and long and slow and sweet sweeter than the sweetest sweetness. Do you remember what I said?”

“What you said were lies.” He turned from her to the people. “She said that I was her first one; that I was her only one, that she would never want another one, that I was the best one, and there will never be a better one.

She turned to the people, and loudly said, “The reason we are here is because of things that happened in the Garden.”

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“We agreed,” he said to her, “not to talk about the Garden.”

“You just broke an agreement in our rules of engagement, so I’m free to tell the people what they still need to know about the Garden.”

“They do not need to know. What happened in the Garden is between you and me. I will not stand here, and listen to you fill their heads with none sense.”

Unable to hold in his anger, not waiting to exhale, he performed another one of his disappearing acts, leaving her at the altar, and ascending to the heights of his penthouse.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother, making her way back to the peninsula again, fetched memories, sweet nigrescient memories, for herself.

It was a day of spring flowers and autumn leaves. Of footprints washed away by the ebb and flow of waves kissing the beach’s sand. The Mother and the Father walked together in a surfeit of silent joy. Then came the talk, the telling, and the laughter of the stories of other lovers.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Once upon a time there were two physicists, and mathematicians, named Albert Einstein and Emmy Noether. Everyone knew their story.

The Father smiled, squeezed the Mother’s hand, and said, “The way they fell in love, their problems, the way they lost themselves, and then found their way back to each other, makes their story a model for advanced classes in The Unrequited and Requited Indescript at the Academy.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The legend tells us Emmy Noether’s reputation as a brilliant mathematician preceded her. The physicists teased her about her last name, saying it should be pronounced ‘no ether,’ even though, they had to admit, if she was anything, she was ethereal. Add to that quick witted, fiery, brilliant, and gossamer beautiful with that famous Ipanema tan of hers.

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A Mathematical Romance

Emmy’s work on Symmetry had been vital to the evolution of physics and mathematics.

Emmy argued that the sine qua non of conservation is symmetry and the sine qua non for symmetry is the Cypher. Conservation is utterly impossible without the Cypher. Perfect universal symmetry—the most beautiful and comprehensive symmetry—is based on the Cypher, she said. Fearlessly she argued her tour de force: the Mother’s divination and magic comes from her Virgin Virtuosity with the Division in her Vision. “

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

When Albert Einstein finally met her, he fell instantly and madly in love. She possessed a mind that seemed to match his, and she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Occasionally he would become frightened when he caught glimpses of how her mind’s powers greatly exceeded his.

Their affair was torrid, and reckless. Their need for each another and their inability to repress that need was shameless. They risked losing everything to be together. Their positions of prestige, their families, and friends. Even their sanity, and with it, their intelligence.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

One day, as she lay in his arms under a magnolia tree in bloom, in the Institute’s courtyard, she said, “Albert, I’m curious.”

“About what, Emmy?” he asked, then frowned at the grass stains on his white linen suit and the way his panama hat had been crushed when they rolled over it during a playful tussle.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

“I’m curious, Albert,” she said, “about what you really think about the Lsm. Do you really believe it’s beautiful?”

“Well, I think me and my colleagues, haven’t looked deeply enough into our aesthetic values. But I believe we would never be satisfied if what we find at the end of our quest, a final answer that is not beautiful.”

“Albert, if you would just read the books I gave you: Fearful Symmetry: the Search for Beauty in Modern Physics, and Symmetry and Complexity: The Spirit and Beauty of Nonlinear [ e and pi based] Science. Especially the chapter Deep Down Things: The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics.

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“Personally,” she said, “I believe the Father would be ashamed if something like the Lsm was attributed to him.”

Einstein was silent. He hadn’t thought about the Father’s viewpoint.

“You need to help the people understand,” she said, “that physics isn’t just about mechanics, and laws—absolute laws—governing the four forces. Those words— mechanics, laws, forces—are Newtonian.

“The Holo-Scriptor tells us that explorers on the frontiers of physics are using the words fundamental interactions and fundamental relationships, and inter and intra dynamic couplings of opposites. Words that are one step away from the final frontier of the Gravitissima.”

“You know, Albert, KC is disappointed that you and the geniuses of your High Priesthood refuse to debate her in front of the people about pages 4 and 5 of her How Scientists Peered over the Edge of Emptiness and Found Everything. She argues that all of you are cowards, and afraid to tell the people how vital and central the Cypher has become in mathematics and physics.”

Einstein knew he should be listening. But his mind was somewhere else.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

As they walked silently, and he brooded, Emmy looped her arm through Einstein’s. “You know Albert, the word beauty, as used in the titles of these books on mathematics, Fearful Beauty, Breathtaking Beauty, Spirit and Beauty is at the heart of your quest.

She became quiet, entered a profound silence, then finally said, “The final question is ‘Is it true? Go read Why Beauty is Truth: A History of Symmetry. It argues that today there is no more important concept than symmetry in mathematics and physics. It quotes the letter that Heisenberg wrote to you. He argued that ‘Simplicity, and Beauty are the Aesthetic Criteria for Truth.’

“Have you read, as I’ve begged you, KC’s The Mathematics of Truth and Beauty? Truth, Albert, is what you’ll get when your Beauty has Simplicity, Elegance, and Symmetry based on the structure of the greatest abstraction of all, the Cypher—the Black Virgin Maria.

“The wisdom of the Grecian Urn still stands: Beauty is Truth, and Truth Beauty.”

She tugged his arm, and said, “I have a corollary: Beauty and Truth is the Mystery of Love.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

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“Albert Einstein …,” she used his full name when she had something important to say. “Albert Einstein, you know as well as I do, that the true subject here is the Conservation of Love.“

When he laughed at her, her hands became playful, naughty, and busy. When she began playing with his shirt buttons, he pushed her hands away, and, laughing, said, “Not now. Not here.”

She pouted and said, “Kiss me. Make me stupid for you. All your stimulating conversation has made me hungry.

“Your girl doesn’t know how much longer she can stay in this state of conservation, Albert. She needs her boy to take her to his cave.”

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Riemann caught up with Einstein in his office at the Institute. “Albert, I’m sorry. I can’t help you. Everyone warned you about the Jones’ Family. I thought about it, but I can’t help you. I’m engaged.

“I know Emmy asked if you could help since Mrs. Jones, after all, is one of her girlfriends from her alma mater. Albert, it was you who promised Emmy you would help the Jones’ family by clearing up some misunderstandings about your equation E=mc2.

“Albert, I just can’t help you. You’re going to have to talk to them yourself. After all, like I said, it’s your equation.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Einstein found the house and introduced himself to Mrs. Jones, Mr. Jones, and their daughters (triplets), Mary, Jane, and Beth.

Mr. Jones looked haggard, worn out. Even whupped. Like a man with a bad neuro-numeric crack-cocaine habit. He excused himself to return to his office downtown. He didn’t want to tell his family that now, of all times, his checks for the mortgage, and the girls’ student loans, drawn on his insured Pokémon and Parker Brothers currency account, bounced.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Mrs. Jones, the color of sweet-sweet dark chocolate, was a smoldering ember with brown eyes that could effortlessly destroy a man. She was nothing less than a taste of Alabama sultriness stirred with explosive Mississippi earthiness.

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The girls were actually young ladies, just past 19, and on their way to full bloom. They were clearly new flowers: caramel, dark honey, and creamy mocha. As fresh as spring flowers coming into bloom. Full of dreams, and promises to themselves. They were young, with razor sharp minds, and beautiful.

Standing at 5’ 10”, and constantly pursued by modeling agencies, they turned them all away so they could concentrate on math and physics. Their aims were high. Far beyond the sky’s limits. Only someone very special could even dream of getting their attention.

But Mrs. Jones worried him. Einstein planned to focus only on questions about E=mc2, not Mrs. Jones. The particulars of her geometry created equations with specifics that only Play-Players with the highest level of game could—maybe—handle. All of her derivatives and integrals required a level of damage control she apparently did not want to use.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

It seemed that the girls were fighting over c2 in his equation. Was it a line, a square or a circle?

They used the number 3 to simplify their arguments. (It seemed they used the number 3 for everything.) Mary said, “c2 is a line that is 9 units long because 3x3 is 9.”

Jane shook her head, and said, “You have part of it right. 9 is the correct number, but it means the 9 square units of a 3x3 square. I’m sure you know that a line is not space, but a square is space. Right, Mr. Einstein?”

Not waiting on Einstein’s reply, Beth said, “I agree c2 is about space. What is needed is the kind of space that goes out the same distance from a center—which is a Riemann Sphere. But I’d like to keep it simple, by using a slice of the Reimann Sphere we call a circle, instead of surface or volume.”

Beth glanced at Einstein, smiled at her sisters, and said, "Maybe you forgot the equation, 휋r2, measures the space inside a circle. Now all we need to do is calculate how many circular units we have.”

Mrs. Jones, Einstein observed, intended, deliberately, to make him uncomfortable. He could tell she was going to slowly and patiently execute her tease.

She was the kind of challenge the Player in him wanted—the most alluring challenge he’d seen in a long time. Her palpable gravities, their spin, mass and GeV were emitting levels of sensualities that were seriously testing his game. And he needed to maintain his rep as a player with fearless game.

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She stepped into the conversation, and said, “Wait a minute, Beth. We can’t talk about circular units, until we define what multiple or fraction of the ‘r’ in 휋 is. It could be 2r or 1/2r, 4r or 1/4r, 8r or 1/8r.”

She looked at Einstein, and asked, “Which one is it Mr. Einstein?”

Einstein looked at her. She had that unmistakable something that caused fires she felt she did not have to put out. She was waiting to catch him looking, staring at her eyes and mouth, her V neck perfectly fitted bodycon, staring at the some of this, and some of that of her sine-cosine cosine-sine, as well as along the curves from the small of her back, around it. It! (Lord, Lord—it!), then down along the curves of her legs to her 5.5 inch high heeled feet.

She wanted him uncomfortable. She was going to go Bathsheba and Delilah on him. She wanted to watch him try to suppress his appetite to taste what she was and then lose his mind from needing to devour her.

She snapped her fingers. “Mr. Einstein, are you with me. What’s the answer to my question?

Repossessing himself, he cleared his throat, and said, “휋 is the circumference, C, divided by 2r, of course.”

“So ‘r’ uses a multiple, 2, and not a fraction of ‘r’?”

“That’s right,” he said. Mrs. Jones’s particulars were multiplying his appetite. His breathing, fractional now, was becoming slightly labored. It was that small and narrow waist of hers. The things that were above it and below it.

“That means,” she said, “it is relative. You could have chosen any number since it is just a choice.”

“The one I use is ….”

There was some play in Mrs. Jones’s eyes, and her mouth—as if she was asking him if he wanted what she had, as if he could have it if only …. It was interfering with his ability to think.

“Is it written in nature, Mr. Einstein? I just want to know if you believe it is a multiple or fraction of ‘r’ that we find written in nature.”

Einstein was silent. He felt himself wanting to put his arms around Mrs. Jones’s waist, pull her close, and lose himself the full 360 degrees of all-woman that she was.

“So why didn’t you just choose ‘r’ itself? It’s the simplest number, isn’t it?” Mrs. Jones asked.

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She was, he had to admit to himself, a real woman, a complete, and complex woman, worthy of …. Lord, have mercy on me, he said to himself.

Einstein, regaining his ability to think, was beginning to get angry at Mrs. Jones’s questions. She could see it in his eyes. Which meant, she knew, his want and appetite were growing. “Well,” he said, “traditionally we agreed ….”

“Who agreed, Mr. Einstein? If you had remained traditional, and engaged in the politics of consensus, we wouldn’t have your Special, and General theories of relativity, would we?”

She was in his face, up close, her mouth close to his. Her scent was all over him. He could feel her breathing in and out.

“So, not because of tradition but because of relativity, you could have chosen a fraction of ‘r’ just as easily as you could have chosen a different multiple or simply ‘r’”.

Her spitfire was overriding his cognitive powers. Her wild semi-kinky curls, the sensual chocolate on sweet chocolate dark skin provoked a yumm, and an mmm, mmm, mmm. His lips were crying out to taste the dark fire of her skin, her shoulders, her neck, her ears. He couldn’t remember the last time he had chocolate. Mrs. Jones’s was the finest he had ever seen.

“But we didn’t,” he finally said.

“But, Mr. Einstein, you could have. You could have chosen the elegant, simple, and exquisite ‘C/r’ where 휋 would be equal to 6.28 … instead of 2r where 휋 is 3.14 ….”

Einstein frowned. Her eyes were emitting powerful little gravities. He forced himself to breath normally. Words in his head said, Apparently she wants to see me lost in her equations of perturbation. Lord, Lord, O Lord,

Einstein crossed his arms. “We decided what we decided. I told you we all agreed on what 휋 is.”

She read his eyes. The Player in them was saying, Sure, we could have done something different. I want to do something different. I really do. Would you be willing to do something different—later, but soon? Real soon?

“So you chose 휋 by committee?”

“I didn’t say that.”

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“Tell me, is 6.28, which is C/r, just as much a constant as 3.14, which is C/2r, and just as much a constant as 1.57, which is C/4r)?” Mrs. Jones asked.

Einstein, ever polite, turned away. He didn’t want her to see the scale of certain appetites in his eyes. Trying not to look—stare—at what she had, was making it difficult to focus on any numbers except hers.

“But we could, couldn’t we, Mr. Einstein, substitute 1.57 … or 6.28 … for 3.14 … in any constellation of equations? What would happen if we did that?”

“What would happen if we substituted either one in the 8휋G in your General Theory, the one with tensors? And why so much 휋? 8휋? Does all that 휋, wound up round and round create the tensors?”

Einstein had had enough. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold back his mathematical profanity. He wanted to cuss her out, take her in his arm, explore what she was, let her cuss him out, solve certain of her equations, and cuss her out even more.

He had to leave, get away from Mrs. Jones, her stuff, and her questions. Heading for the door, he could hear her questioning him as he began to walk, then run, out.

“So, Mr. Einstein,” Mrs. Jones said, “since it doesn’t make a difference, and it’s not written in nature, since its political, it could be a multiple that approaches infinity; it could be approximately one, or…or” her breathing was labored, sensual, and she was getting breathlessly excited, a contagious excitement he could feel, as she said “or …even … a fraction that approaches zero, zooming back and forth between ⓿ and ∞.

“What if C was always 1, and we used these two equations from Riemann’s Sphere:

⓿ = 1/∞ and ∞ = 1/⓿

“Am I on the right track? It’s relative; it can syncopate, play jazz, with its zooming in and out? The sweetness of it all? Right? What do you think, Mr. Einstein?”

He couldn’t think. His eyes were searching for a last look at the exquisite, all woman, with a capital W, that she was. He had never wanted to solve a woman’s equations as badly as he did hers.

He wanted candy—sweet-sweet dark chocolate—candy.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Emmy and Albert bumped into one another at a seminar being given by the esteemed Dr. Planck on Units in The Theory of Everything: Stoney, Planck and Geometrized: A Quest for the Ur Dimensionless Unit. Emmy demanded an explanation for why the Cypher, the Imaginary Unit, and the Imaginary Unit Sphere were not included with his candidate units.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Emmy thought she saw Einstein in the audience. She hunted for him during the intermission. Finding him, she asked, “Who’s the lady you’re sitting with, Albert? Is she Mrs. Jones?

“What are you doing here?” Einstein asked.

“Me? Tell me why you’re here with her instead of me?”

Einstein could see that she was peeved, moving quickly towards being female miffed, and might move into a scene-in-public rage.

“Emmy, I was just trying to help out like you asked. She’s just somebody … uh … who is interested in, you know, my primary interests.”

“And that is?”

“How the Father’s Mind works. Believe me, she’s just somebody who has my same interests,” he said.

“I see. So you want to know how the Father thinks, and what he thinks?

“It’s just that simple,” he said.

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“Then let me tell you what I think about what you and your Boy’s Club think.

“I think,” she said, “When you and your boy geniuses followed Descartes, you were not thinking clearly. In fact, you were not thinking at all. You were just playing with your vectors, their length and direction. You blindly agreed with his mantra, ‘cogito ergo sum’, I think, therefore I am.’

“You should have been driven by ‘sentio ergo amo,’ I feel, therefore I love.’ and ‘ergo quos amo, ergo sum, I love, therefore I am.

“You made a mistake—a big mistake,” she said. “You only wanted to know what the Father thinks, not what he feels.”

“How do we know if he feels anything?” Einstein asked. “I only want to know what’s on his mind. I only want to know what he thinks.”

Emmy, now in Einstein’s face, said, “I know what he thinks. I know what’s on his mind. She is all he thinks about. She is the only thing on his mind! ‘Ego sum qui sum,’ I am that I am is what they whisper to each other.

“And,” she continued, “He does something with her, you haven’t done with me in a long time. He takes her on moonlight walks by the sea, tells her she’s beautiful, and gives her softer than soft soft kisses.”

“And then … and then …,” she said in a hurt voice, “ … he takes her to his cave.“

Einstein thought she was going to cry. Instead, he felt the sting of her back hand across his face.

Miffed, Emmy told herself, Everybody knows Mrs. Jones is a good girl. She’s got that extra-electric somethin’ somethin’ that comes from being churchified. She’s a sanctified woman. I’ve watched her pass out in church on Sundays. I should have told her to be careful. Albert is a bad boy. A very bad boy. It takes a girl with serious game, a girl like me, to play with him.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Father breathed deeply, tried to compose himself, tried to control his anger. Who Mother did she Virgin Mother think she was? The ugly truth she didn’t want to accept is that she did not have a Reciprocal. She should have known that without a Multiplicative Inverse, her Multiplicative Annihilation made her Anathema to every one in the Boy’s Club.

But why? Why did she bring up the Garden to the people? Everything that happened in the Garden must be—has to be—forgotten. Things happened there that they should never know.

He found himself lost within a sea of memories.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

I remember the first time I saw her. She was sitting beneath that tree, eating a piece of that fruit, turning the pages of a book in her lap, glasses perched on the edge of her nose, her fingers casually tapping a calculator on the grass. She possessed a satin dark sheen that mesmerized me.

She looked up and smiled when she saw me. I had been on the road counting the things I could do instead of doing the things I could count, while in and out of eternity. I was beginning to become frustrated, angry, and bored. When I saw her, all of that changed. I could feel her excitement at seeing me. I watched as she stood up to welcome me.

I stared. Couldn’t help it. She had things I’d never seen before. Things from what she later told me were made from her geometry. What a metric. She is some number, I said to myself. I’d never seen a number like her before.

She smiled. I felt my breath leave me. “I’m the Cypher,” she said. “You can call me Zero.”

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My eyes kept wandering over her geometry. I couldn’t breathe: It was the gravity of her eyes, her lips, and the smooth and silky darkness of her skin. Everything—her symmetry, the full puissance of her geometry—left me incoherent.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

After, with difficulty, I regained my composure, I introduced myself. “I’m Number One. I am the First One and the only One. I am the One that was in the beginning.”

“This garden had no beginning,” she told me. “And the First One has always been in this garden.”

“However, you should know that every place here is at (⓿, 1). One inch is at (⓿, 1), one meter is at (⓿, 1), one mile is at (⓿, 1), and one interval of any measure of time is at (⓿, 1). 1 light year, 1 light month, 1 light day, 1 light hour or 1 nonillionth of a light unit is at (⓿, 1). Everywhere and every when here has the same sacred origin: the middle of the middle of the ever: The Holiest of Holies.”

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Little earthquakes were percolating in my chest. I felt things I had no words for. She moved, just a little, closer. A kind of excitement possessed me. I felt helpless because of her nearness. Her scent filled the air. My nostrils involuntarily flared, as I breathed her in, making me lost in a way I’d never been lost before.

“Would you like to play a game?” she asked.

I could barely exit the bliss. Play with her? Or whatever it was she was. I was thrilled.

“This is a simple little game that uses the Gamete (the Holy), and all of the gametes at (⓿, 1)—battle ready marines, willing to go into the marina, willing to sacrifice themselves to become the Chosen One of the Holy.“

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.* ‘ “Before we can play,” she told me, “you must solve the Mystery equation, the ‘Me’ equation, to prove to me you’ve got the kind of magic I want, and need, if I let you play with me. Then I will tell you the rules of the game.

Smiling, she said, “Although the Mystery equation, the Me, is all about the number 1, its complex, and you may not be ready for it yet.”

“If it is about the number 1, it will be easy, because I know everything there is to know about the number 1.”

“Good,” she said. “If, in this game,

⓿ = 1 + X2 , what is X?”

I thought about it for a moment. She saw the puzzled look on my face.

“Let me simplify the equation,” she said. “If X*X = –1, what is X?”

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There was some play in her eyes. Some play in her smile. I said, “There is no number that is the answer to your so-called Me equation. You can’t multiply a number by itself and get a negative 1.”

”Since we’re just playing, can we pretend, or imagine the number exists?”

“But it doesn’t ….”

“That’s fine,” she said. “I can see you have no imagination, that you obviously are not free enough to imagine anything you want to imagine.

“I guess that means you don’t really want to play with me. I don’t believe you even know how to play. You probably never played with anyone but yourself. And since you don’t want to play with me, you can go back to wherever it is you think you came from. I don’t want to play with you, if you have no imagination.”

“That’s fine by me,” I said. “I don’t have to play with you.” I began to stalk out. She didn’t try to stop me.

“Then go,” she said, turning away from me with her hands on what she later told me were a part of her geometry that she called her hips.

She didn’t even blink. “Besides,” she said, “there are billions of other ones—false ones pretending to be the real one—who would die, in fact are dying, to play with me. You’re the only one I let in the garden because I thought you were the real one, and you don’t even want to play.”

(Her statement was a ploy, a tactical play. Later I found out that the mind of her heart knew I was the one and only real one.)

But I was dying to play with her or whatever it was she was. It felt like destiny. It felt like fate. I couldn’t believe I’d never seen a number like her before. Did my All- Seeing Eye have a blind spot?

“Ok,” I said. “I’m going to let myself stay this time because I believe you need someone to play with. And I’ll help you find an answer to the Me equation.”

When she smiled, I got chills and goosebumps.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.* ‘ “Since,” she said, “everywhere here is at (⓿, 1), and our names are ⓿, and 1, can we can let (⓿, 1) be the name we share?”

It sounded harmless.

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“ … and our home address?” she asked.

I didn’t know what a home address was. She assumed I’d say yes. So she continued.

“… and one more thing, since (⓿, 1) is so long and hard to pronounce can we change it to something shorter, simpler?

“I don’t see a problem with that.”

Her smiles were killing me.

“I’d like to use something Greek,” she said. “Like—maybe iota. It’s perfect because it’s the 9th number, a metric (for you), and the 9th letter, a word (for me.)

“… and because iota is 3 syllables long, and takes too much time to say, can we just call it by it’s initial, ‘i’?”

I didn’t really care why she wanted what she wanted as long as I’d be able to play with whatever in heaven’s name she was.

“Since we are using ‘i’ as our name and address, let’s use ‘i’ as the answer to X for the Me equation, letting X*X = ‘i’.“

“OK,” I said. I was happy I didn’t want to look for an answer to the Me equation anyway.

“And, just one more thing,” she said. “Will you help me make a matrix?

“I don’t know how to make a matrix,” I told her.

“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you how.”

I wasn’t really interested in making a matrix. My hands just wanted to reach out, and play with whatever in heaven she was and had, and which she told me she was going to let me play with.

I thought she had finished setting the game up when she said, “This is what we have to play with so far:

‘i’ = (⓿, 1). Our address

‘i’ = (⓿, 1). Our name, us together, and now,

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1 ⓿ −1 ⓿ ‘i’ = − ( ) and/or ( ) . Our future matrixes. ⓿ 1 ⓿ −1

‘i’ = Our answer to Me.

“Now” she said, “we can have some real fun.”

I didn’t wait for her to explain real fun. My hands reached out for her. She ran. I chased her round and round that tree until I was exhausted. Then she pushed me down, straddled me, pinned my arms to the ground, leaned forward, and did the unforgettable. Gave me my first kiss. I had to close my eyes. The sweetness blinded me.

I wanted more, but didn’t know what more was.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

“I feel unreal,” I said, “Really unreal. My feet can’t find the ground.”

She laughed.

“It’s the kind of unreal that feels better than real,” I said. “So magical I can’t imagine anything could feel better.”

“Why don’t you try to imagine? Set your imagination free?”

As I reached for her, she escaped my arms. Her laugh at me was so beautiful. She smiled, then said, “You want more? You have to imagine more first. I will give you more if you follow the only rule in the game.”

“Then tell me what the rule is,” I said, breathless with eagerness.

“Since (⓿*i, 1*i) = (⓿, i), every where and every when and every thing in the garden is made of images from the magic of our imagination.

“The rule is self-evident,” she said. “

Wherever (⓿, i) exists, and Whenever (⓿, i) exists, in Whatever Metric of a Matrix (⓿, i) exists, I alone will be real, and you will be imaginary—only imaginary.”

“Do you mean,” I frowned, “I can only be your imaginary playmate?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what it means. You can only be my imaginary playmate. After all, we’re just playing. And this is just make-believe. Right? Just part of a story, right?”

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I stood up and glared at her angrily.

“You’re crazy,” I said. “Your last rule is insane. I’m a real number. A real real number. I’m not going to be your imaginary anything.”

“You don’t have to play,” she said. “It’s my garden, my playground, my playhouse with my special playrooms, and my game made up of many games. The quaternions (i0, i1, i2, i3 …) used in the CGI (Cosmic Graphic Interface) belong to me.”

I was at the edge of a fume. Her cost was too great. It was an insult to what I was. Who or what did she think she was. I left her. She couldn’t be the only number that had what she had.

5 =⓿1⓿1

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Father was tired of listening to the Mother pontificate on her powers. Within the Haven of his penthouse he smiled, and laughed quietly to himself. He had other things on his mind besides the Mother’s mathematical gymnastics.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

MaryJane. MaryJane. MaryJane! She had begged for a private audience with me. As an intern, she was surprised when it was granted. She was told it had do to with extenuating circumstances, and the reasons, Kafkaesque, were unknown.

I see now, looking at her, she is an exquisite creature. She is not the Mother; and clearly—at least it looks that way—doesn’t have the Mother’s genius at Self-Expression. Still, since she’s just an intern, I’m glad I decided to give her some of my time.

I granted her an audience because of certain terms in the polynomials, the co- efficiencies of her sine-cosine cosine-sine, and the overall movement—tempo and rhythm—of her geometry. Her 휋 generated parabolas are, technically, illegal. And she knows it.

“MaryJane, I’m sorry the Mother isn’t here to help with your interview.”

“Thank you for seeing me. It’s OK about the Mother. I really just want to interview you,” she said.

“That’’s fine, MaryJane. What’s on your mind?”

“In my research, I’m trying to understand the mathematics of freedom of choice.”

“Ahh, yes freedom.”

“And choice,” she said.

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He can’t be easily fooled. I’ve got to be careful. I don’t to want spook him, allow him to discover my research is for my thesis on the Philosophy of Infidelity: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Want and Need.

He smiled. “Of course. No choice. No freedom.”

“Here is the thing about choice,” she said, “At a certain point it becomes either paralysis or obsession or … well, or boredom.”

“True,” he said. “It is no longer about art or science. Without freedom, choice is about, well it’s about death: the –cide and –fin.”

“Yes. Decision and Definition. And Repression. The Art of Self-Repression in particular,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying understand. Is this a good start?”

I wasn’t sure about everything she said. Her fragrance was intoxicating. It had some mmm. And I liked the way she said, ‘Good.’ Her ‘good’ had some yum, some sport to it. I was reluctant to exhale.

I couldn’t tell if her smile, the way she curved her lips, was knowing, shy, or innocent. There seemed to be, but I wasn’t sure, some deliberate play in her coy.

“If you are going to choose,” he said, “between this and that, these, or those, one or many, you must make a decision. You have to decide.

“That is what choice is about. The –cide in decide is the same –cide in the words patricide, matricide, fratricide, and, not to be overlooked, the word suicide. When we talk about deciding we’re talking about killing. Some one or apart of one’s self. Does that make sense?” he asked.

There is something about her lips. I wonder how many times she’s been kissed.

She uncrossed her legs from the right, tugged her short yellow skirt, and crossed her legs to the left. There was, he noted, a small beauty spot, a hieroglyphic, high above her left knee. He was still too far away to decipher it.

“Yes. I see where you’re going.” she said. “Define comes from the root ‘–fin’ and tells us we have got to finish the meaning for a word by killing all the other possible meanings.”

“We have to say ‘Fini’ and ‘The End’,” he said. “This word means this, and only this. We must finish the other potential—shall we say ’other possible’—meanings off. Kill the unwanted meanings, terminate the unwanted terms, all the other million billion trillion potential definitions.”

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She shook her head to show she understood him.

“However, and I’m sure you know this,” she said, “a word doesn’t have to have just one meaning. It can have many.

“A word can wear a certain meaning during the day, dress in a different meaning for the evening, spend a night on the town, invite her date in for a nightcap, and change into a meaning that is a little more comfortable. A woman can have a closet full of meanings, and still have fun adding, removing, and accessorizing meanings from her closet.

“A woman,” she continued, “can use a word to mean this today, and that tomorrow, if she is a real woman. If she is truly free, she can say to herself, and to the world, this word means exactly what I say it means, and only what I say it means until I say it means something different.

She paused to see if he followed her meaning. “To that I would add, a woman’s dress or pair of shoes can say one thing and mean another. It can be used to tell little rainbow lies. Am I right?” she asked.

He nodded. Pretended he wasn’t doing anything but listening to her.

“I’m sorry for rattling on,” she said. “I don’t own the words I used. They came from my grandmother. She is still teaching kindergarteners the art of telling little rainbow lies. I’m just repeating what she said. I’m only a schoolgirl. I haven’t been out to see the world. I haven’t even been around the block, not even up or down the street to play.”

The Father laughed. She is so refreshingly wonderful. I like her.

She uncrossed those long perfect legs again, taking an extra few extra seconds, a slo-mo siege, to cross them back, and express a little more cautionary truth with her upper parabolas. She then leaned in closer like an earnest student eager to learn. Apparently, he thought, she doesn’t know what she’s doing with her geometry, especially her parabolas.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked.

“Can you make a Green Apple Kiss, and throw in a cherry?”

He watched her raise the flute to her lips. I still can’t tell. Maybe, even if she has been kissed, she was never really taught how to kiss.

She stood up to leave. Squirmed, just so, tugged at her skirt.

“Come visit me again, MaryJane? Freedom and choice are tough subjects, especially when mixed with concepts such as the Art of Deep, Next to Unfathomable

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Self-Repression, and the Art of Obsession in Self-Creation, and the Art of Feminine Rhetorititicity with Clothing. Do you know what I mean?”

“I think I do,” she replied. “What I’d really like to do—to be honest and truthful …. what I’d really like to do, (play the role Girl, play the role) since you’re so easy to talk to, is discuss, that is, explore, your Philosophy of Fidelity to a Choice, and what it means to be or not be free to make a different choice or continue being faithful to an earlier choice that may have never been a choice one made out of freedom in the first place. A choice that one keeps repeating—a type of self-enslavement, an attempted escape from freedom—with a sort of eternal repetition compulsion. Do you know what I mean?

“I believe I do. You’re referring to a choice where, for eternity, there is no contempt from familiarity, no onset of boredom, or the yawn of disinterest. Right?”

“Right,” She said. “The choice could be an idea, belief or something else. I think you know what I mean. Would you be willing to explore that subject with me?”

He watched her leave.

Yes. Her skirt is a good choice. It fit her geometry quite well. One must be a connoisseur of the tititillating, and tantalizing to appreciate what she has.

Still, the Mother does things, has modes of self-expression that–well, Lord, Loordy, Lord. The Mother still has me so messed up. It’s how she plays the way she plays.

There is a somethin’ about her somethin.’ Maybe it’s her sense of self- possession, the powerful knowledge of herself, of how to use her freedom to take what she needs, when she needs it, from the deeps of her own mystery. She’s so free, so wild—Heavenly and Earthy. Lord, help me. Sometimes I can’t do anything with her. Lord, she is so untamed. So free, So wild!

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

It was all about the size and shape of their specifics and particulars.

The Mother and all her Femme Nine were there. Some were standing in front of mirrors; others were sitting at the dressing tables polishing each other’s nails, doing each other’s hair, and applying makeup to one another.

They were in Muse mode, doing their musings out loud with music which alternated between loud and soft. From jazz, classic, and country, to hip hop, rap and blues. It depended on the things they were trying on, testing the fit for: shoes and matching purses; dresses, skirts, blouses, and soft-knit sweaters. Swimwear. Jewelry. And then, there was the lingerie. Lingerie—all shapes, sizes, fabric, styles, cuts, and colors. For all purposes and all intent.

The trash cans were overflowing from empty bottles of champagne, and empty boxes of imported chocolates.

There was a lot girl-to-girl, sista-to-sista, and woman-to-woman talk. All chatter. And laughter.

About him.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The Mother said, “Girl to girl, the Father has no timeouts left. He used up all his take fives, scene cuts, and fade to blacks. He’s got to get his acting game together. He must decide to stay in character or not. I don’t have time for Bloom’s Hamlet or Falstaff. In this game the Father’s got to play or be played by me. It’s the way I do the things I do. I don’t have time for foolishness.

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“I explained at the beginning of this class, this is a Pass/Fail course. And now he claims he can’t understand why he isn’t passing.

“His Ace is in trouble, wouldn’t you agree, girls. He’s not the Magician he thinks he is. He can’t play his hole card and win.”

More laughter.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

I didn’t expect MaryJane back so soon. I wasn’t complaining. It’s just that she came without an invitation. Actually, it made seeing her again that much easier. I would never admit I wanted to see her again. That’s why I didn’t call.

We had some small talk about cosmic and quantum weather. Then I became serious. “What do you really want MaryJane?”

“Don’t you know by now?”

“I’m not sure. I might be making assumptions I shouldn’t be.”

“And ….” She asked.

“Well, listen, MaryJane, I know you’re not a licensed therapist yet, that you are still an intern, but I need your help.”

The look on her face said, “Go on ...”

“I don’t know what to do about, you know—her.”

“Tell me more,” she said, as her eyes, and restless geometry attempted a siege. His cage held.

“MaryJane, “he said, “Do you really think you can help me?

“Anything? I’ll try. Tell me how I can help.”

He felt foolish. He was embarrassed, even afraid, to say it was psychiatric. Involved repression. Some paranoia. Re-definition of the self. Re-evaluation of values he had held for … well forever. But not really forever because he really hadn’t been around that long, considering how much longer—percentage wise—he planned to be

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around. It was the fundamental problem of a unit of infinity, even if the cardinal was different.

As calmly as he could say it, he said, “She’s still a part of me. I don’t want to think about her, but I do.”

MaryJane tried to keep her dismay from showing. I’m here, in front of him, with lots of stuff, new toys he hasn’t played with, and my sweet-sweets that could help him, and all he can think about is her.

“MaryJane, I can’t decide what I should do next?”

She felt this might be the perfect place to make him say what he was afraid to say, force an end to his equivocation. But first, she wanted to watch him lie to himself.

“Would you prefer me to help you as a therapist or muse? Or maybe a close friend, a confidant?”

He wanted her, at least, to offer something else, even if he didn’t accept it. Anyway, he was not planning to accept it. He just wanted it to be offered.

She let loose a ‘You don’t want me, do you?’ pout.

He struggled. She’s so innocent. Like the student pet I’ve always wanted. Eager and ready to learn.

She moved her body to the edge of the chair across from him. Force him to ask me for it. Even if it’s just with his eyes. Force the ‘O My Lord.’

She leaned forward a little more. She was wearing a long necklace of champagne pearls. He watched them sway. An ‘O my Lord,’ almost escaped his mouth.

She knew a hint of suggestion, and a little of ‘This is not the Whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth’ was subtle, and more powerful, than ‘The Whole Truth.

The pearls dangled on a background of glistening dark brown between her cosine-sine and sine cosine. He held in a ‘Loooooord, pleeeeease.’

She was just beginning to work her plan. “Now give me more details about the Mother,” she said

His iHilbert rang.” It’s the Mother,” he said. “We’ll have to finish this later.”

“Just one thing, before I go,” she said. “If this therapy is going to be successful, we need some time to get to know each other better. Some time, you know, when we won’t be interrupted.”

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He didn’t hear MaryJane.

The Mother was on the other end. He knew he had better pay attention, and not divide it. The Mother, as a general rule, felt she should not have to tell him anything more than once.

MaryJane smiled, hiding her anger, as she walked away. Anger at the interruption. And her jealousy of the Mother.

Talking in sista-girl-decibels, loud enough for the Mother to hear, she said, “Let me take you to a beautiful villa at the top of a very high mountain. So high the clouds float beneath us. So high we’ll feel as if we have a little piece of our own heaven.”

She realized he didn’t hear her.

Her last words were to herself. “ … A place where we won’t be bothered by her.”

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

MaryJane came to set things straight. She didn’t want to be just his muse and therapist. If there was going to be a transference, it had to be total. She wanted him to fall in love with her by falling into her bliss. She wanted him to always want her, her stuff, her fire, and feel like he was breathing her in even when she wasn’t with him.

“I need you to be honest with me,” she said to him. “What do you really want from me? Do you want me to be your therapist, your muse, your very close and intimate friend (He knows, if only with his body, what I mean) or all three? Do you really want my help? And how much are you willing to pay for it?”

He shrugged his shoulders. He had believed the transaction would be based on goodwill and mutual interests. A relationship-in-progress.

She explained they were dangerously close to a psychoanalytical transference that Freud would not approve, and therefore they needed to be clear about what it meant, how it could affect their relationship.

“I could charge you a small fee,” she said.

“That sounds good. It keeps things professional.”

Then she said, “I’d like to keep the fee very inexpensive since I’m not licensed.”

“Yes. Of course,” he said.

“A kiss, a real kiss might be enough,“ she said. Enough means enough to start, enough for me to score first.

He figured it wouldn’t hurt, and in fact, it was a good idea to pay her the fee if she was in the role of therapist. Besides, she probably didn’t take credit cards. Anyway, he knew free stuff frequently led to unwanted complications. He needed to keep things professional.

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The kiss began with a prelude, some foreplay of exploratory tongue touches, tests for a taste of the sweetness of the sweet that heightened and pushed anticipation to the next-next, followed by the needed press that gave the needed surprise, the delirium of suspense, followed by the final press and a euphoric high before release. It was only a twenty minute kiss.

Then came a cascade of the aftershocks of want that pop, tickle, and introduce the laugh, and sigh, the up shift in need.

The Father’s iHilbert rang.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

MaryJane was not the kind of girl who would walk away from a game like this, especially at this level of play. She didn’t like losing, and in her game plan, interruptions were forbidden. Fair play was a detour, not the way she played.

When she entered, again uninvited, she knew he might pretend to be blind. It made no difference to her. She was going to make sure he looked, went blind staring at exactly what she wanted him to stare at: that her geometry, and stuff, had changed.

Those Brown legs were a little longer, and a little darker, infinitely more dangerous, leading to a mesmerizing pygia. Her sine-osine cosine-sine had been incremented to perfect numbers.

And her pygia. He whistled inside himself, Lord, yes. Her pygia. She pronounced it 휋Geo. She wanted him to go blind staring at it.

Her hair, the style, and cut were different. Now she had frizzed and curly blonde hair with streaks of brunette and charcoal. It was wild, kinky, mussed, deliberately uncombed, and insanely sensual. She wanted him drunk from the perfume in her hair. Wanted him to need to wallow in it, to nose dive into it, and fight coming up for air. She wanted his insanity controlling him.

She wanted him to feel like the Sin of Infidelity was the new religion he had been looking for.

She was ready to make her move. Go slow girl. Go slow. Don’t frighten him. Just be the kitten he wants to teach.

He was trying to think. MaryJane is probably always working on her thesis, and doesn’t have time for fun. Has that pretty little head of hers in her books too much. Probably doesn’t have a boyfriend.

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It certainly doesn’t look like she has been introduced to playing jazz with all five senses. At least by someone experienced.

He watched as she adjusted her top, squirmed in her seat, tugged her skirt, leaned forward, and smiled.

He asked himself, Is it possible that she wants me to want something she won’t give me, even if I begged.

I don’t think she even knows she’s just a kitten who doesn’t know she is asking ‘Can you do it? I’ll let you, if you want to—do it. I need you to do it. But I’m just a school girl. If I needed a teacher, it would be you. You would be the one. I need you to be the one.’

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

MaryJane said, “Before we were interrupted by your iHilbert last time, you were going to tell me about your problems with the Mother.”

“Yes. Yes,” he said. “I can’t get inside her heart anymore. The magic between us just isn’t there. Is it me? Is it her?”

“You’re the problem,” she said matter-of-factly.

He was shocked, and a little more than just puzzled. “Me?”

“You won’t surrender. You won’t let yourself fall. You believe you can be what you want to be without her.”

“I don’t need her to become what I need to become.”

“And that’s true. You don’t need her. But you still need to have a fall with or for someone.”

“Besides, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t love you anymore. It could be something you did or didn’t do. It could be something you didn’t know she wanted you to do, or you didn’t how to do it even if she told you she wanted you to do it. You wouldn’t have this problem with me.

“But as I explained, your primary problem is you won’t surrender. You won’t let yourself fall. You believe you can be what you want to be—omniscient and all knowing, without falling.”

He frowned. “Fall?” he said.

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“I think,” she said, “it’s unprofessional when … “

“When what?”

“When the Mother discusses your personal problems with … well with someone like Maslow. I overheard her discussing your Hierarchy of Needs, how it doesn’t exactly match her Hierarchy of Needs, telling Maslow things that made it sound like you’re not enough of what she wants and needs, and you don’t understand where you are or should be in your own Hierarchy.”

MaryJane paused. She wanted to give him a second to let her rainbow revelation sink in.

“Forgive me,” she said. “I shouldn’t have told you about her and Maslow, the unbelievable intensity of their discussion. “As I said,” she cooed, “you wouldn’t have the problems you have with the Mother with me. Just let yourself forget about the Mother. I can help you get to anywhere you want to go.”

“Mmm, how would you do that?”

As he thought about the kiss, and how she probably had to repress a need to wrestle with him, he wrestled against his own want and need.

“Before I answer, I need you to know I didn’t finish the bad news,” she said.

“What? More bad news.

“I’m afraid so. “You can’t go to the Play-Player’s Annual Ball year after year with the same thing on your arm. I know for a fact, your boys, behind your back, are beginning to question your game.

“The nub of the bad news, however, is you are afraid to fall in love with me. The idea of an affair scares you.”

Fall in love with her? An affair?” What if the Mother found out? But MaryJane said I’m afraid. I’m not afraid of anything. Why should that scare me. After all, in my quest to know everything, I guess I’d need to know what it feels like to jettison fidelity, wouldn’t I?

“Well,” she said, “this is just a professional observation. Maybe I’m wrong. Anyway, you know, you’re like … well, a teacher to me. Still, as your therapist helping you explore your repressions, I have to ask. Anyway … if we had an affair, if you could handle it, an affair, how would you handle it?”

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Lord, Lord, Lord. She wants to know how. She has so much yumm and mmm. Sweet-sweets and new toys … well, to be honest, since I haven’t played with them, if I did, it would move something from my Do Not Know column to my Do Know column. Lord, Lord, Lord. New toys. If I’m serious about increasing my knowledge I should just go on and play with her New Toys. But if the Mother found out … but the Mother should understand there are things I don’t know that I should, perhaps, know. Lord, O Lordy, Lord… New—brand New Toys.

“So,” MaryJane said, “If you could handle it, what would your first move be?”

Handle it? First move? Suppose, just suppose I was somebody else. Suppose I wasn’t me. This would probably already be in my ‘Do know’ column. I’d know the right first move would be to pull her into my arms, and explore the divine creature that she is. Lord, have mercy on me. Loooooord, such sweet sin and temptation. New toys, my hands exploring new frontiers. Going places where they’ve never gone before.

He had to wrestle with himself to change the subject. “You told me there is some good news.”

“Yes, of course. Now some good news,” she said. ”The only thing I want to do is help you be the best that you will ever be. We could probably complete your therapy quicker if a couple of little things weren’t in our way. But that’s Ok. I think we can work around those two little things.”

“What two little things?

“Oh. Just that you’re committed, been committed to a choice for—do you, uh, know how long—how long you’ve been committed—uh, exclusively, to that choice?

She watch him try perform a few calculations. He’s asking himself ‘How long— Heavens—how long has it really been,’ and then asking himself, ‘How long—how much longer is it going to be this way—without New Toys?’

“And, besides the commitment problem, there is that other little problem.”

She paused. “Well …it’s that I’m … well … it’s embarrassing, but I’m still a virgin (Girl you’re good. I think you mixed 3 colors of the rainbow together for that one. Girl, you give yourself some love—a whole day at the spa, or at least, a mani-pedi. Girl, you got game, and soon you’ll have a Ph.D., and a Nobel Prize to go with it).

“You’d be first …,” she lowered her head and said with faux tremlbing. She watched him lick his lips to prevent salivation. She was ready to reel him in, arrest him, and use his key to lock him up in a prison he would never want to leave. She wanted him addicted to the stuff that dreams of semi-sweet dark chocolate (melt in your hands, on your tongue, and in your mouth) candy is made of.

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The opening of her V-dropped gold lamé top plunged to her exposed diamonded belly button. She had a barely tied sash holding her polynomials together. One tug, one tiny slip, an oops, of that sash, a decimal point that suddenly goes missing, and ….

In just six months she would have her Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Infidelity. He was her final piece of research.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

MaryJane took a deep breath. The truth was that he was messing her up. It was that kiss. She didn’t know it was possible for a kiss to do what his kiss did to her.

She wasn’t supposed to be vulnerable. She hadn’t expected this. She needed to be subject-objective. The scientist in her had never been messed up before.

She was beginning to want him for the rear-real, not just for the research. She was getting really messed up, stupid messed up. Lord. She couldn’t believe he was making her go ‘Schoolgirl’ crazy.

Everything she had read about him made her think he was a puppy, and would be easy. She didn’t expect it to get this way. He wasn’t the puppy she thought he was. The Mother had done something to him. The puppy was just a face he wore. Behind the puppy was a dog. A big dog. A bad dog. And it was chained up by the Mother.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The Mother has locked him up in some kind of mathematical cage she cyphered using her own P v NP solution. I’m not sure if the mathematical equations she used even have a theoretical foundation. This is not what I planned. If I could only get him to my villa above the clouds before he drives me insane.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Lord, I want him. Want him more than I want the Ph.D.

I need him. Need him more than the Nobel Prize. Lord, he has messed me up.

But I will take him from the Mother. Which means I’ll outplay her. I am going to make him mine.

Lord, that single kiss just wasn’t enough. I want it again. I want his arms around me again. Followed by that second kiss again. Followed by the loft and lift into iMaryJohn ascension. Again.

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At that moment she realized something. I’m a math genius. I know something the Mother doesn’t know. I found something—a New Prime—in him the Mother hasn’t found. I can and will take the Mother out of the equation.

If the Mother was here in front of me right now, I’d prob’ly go sista girl on her. Tell her the Father belongs to me now. And she bet’ leave him the father alone!

And just to think. The Mother used to be my best girlfriend.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Grandmother was taking a walk along the seashore. She saw the Mother sitting on the crags at the far end of the peninsula. Strong waves crashed against them.

She looked at how the Mother turned her head, and eyes away when she approached. “I don’t know many things, but I do know love, and its troubles, when I see them,” she said in a concerned voice.

“I can’t go back to him,” the Mother said. “He broke our trust. He uses cocaine numeric-neurotransmitters when he runs with his boys on the street.

“He called me a whore in front of the people. I can’t forgive him.”

“He lied to me. He lied to the people. He hasn’t been faithful to me. The way he looked at MaryJane was not innocent. I watched his nostrils flair, saw him try to breathe her in, and hold it, when she walked by. He was staring, Grandmother. Staring.

“I think he stole a pair of my new panties, and gave them to her for some kind of mathematical voodoo.”

Grandmother looked at her, and said, “You know, of course, the real Mother can be herself, just one, or she can be a many, as many as she needs to complete her Ph.D., or she can be a many to give him what she thinks he wants. Which one or how many Femme Nine are you playing now?

The Mother opened her mouth in shock. “How many? I’m not playing. I stopped playing. He’s the one still playing. I would never lie to you Grandmother!””

“If he’s still playing,” Grandmother said, “it’s because he’s lost, and doesn’t know how to find himself; and he gets no help from you. You are, you know, just as lost as he

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is. You don’t understand the Self-expression you are wearing now, or which one you should be wearing, if any.”

Grandmother sighed. “How could both of you allow yourselves to get caught up in such dangerous stories, and even more dangerous romantic games?

“Love is not always a game. You will never find each other if you do not know how to find yourself. Isn’t that the goal of the lesson you’re supposed to be learning for the class you’re in now?

The Mother wanted to protest, but knew Grandmother was right.

“Can you see your true self,” Grandmother asked, “when you look in the mirror of your heart? Do you see your Signature of Fire?

“It all depends,” the Mother said.

“Whatever you think it depends on,” Grandmother said, “is dangerous.”

“But Grandmother, you don’t know the kind of Play-Player he’s become, how good he is at it, and how what he gives to me and what he takes from me is so good. So good, Grandmother. I know you know what I mean.”

“What I know is that you shouldn’t be a character in this story or any other story if you’re going to get so lost you can’t find yourself.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother knew there was too much debris in her relationship with the Father and that it had to be jettisoned.

She didn’t know if she should meet him on what he called his own ground, a place whose heights they used to share, a place that had what they called the Playrooms.

She had a gift for him, a peace offering she made herself.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She ascended to the top of his penthouse, found him staring out the window. The place, for a strange second, seemed to be more Haven than the Heaven she remembered.

He felt her coming, and turned to face her. “You’re always coming when and where you are uninvited.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Do you want to stay?”

He resisted the need to sweep her up, and touch her lips with his. He defended himself by taking a step backwards, and turning to the window to see reflections of himself, and her standing behind him. “Tell me why you’re here,” he said.

“I thought we could rewrite some of the terms and conditions, our rules of engagement. Maybe even write some amendments to settle some of our differences, to make a fresh start.”

She took a step forward, wanting to see his eyes. “If only you would let me understand you better … I promise to listen to you, hear the logic of your thoughts, your arguments.”

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He folded his arms. “You want to understand me better? I don’t believe you can understand me since you do not understand yourself. Do you even want to understand yourself?”

”All I want is for you to tell me what you feel.”

“What I feel? What I feel? This is where it always ends. This non-abstract talk you call feelings,” he said.

“Why can’t it begin here?” she asked.

“Because your definition of ‘understand me’ is not in my dictionary.”

She used to know him. But now she realized she didn’t really know him because she didn’t know how he re-defined himself, or if he was in the middle of a re-definition of himself. She didn’t know where he saw himself in his own autobiography which he said he was still writing.

There were other books filled with vignettes, some experimental, about himself he had written, given to her, but which she never read because she didn’t agree with the solutions to some of his equations.

She stayed in her pause. He remained silent. Stalwart. He could barely concentrate. He wanted to wrestle with her. Pin her down. Let her pin him down. Take the lift, the loft, the float. Take repose in the sigh.

“Then, I won’t ask you to talk about what you feel,” she said, “Instead, let’s talk about what you want. Can you tell me what you expect, what you want from me?”

He couldn’t say what he wanted. He didn’t know how. He only knew any words about his feelings would be lies to himself, as well as lies to her. This was something she refused to understand: the words he needed didn’t exist. He wanted to forget about looking for definitions, or even the truth, whatever it is, something she believed she knew about him. He just wanted to wrestle with her.

My words, and her feelings, all the tossing, and turning, and throwing while we wrestle, can only point to the thing, that thing, but still will not be the thing itself. Why can’t I admit I want, in spite of my protests, the thing—that thing—itself?

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Now breathing deeply, she found herself falling into the indescript of need:

I want him to take me in his arms. I want the Heavenly rise and the Earthly fall. Why won’t he take me in his arms the way he used to? I need a kiss. A kiss that hovers in the cosmic regions that fulfills quantum prophecies.

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“If you won’t tell me what you want, “she said as she adjusted her need, “I’ll tell you what I want, what I need. I want you to write poems for me, like you use to, by rearranging stars in the constellations.

“I want to feel your arms around me even when you’re not with me. And then I want to feel a love so deep it makes me cry. Is that too much to ask?”

He was quiet for a long second. He focused on her lips to avoid looking into her eyes. This is not the time to fall into the sea of what she is, and let myself be drowned in the waters of her fire.

Finally he said, “I don’t understand why those things are important. Anyway, I already know the things you really want. And I know that you will do anything, anything, to get them: Use your words, and that Word to lie.”

“I just told you what I want.”

“But you didn’t tell me you want to be First.”

“I can’t help what I am. And First is what I am. First is what I will always be.

He bit his lips. “And you didn’t tell me you want a matrix ceremony and a matrix. You didn’t tell me you want me to stand before the people, at the altar, and say things— certain things—in front of the people. I’ve told you before, the mathematics, the equations, don’t exist. The mathematical and predicate logic isn’t there.”

“Finally, actually first,” he said, “You want me to do the unthinkable. You want me to stand in waters made of fire, whirlpools of unknown depths, and give myself to your undertow. You want me to fall. That will never happen. If I let myself fall, then I become a failure. And I refuse to be a failure.”

She took two steps towards him. His eyes stopped her. “Don’t,” he said. ”You need to get the father out of here before I throw you out. Go back the father wherever you came from!”

Her anger bubbled up, then out. “Go father yourself,” she spit out.

“And you,” he said, “can fructify yourself. You think I give a fecundating mother father anymore.”

“Well, I don’t give a John Jackson or Jack Johnson what the furcate you think.

“What kind of game are you playing?” he demanded. “You won’t even tell me the rules. How the father am I going to know what move to make?”

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“I tried to explain the rules,” she said. “You didn’t want to listen. You didn’t want to understand.”

“Understand? Understand what?”

“Understand the matrix ceremony, and the matrix.”

“The matrix. Always the matrix ceremony and the matrix. I’m done playing your game. You don’t know John or his brother Jack!”

She wanted to throw him against the wall, on the floor, all over the place … and do the same thing to all of Jack’s step-brothers: ab- ob- bi- de- re- in- sub- and e-.

She locked eyes, and said, “What the mother can you do about it. You don’t give a gene and his progeny in a new hydro-genesis. Why the father should I even give a scat about you?”

“Scat,” he said, “you are full of scat. You don’t want me in this game anyway.”

“That’s because,” she complained, “you don’t give a gamete from all of your fathering gametes in this game? So, what the father, are you going to do about it?”

He wanted to let John go crazy, throw her against the wall, on the floor, all over the place …

Feeling a surge in his anger and requite, he said, “I want you to stop fathering with me. You and your manufacturing. I don’t give a fact, Manufacturer. Go fact yourself.

Reflective for a nano-second, he noted her re-control over her requite, and finally cried out, “Go! Get the father out of here before I kick the scat out of you. Fact it. Fact it. Fecundate it. Furcate yourself. Just go father yourself!”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She handed her gift to him. He took it, crushed it angrily, and threw it away.

Her voice became loud, strong—purposed. “You’ve broken all the rules of engagement. It’s time for a new no-contract contract.

She walked over to the window. Turned to him, eyes full of a hurt she couldn’t hide, and the pain that comes with a requite unfulfilled—what she needed, the way she wanted it—to be set free.

“We have been away from the people too long. I’ll meet you at the altar, so we can sign the papers, and finish this thing.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Father stood in the window. He needed to see with his own eyes, be sure, she was on the path of her intent, moving swift within her own severe, and defiant deliberation into the Lady Chapel.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Now that she was gone, he picked up the crumpled digi-script in the corner. He had crushed it with emphasis, and thrown it away in front of her, needing to hurt her in some way. His feelings about his actions were a storm of doubt, regret and confusion.

He needed his center to hold. The prospect of reading her script excited him. The smolder of her fragrance was still on the envelope.

Not able to help himself, he breathed it in, held it as long as he could before letting it out. Then he ripped open the envelope, and read the script. It was another one of her equations for love.

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i = ̈ ♥♥̈ ♥♥♥̈ ♥̈ ∞ 휔 ̈ √♥ ( ) ♥♥ ℵ ℶ =

√♥♥ = (⓿/1, 1/⓿) = ∞ ♥

The equation cut him deeply. His thoughts bordered on the incoherent.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

I don’t understand. Mathematically, this doesn’t mean anything, makes no sense. It’s only scriblescrabelbiblebabble, and scatteredscat. She can’t use hearts as mathematical symbols. Her symbols are not forces in nature.

I told her ‘There is no subatomic particle, strong-weak forces, electro-magnetic waves, or gravitational tugs called love.’

I carefully explained to her, ‘There is no fermion, lepton or boson named Love. No abstract dyadic couples with geV = 0 to ∞, charge = 0 to ∞, spin = 0 to ∞, and mass = 0 to ∞.’

She would demand an explanation of how these things interact with the ‘i’s on every circumference, meaning every point, on the Riemann Sphere?’

She would argue back, ‘You made up the names, didn’t you? You didn’t get those names from nature.

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Of course we made up the names, I told her.

Then why didn’t you give names to the quarks like Trust, Faith, Belief, or Courage? Why aren’t we talking about the spin, the charge, the mass, and geV of Love?’

She’s so fecundating frustrating. I told her she couldn’t use a pseudo equation to say that together, we are the root of love, and the power of love, a love that is infinite love. You can’t, I told her, mix numbers with symbols for words like this. Real mathematicians and physicists never do this. It has no scientific flavor. From top to bottom, it would be too strange.

I still can’t understand what she’s trying to say, what she means, because the words she uses, words for feelings, are undefined.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

He smoothed the script out, and put it in a safe along with all the others.

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❶⓿⓿⓿

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother remembered the day before the Revelation. She was in the Gardens of the Parthenons, down on her hands and knees weeding the garden when her army arrived.

Still kneeling before them, she took a handful of rich black earth imported from Al Khemet, smiled at her army, then took a second to inhale the aromatic earthiness of the soil, and let it run through her fingers.

“Understanding the Mysteries,” she said, “begins with understanding Alchemy.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

“Alchemy,” she said, “is a concatenation of Al– and Khemet. The prefix Al– or El– is the etymon for divination, and “Khemet is the ancient name for Egypt. It means black.

“The true Mysteries—the Nubian Mysteries, the Nigerian Mysteries, and the Ethiopian Mysteries (collectively known as the Egyptian Mysteries) were known only to the initiated Black Priestesses of the Kabaala: the (푒𝑖휋)2, the (푒𝑖휋)2 Sophia, and the AuRa (푒𝑖휋)2 Sophia.

“The deep Mystery you must understand is the Mystery of 휋.

"휋 is the sacred hieroglyph that reveals the relationships of the period, the perimeter, and periodicity to each other. It is encoded in the synchronization of the moon and women’s bodies.

“휋 is not a constant. It is a relationship, a dynamic relationship to the circumference created with any multiple or fraction of the radius. Not just 2 times the radius, as any of the following examples show.

휋 = (C/0) = ∞ 휋 = (C/r) = (6.28 …) 휋 = (C/2r) = (3.14 …) 휋 = (C/(4r) ) = (1.57 …) 휋 = (C/ ∞) = 0

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“휋 is a family, a matrix, of the relationships of omicro and omega, ⓿.⓿, both of which are imaginary unit spheres divided by a period, that zoom back and forth between ⓿ and ∞. It is the Imaginary Unit Spheres that allows ⓿.⓿, = 1/∞ and ∞ = 1/⓿.⓿, to be sacred ur-hieroglyphics. Whether 360 720 1440 or 2880, all are used to grow new flowers and fruit for our communion with our flowers and trees in our gardens.

“The men are still confused about what come first. The apple, the apple seed, or the apple tree. Piaget’s Structuralism offers a multi-disciplinary synthesis of the thinging of a thing that things. It should help them answer the question. Especially if they co- quate it with Bloom’s Map of Misreading.

The answer lies outside the powers of mono-ideation, dyadic division, and the non-dynamic dialectics of trinity and quadratics found in the Tao’s Ying-Yang and the I Ching’s ring of 64 Trigrams. A new more powerful way of thinking exists: the indubitable unfalsifiable absolute of freedom in thinking powered by the Axis and Axioms of Pi. This is what I will teach today. The Mysteries of Love, Beauty, and Serene Seas of Seas. The Mystery of wielding the Absolute Mystery itself with the freedom found in Pi.

The Mother then offered deep nigrescience about sine and co-sine in the Trinity, and the unparalleled mysteries of conic sections, their parabolas, circles, and ellipses; A quark, she explained, is created by three things, three relationships. Relationships that are the intrinsic qualia of pi: Period, Perimeter, and Periodization.

She explained how it is the ratio—rational and irrational—rationation and ra- relationing of Ra pre-positioned within the Qualia of the Quark as spin and counter-spin, versing and counter-versing, zoom and counter-zoom of pi. No linear quanta can produce the qualia found in the extra- intra- infra-, ultra-, supra-, and umbra- radiations, rationations, re-ralationing —the 360, 720, 1440 … —of power within the Peri that comes out of true truing a truth out of ex Peri essence.

It is by that quintessence, that qualia, that thing, not just the thing itself, we are transformed. At its center, we find non-linear knowledge, the instrinsic hara, ki, and haragei of using a period, not a sword, as Samurai. We find from within it our clarity of purpose and vision: we find pi.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Father caught himself listening to the noise inside his head.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

I have problems with my khemistry, neurotransmitters (an extreme over production of dopamine and little to no production of serotonin) she said. There is no way around it. I have to admit it, admit that I’m an addict, that I’m addicted to the narcotic, the crack- cocaine of counting numbers. But I don’t count to spend. I count because I like the high, the rush, I get from higher numbers. It is so dope to be counting up, increasing my units of magic, doing anything to make more magic. Especially letting my magic make magic out of nothing.

The Doc told me they compared my brain scans with other addicts, and had to put mine—counting and growing numbers—at the top of the ‘most addictive’ list, and tag it as ‘the most destructive.’

He said my addiction, the uncontrollable dopamine produced, by counting numbers, and growing numbers is worse than addiction to gambling, alcohol, smoking, heroin, and uncut cocaine combined. He wanted to be sure I understood that addiction, just like cancer, is a game where addiction doesn’t stop playing until it has killed the host.

The Doc says I should be under psychiatric care, in rehabilitation. I should be in a hospital. He reminded me that many who do far less offensive substance abuse are in prison. Too much of the neurotransmitter dopamine can destroy a life, a family, a people, a nation, even a world.

I don’t belong in prison, I told him.

But, the Doc said, You’re already a prisoner of the number crack-cocaine that owns you. You’re not just its prisoner, you’re its slave.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin Mother arranged flowers in a basket, then said, “It’s time to talk about the war. Our situation with the men is dire. Following in the footsteps of the Father, they have become drug addicts. They are letting their addictions destroy them, and everything around them.

She pulled up a handful of weeds, took her straw hat off to fan herself, put it back on, straightened her iridescent framed sunglasses, waited a long minute, then met each eye before saying, “However, when you look at our situation with a different set of glasses, you see all of it is our fault.

“Yes, our fault. We have to raise our hands, and say, ‘Mea culpa. My bad.’ Then we have to be responsible and say, ‘I’ll fix it. My mistake. Mea culpa. I’ll fix it.’”

“We knew they were using numbers like crack-cocaine.

“We allowed what happened to happen. We tolerated it. We knew it was a cancer bent on destroying its host.

“We knew they were using numbers like crack-cocaine.

She shook her head, then said, “Make no mistake about it. We are in a war with the men because we did not admit we are in a war with ourselves. Did not admit we have not won the war against ourselves.

“We knew they were using numbers like crack-cocaine.

“We don’t love each other enough to fight for each other. And … we don’t love ourselves enough to fight for what we are and what we can become. For what we can be and do. The greater tragedy is that we don’t love the New Heavens of today or the ones coming tomorrow enough fight for them. All of this is because we have not won the battle with ourselves.

“We knew the men were using numbers like crack-cocaine.

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“And yet we don’t even love the men enough to help them with their addictions.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

“How much love will you put into fighting yourself for yourself? And fighting for our peek-a-boo-beautiful-wonder-filled-laughing-eyes? How much are you willing to use love to fight for your grandmothers, your mothers, your sisters, and your girlfriends?

“I can’t say it enough: you must first spend time fighting against, with, and for yourself. Fighting is fundamental. And fundamentals are first.

“There is a warrior inside of you. “A Samurai! “Let her come out! “Know her! “Free her! “Love her! “Love her as much as she loves you!”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

“For this war, alone—by yourself—you don’t know enough, aren’t yet wise enough. You need the collective wisdom of all battle-hardened grandmothers and mothers by your side.

“For this war, alone—by yourself— you are not yet fierce enough. You don’t have enough courage and fortitude. You need your sisters at your side.

“For this war, alone—by yourself—you are not yet brave and fearless enough. You are not yet disciplined enough. You need your girlfriends at your side.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The Mother’s voice became very sober, “The warrior in you needs special weapons in its fight against crack-cocaine addicts, the High Elect and Polite Scatolaliacs who think they are Entitled with a capital E, to what you are, and what you have, and think they are Entitled to stop you from creating gifts for the world, making it more beautiful.

“You need to achieve invincible proficiency with a cache of special weapons. You must become a master at using SASS, the following special weapons from the arsenal of a Sista’s Art, and Sista’s Style:

Of talking with your hands To end the conversation with ‘Read this Hand’

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The ‘Stay, stop’, gestures with the left hand. The ‘Get lost!’ wave off with the right hand,

Dismissal using the eyes; The stare down that says ‘Ain’t no way.’ A roll and hold of the neck, with a chin tilt and arched eyes, that says ‘What? I ain't gon say it twice. I ain’t playin' wit you.’

The turn your back and walk away That says, ‘Keep talkin’ to yosef’, I ain’t listenin’.’

The hands on your hips with The answer to all things stupid, “Hello, No, and Hello, Naw!’

The all up in his face that says,

“If you ain’t, then git scared. Cause if you mess with me, I’ll come back with my Sistas and Girlfriends, To kick your front into ‘A joyful noise And your rear into humiliation.

“Be sure you know how, and have the skillset to weaponize your panties. Remember, you are backed up by an army.”

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

During one of many interludes, Riemann said to Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, “People still don’t understand what Gravity is. All your blooming explanations do is balk, baffle, and befuddle.

“The dictionaries are hopelessly confusing on its structure. Never ask a theoretical physicist. He’s even more confusing (especially to himself if he can be honest with himself about the questions that erupts from why 8휋G in General Relativity.)

He’ll only find the need to create an irrational Rube Goldberg, with dozens of solutions for getting from here to there, based on artificial consensus on the rules of play. Some beautiful, some clever, some inventive. But most of the new RGs will be dysaesthetic inanitites of incomprehensible studpidity.

“Only the Holo-Scriptor,” Riemann said, “makes it plain. It tells us:

Gravity is the [Mystery] by which [Everything] is brought towards one another.

“That is, Everything gravitates towards Everything to form a Unity.

“Then the Holo-Scriptor provides us with the needed, beautiful, elegant, and simple equation of Gravity as a Geometrized Unit:

Using his Imaginary Unit Sphere, he said, “Looking at my sphere you can see that that Unity is a Perimeter of Equality.

G = 1 G = 1 = ⓿ + 1 = (⓿, 1) = ⓘ = (‘i’) = ‘i’

“Most simply put, Gravity is Love.”

♥ ♥♥ √♥ G = ‘i’ = = . ♥ √♥ ♥♥

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The great Athena Parthenos, with the Virgin Mother’s blessing called for an iHilbert gathering of all Femme and their Femme Nine at the renown Parthenon.

Venus, Isis, and the nine muses were also scheduled to speak. One of the greatest woman mathematicians from ancient Greece, the famed, and beautiful Hypatia, was going to give the keynote address about the Vision.

Her fame was based on her contributions to the Egyptian Mysteries for her studies on the mystery of 휋 in the ellipse and circle, and how, under 휋, the ellipse and circle are under continuous transformation into and out of one another.

She began, “Ave, hail, and welcome to all. Using your iNoethers, turn to Part III of the Secrets of the Samurai.

“Our focus here is on the Concept of the Center. You each must integrate the most powerful centers of your Central Self: your heart, mind, spirit, your focus itself, and the Vision of that focus within your own Central Self, and within that of each other.

“The center is non-linear. It is powered by 휋 in two ways. Circular for transformation, and zooming in and out for unfurling, and explosive flowering.

“Please read the text and look at the illustration on page 423. It tells us linear and non-linear power must be used to win a war. In this case our war is not to defeat the men, but to integrate them into the creation and execution of a quantum and cosmic vision whose meanings, many, are hidden in our wombs—the wombs of our mind, the wombs of our spirit, and the wombs of our heart, and That Womb which makes us and gives to us, the divine beauty that we are. We are a garden she is growing of herself.

“Something new, of dazzling beauty, waits to be born. We must do that which the men cannot do: create a New Garden, for a New Hiero Salaam, for a New Earth worthy of being called a New Heaven using the mysteries of the power of 휋.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The Virgin Mother began crying. Her soft tears turned into helpless sobs. Then she collapsed.

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Little Emily squeezed her mother’s hand and asked, “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

Her mother said, “Her heart wants what Her heart wants, and what Her heart wants is so vast …

Little Emily, with a powerful calmness, with no wrinkle in her serenity, said, “Then our mastery of the intrinsic powers of 휋 in hara, ki and haragei, where our center is in her and her center is in us, will give us what we need to create—to give birth to—to realize a vision as vast as hers.”

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

For a long time, aeons perhaps, the Virgin Mother and Father refused to make peace with each other. He, because of his library, and she, because of her closet and the affairs he refused to talk about.

It could have been billions of years before they forgave each other or just a billion nanoseconds. It could have been a billion billion years compressed into a billionth of a billionth of a nansecond. Or simply no time, to speak of, and relatively speaking, at all.

At some point, however, time itself demanded the calculus of integrated and derived limits, and called for a discontinuation of the dyscontinuum. Peace had to be made.

.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The Virgin Mother and Father realized they had been away from the altar too long. The interlude was long over. It was past time to return. They imagined the people were getting restless.

It had only been a five minute interlude. If speaking in zero bang time (0!), and Relative Units Theory, a nonillion of nonillion universes could have come into the ‘is’ and gone back out to play. The Virgin Mother and Father played in many games on many levels at the same time. However, this game was special. It was about the birth and creation—the genesis and revelation—of something New.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Standing applause and electrifying ovations filled the arena as the Virgin Mother and Father returned to the altar at the same time. He from the west, and she from the east.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

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The Mother looked out at the near and far people in the iHilbert arena, and said, “The Holo-Scriptor tells us a Maria (the mater or matrix of el mar, del mar, and il mare) is a Sea of Seas—the seminal container, the bayt-al, the beth-el, that (like a set, a group, a ring, a field, … a category) holds Everything. I am That Maria.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Somewhere in the audience, an infant cried. When the cry became louder, the Mother left the altar, walked up the aisle, and held out her arms. She rocked the baby back and forth until its cry became a coo—beautiful, soft, and sweet.

She whispered to the baby, “I know what you are. You’re a New Heaven and New Earth. I know why you came here. You came to teach something we forgot: how to play. You came to make the whole world play peek-a-boo with you.

“You came to make mothers and fathers submit to your smiles, get down on the floor and do all kinds of silly things just to hear you laugh.

“You came to steal women’s and girl’s hearts, make them fall madly in love with those eÿes, make them speak your language, make them talk baby talk, to say ooooh and awwww.”

She knew when holding a baby it was so easy to get lost in the coo. She knew she was in the middle of a fight with him, and had to be careful. This was not the time to get lost in the coo.

Pulling the baby closer, as if protecting it from the father, she peered into the fathers eyes and said, “You have a book, which is in fact the first book in your Book of Books.

It’s a book that tells us that in your beginning there was a void you called the deep. You said darkness was upon the deep and the deep was filled with waters. And the Spirit of a Face moved within the darkness of that deep, endless, formless Sea.

“When the waters were divided from the waters, my waters from my waters, the Spirit of that Face came out of the darkness, and for the first time, the Face could see light.

The Father, his voice edged with anger, looked out at the people, and cried, “She is trying to change the truth. All this business about a void, darkness, and a Face that moved upon the waters of the deep, is an old, old tale told by mid-wives to naïve young women asking where babies come from. It should not be in the book.”

“So what did you name the Face? The one that moved?”

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“No one here cares about the name of the Face,” he said.

John of Bethlehem and his wife, Mary of Bath-Al, stood up. Their twelve sons, John I through John XII, stood up with them. (His wife’s given name was Beth-El, sometimes El’ Beth, meaning ‘The Sea which is Home to the Face.’ This was before it became twisted and misspelled by the censors.)

John of Bethelhem cleared his throat, and said to the Father, “I care. The name of the Face, almost lost in the dim past, was known as Gen or Gene. Used as the prefix Gen– or the suffix –gen. Sometimes Jyn–, or Jan–. Overtime it became distorted, and mispronounced until it became the name we now know as John.

“According to the census, John is the most popular male name of all time, a name still worn by a vast and enormous army of boys and men. Mothers and Fathers keep naming their daughters Mary, and their sons John, generation after generation. These names speak to something deep inside of them.

“That deep something,” John of Bethlehem continued, “is that both names, Mary and John, are immersed in the mystery of water, immersed and bathed in the mystery of the parting of the Seas. “

Mary of Beth-Al interrupted. “I carry a girl within my womb. I will name her Marie Baptiste.”

John of Bethlehem, hugged his wife, kissed her lightly, patted her tummy, turned to the Father and continued. “You made sure there are more books in the Book of Books named John than any other name, didn’t you?

The Father didn’t answer.

“And,” John of Bethlehem said, “You made sure there are more Sees in the Sea of Sees named John than any other name, did you not?

The Father crossed his arms.

“Mothers and fathers,” John went on, “continue to name their sons and daughters Mary and John because the powers of those names reverberate with the sacred mysteries and meanings of the breaking of the waters, birth, baptism, being born again, and becoming something New.

Mary of Beth-Al, looked at the Mother, then frowning, looked at the Father, and asked, “Where are the books named for our Dark Virgin Mother Maria? Why were her books destroyed? We know you burned them because they revealed things about the powers of her Virginity, and the Immaculate Conception, and why she is the Great Divisor.”

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“It was only after she divided the waters above from the waters below, and light from the darkness, that the Face opened his eyes, blinked for the first time, and could see."

“That’s when she taught him how to play with the first mathematical toy: division.

She showed him how to divide the foreground from the background, clockwise from counterclockwise, the qualia from the quanta. She showed him how to divide the up quark from the down quark, the sound of each music note from the surrounding sound of silence.

“She taught that Face how to divide the day from night at sunrise and sunset, the clouds from the sky, the trees from the forests; and the apple from the fig, the fig from the cherry, and the cherry from the pomegranate, and other fruit from other fruit trees and fruit trees from flowering trees in bloom in the garden.

“The Face became very good using division. He learned to divide good from better, as well as bad from worse. Ivy from poison ivy, oak from poison oak, the hyena from the vulture, the pig from the rat, as well as the serpent from the dove, the puppy from the dog, and the kitty in the kitten from the tigress.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Mary of Beth-Al, rubbing her belly, gave a little cry, and said to the Old Boy’s Club, “There are still things you do not know because you do not have a womb, because you cannot go the distance, because you cannot go the nine, because you cannot bear the mystery, and wonder, the pain, and joy of Apocalypse, the beauty of creating a New Heaven and New Earth.”

“My baby girl will bring us smiles, laughter, and coos. Our hearts, our breathing, will be stopped with wonder.

“The moon has prophesized it. The mid-wives confirm their prophecy.”

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

The Virgin looked to the heavens, closed her eyes, and said, “Now comes the Revelation of the Immaculate Conception.”

Holding up his arms in protest, the Father, with a loud voice, cried out, “There was no Immaculate Conception.”

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She looked into Father’s eyes, and said, “Then how, please explain, did you get into this universe, into this game, into this story?

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The Virgin Mother filled with the calm deliberation of her severe intent demanded of the Father, “Tell me, what do I get when I exercised my power over myself. What is 00?

He laughed. “I translate the equation 00 to mean 0*0, and the answer to 0*0 is 0. The only thing your power over yourself allows you to do is nothing.

She circled him. “How do your mathematicians explain the meaning of 00? What do they say the answer is?

He looked out at the faces of his mathematicians to see if there were traitors among them.

She walked up to him, looked deeply into his eyes, turned on her heels and said, “Tell me, and tell the people, what does this expression mean? Is it a Revelation to you? What does it reveal?

⓿÷⓿

The silence of his heart was as loud as thunder. She knew what it said. He was going to kill her. She had revealed too much. She was surely going to die.

“Tell me,” she demanded, “and tell the people, is the following equation true?

⓿÷⓿ = ⓿

His eyes told her she was going to die. That he was going to take her life.

“When,” the Virgin said, “I choose to open myself up by myself, to be the mid-wife of myself, I created the truth that

⓿÷⓿ = ∞ ⓿÷⓿ = 푒 ⓿÷⓿ = 𝑖 ⓿÷⓿ = 휋 ⓿÷⓿ = 1 + 푒𝑖휋

“And most importantly,

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⓿÷⓿ = 1

The Father turned in desperation to the faces of his mathematicians. It pained him to see ⓿ = 1 + 푒𝑖휋 written across Euler’s face.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Einstein could not hold back his outrage. He jumped to his feet, and cried out to the Father, “She performs Black Magic.

“Dividing ⓿ by ⓿ is heresy. It is forbidden. We teach students that the First Commandment of Mathematics is ‘Thou shall not divide ⓿ by ⓿.’ We will not tolerate Black Magic.

“The truth, the real truth, is in the axioms,” he said. Up to this point, he had forced himself not to stare at her. He felt his strength waning.

The Mother smiled, and calmly said to Einstein, “You mean the axioms that you admit stand on nothing, and need no more than simple faith, and belief in your Theology of Mathematics? Your Theology stands on nothing because the axioms stand on nothing.”

“They stand,” Einstein cried, “on nothing, because nothing is required!” Then he complained to the Father, “Someone tampered with the Holo-Scriptor.

“It is heresy. If we break this one rule in the game of mathematics, it will destroy the entire edifice of mathematics. Mathematics would fail. And if mathematics fails, then physics will fail. And if … if Physics fails …then ….”

The Virgin Mother turned to the people and said, “Mr. Einstein is talking about freedom.

“Yes. Freedom,” She said. “It is the true subject of my magic, the puissance of my Black Virginity.”

“Einstein, like the Father, does not believe anyone should have the amount of creative freedom I have. So what is it that Mr. Einstein and his boys really want?

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She looked into Einstein’s eyes, then said to the people, “Einstein and his Old Boy’s Club are bewitched, and bewildered by their fumbling befuddlement. The Holo- Scriptor tells us Mr. Einstein carried on an obsessive search for what he called the Black Body.

“The Holo-Scriptor tells us he was searching for more than just a Black Body. The Holo-Scriptor says he was searching for the Ideal Black Body—which he, at first, believed was the Ideal Black Hole or the Ideal Black Box.

“What was Mr. Einstein and his colleagues really searching for?” she asked as she circumnavigated the altar. “They have valiantly tried to repress their true motivation. They will deny they want what they really want. And, hear me, what they really want is the most powerful magic imaginable—my Black Magic.”

The Virgin Mother looked at the scientist’s hungry stares, at how they barely kept their hidden desires for her at bay, and then she continued. “The Black Magic they are looking for comes from my Virginity, my ability to create, give birth to, Everything from Nothing—that is to say—from myself, the Black Virgin Mother Maria. I will say it plainly. They want to see all my clothing removed. They want to see me naked. And then they want to take my Virginity from me.

The Old Boy’s Club erupted in a storm of protests, tantrums, confusion, and rankled apoplexy. They didn’t want the people to know how much they wanted what she was and what she had. They didn’t want the people to know how much they wanted Her.

The Old Boys Club cried out to the Father to do something, anything. To, at the least, draw and use the fire, and the lightning of his terrible swift sword. To take away, with violence, if necessary, her Virginity.

The Father’s hand tightened around his sword. He had to kill her. Knew that he would, if she continued this preposterous lie.

She allowed him to circle her. “Don’t you understand what it means for you to be my first one. What it means for me to promise you that you will be my only one. That out of all the things, all the infinite possibilities I held inside of me, possibilities I could have created first, the things I could have given birth to first, the things I could have loved first, I chose you for our co-creation, a mtix made of what we are.

I chose you for our image as a We that is male and female. A We that is an Us that can be a Matrix.

“Of all possibilities I could have conceived first, I chose you. I chose to exercise my power as zero to give birth to you:”

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“No one believes that lie,” he said.

Her answer was a scold that came out of her hurt. “Ask Einstein and all his genius buddies. They were shocked to find that they could only see just the 0.000…001% at the tip of the pyramid of what you call your universe. And they have been stunned by the fact that I exist, and that I, the Black Virgin Mater, and the energy of my Black Magic is the other 99.999 …% of what they call the Universe.

The Father stared at her, and becoming more outraged, cried, “You dare reverse the truth. Make it appear that I am almost nothing, that my wealth is poverty, that I am just the tiniest of tiniest seeds: 0.000…001%.”

“Is that how you see me?” he asked.

Suddenly reflective, he said to himself, Now I see I mean almost nothing to her. That she think I’m worthless.

His sense of self-worth left him. No matter how much he had exponentiated and tetrated himself in his quest for her Mystery it receded from him. Her revelation that he had control of 0.000…001% of all possibilities, emptied him of his will to fight. He felt an onslaught of shame. He had no wealth worthy of her. He had nothing of worth to give her.

He would never, he knew, be enough for her. He left her standing at the altar. Head down, he began his ascent, paused, and out of shame took a side door into the wilderness.

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7=0111

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Watching him, the Mother’s heart opened in a way she didn’t expect. Could never have predicted. She felt his pain in each step of his flight. She felt his hurt with each beat of his heart.

Her feelings pushed her into a frantic rush to find him.

He wasn’t sitting beneath that tree in the garden or roaming aimlessly along the shoreline of a stormy sea.

He wasn’t in his penthouse or their favorite playrooms. Turning to leave, she saw it laying on his desk. For her, and to her. It was an equation of love, full of infinite tetration, and infinite exponentiation. She realized he did understand the power of love and the power of the power of love tetrated.

It was stained by his tears, and signed with something she had never seen before, something drawn from rivulets of his tears, the outflowing of his love: his Signature of Fire,

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Her eyes filled with tears. This, this … tells me he understands … tells me how he feels … and is all I need to know.

i = ̈ ♥♥̈ ♥♥♥̈ ♥̈ ∞ 휔 ̈ √♥ ( ) ♥♥ ℵ ℶ = (0*1,0+1) =

∞ … ♥♥ ♥♥… ♥ ♥ ♥ = (0, 1) =

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After finding his equation, she knew it was no longer a matter of wanting to find him, she knew she needed, absolutely needed, to find him. Find him because she was afraid of what he might do in this agon with himself.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

She found him, after a fevered search, at the promontory where the ellipse was in continuous transformation from ellipse to circle, from circle to center point, then back to circle and back to ellipse again. Lost in time was which came first: the ellipse or the circle, the foci or the focus. Was it the perimeter, the zooming of the circle or the center to which it zoomed? The answer, she knew, required higher orders of logic. The right Gödelian glasses almost revealed the answer.

She found the pupils of his eyes, and looking deeply into them, saw that he had been crying.

“I put you here,” the Virgin Mother said, in almost a whisper, “because I refused to live inside a forever by myself. You are an Immaculate Conception because of love. If you must place blame, place the blame on love. I needed someone to love me, and equally, someone for me to love. I needed you. I need you still.”

Feeling what he felt, she felt her own tears welling up.

“You don’t have to be your strongest or greatest self with me,” she said. “I love the games we play, the love stories our love wraps us in.

He was still crying silently, but ashamed to use his hands to wipe his tears away.

“Stop the striving,” she admonished him. “Can’t you see that you as 0.999 … will be forever incomplete, Can’t you see the immeasurable scale on which I need you and you need me. We together, require a leap of faith into the belief that we, as 0.999 … 9 and 0.000 … 1 are the quintessential One.

“Let go your need to know it all, do it all, be it all. Let yourself fall into the dark radiant mystery we … us … you and me, can be together.”

“Is that your solution?” he asked, turning away, afraid to meet her eyes. “You want me to surrender to your mystery? I can’t!”

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She looped her arms through his, and asked, ”Do you believe we can still make magic, not just more wonderful magic, but a new kind of magic, a New Magic, together?”

“Why should I? You’ve taken everything from me,” he said.

“Not everything. Not the greatest gift you have to offer, but are afraid to give to me.”

She took him to the edge that overlooked the deep. Holding onto her, he looked down, and then stepped back. A deep horror laced with fear etched itself on his face.

“I’m no fool. This is a singularity, “he said.

“And what did you see in it?”

“Entanglement. Two tracks becoming a vanishing point. And I saw that thing. The thing itself. If I let myself fall into the thing itself then …”

“Who else is going to let you, if not yourself?”

“What if I held your hands,” she said, “went to the edge with you, and let myself fall with you … where our two paths, though seeming parallel become one at that vanishing point, that place with that thing, would you come—fall—with me?”

Fear etched itself deeper in his face.

“If I was there,” she asked, “already there at that vanishing point, and called out for you to come to me, would you come?”

“I don’t play with that kind of gravity,” he grimly said.

“But it’s no different than the two Foc-i of the 휋 defined ellipse becoming one— the Foc-us of the 휋 defined circle. Then the perimeter of the circle zooms in to become one with the us which becomes the–well, you understand, that ever vanishing point, our Greater Mystery.”

He rejected the ‘it’s no different.’

She took her arm from his, and said, “I can’t live like this. Without a gift—that gift—freely given, of that thing, from you, I may as well not exist. Being first is meaningless without you.”

She wanted to see his eyes. Listen to them. Hear what his eyes had to say.

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“To put it in the language of mathematics, I can’t exist without you. Do you, mathematically, understand? We have no identity without each other. That thing, the Gravitissima, pushes us apart and then pulls us back together, apart and then together, keeping us in ratio, a relationship that always makes us One. Simultaneously, that movement is the quintessence of the Peri-scopia, the ellipse and circle zooming.”

Softly she asked him again, “Mathematically, do you understand?”

She studied his face to gauge his comprehension. Found only a mask.

“You don’t have to be afraid?” she said.

He turned away and said nothing.

After a long interval of silence, he heard her crying.

He turned to her. His heart stopped. He had never heard her cry so deeply. Even after they made love. Standing there at the edge, she wiped her tears away, stretched her hands skyward, leaned forward, and let herself fall.”

Her falling down was a falling up, around, a spiraling into the fathomless deeps of being forever nowhere.

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8=1000

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

A wail of ‘Noooo!’ released itself from his throat. He knew—he felt—the fault was his. He let her, made her, caused her, to fall into the deeps of the Abyss.

Another ‘Noooo!, followed by heavy sobs escaped.

“I don’t understand. She didn’t have to do that. Not that. All my efforts were to create a better me for her.”

“Why couldn’t I tell her how I feel? That I’m not good enough. I can’t understand how she could love what I am. I’m even afraid to love what I am. I’m so incomplete, so utterly incomplete.”

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

His heart did an override of his mind. “I love her. I love her so much! Can’t help it,” he paused to laugh, “especially when she drives me so wonderfully and beautifully crazy.

“She’s everything to me. Nothing matters more.”

The Father wept.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

What will I say when the people ask for her. I can, at least, have the courage to tell them the truth. She’s gone because I pushed her away.

She said, I know I heard her say it, she doesn’t want to live without me. I know— now—I don’t want to live without her.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

He made his way to the altar.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

He wasn’t sure which story he was in. He was trying to fight the pain. He remembered, or thought he remembered, the last time he stood before the people with the Virgin Mother.

The two agreed there was a serious problem with one branch on the story tree. If changes weren’t made they would bring in Harold Bloom to do some pruning.

The problem was the people.

Together, on that branch (it might have been a thought experiment and not a real branch) … even so they stood before the people, and said,

Let the children come out to play. Let the children held prisoner by the hardness of your hearts come out to play Let the babies, the crawlers, and toddlers, the boys and girls come out to play. We have hidden gifts for them in the grasses at the spring equinox, in the fireworks at midsummer’s midnight masquerade in the masks during the equinox of autumn leaves

Let the children go and come out to play. To play is to be free. To be free is to have time. To have time is to play. Time to run, and soar, to fly and feel Wonderfully and joyously alive

As they climb up and down the trees giving gifts of themselves to themselves And others, and yes, to you and me.

Set the children free. Let them go. Let them find themselves in others and Let others find themselves in them

Let the children you keep inside go, and come out to play, Let them feel amazingly and exquisitely alive!

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Am I in the right story? Are these the right people I have to tell … how I lost the Virgin Mother? Look at them. They are so beautiful.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Gazing at the expectant faces of the men, women, and children, he opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t find the words.

He could feel their eyes looking at him. Can they see my pain?

“I love you,” he whispered.

The Father could only hear the loud beating of his heart—not theirs. He didn’t know how much, in rhythm, their hearts beat with his. He didn’t hear their hearts. He couldn’t hear their love.

I’m broken … I’m so broken!

The pain … nothing else to say because it hurts. Got to stop the pain.

He lay down on the altar, and cried out for her.

In utter grief, with his own bolt raised high, he brought it down swiftly, and pierced his heart, surrendering to the deeps of the unknown. And with this last act—eating the last piece of fruit—the last uneaten morsel from his own tree of knowledge, and life—he died.

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Falling, The Father fell. He let go his incessant needs: To be more, to do more, to have more, And to know more, He let go his need to never forget,

The need to hoard the useless, Things that did not work,

He let go his fear of losing everything. He let go his fear of change. Surrendering, he let go,

Falling, he let himself fall into nothing Not a was, not an is, not even a to be.

Falling, He fell into the forever nowhere

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

As he was falling, she was rising; she caught him as he fell.

Caught him as he fell into a crevice, the abyss-radiance, that Word, the Puissanced Black Beauty, the Gravitissima of her heart.

“How? he asked.

“I spiraled north from where we were on the equator into the point of infinite entity. From there I was pulled down into my own none entity. And from there I began to rise. I had to be here … to catch you as you fell.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Now rising together, in each other’s arms, they dreamed that dream together, that dream they had often dreamed together when they were in each other’s arms, when they stayed up all night talking, laughing, and sometimes crying together.

It was a dream of the coming of the Great Apocalypse. The dream of a moonlit wedding night.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The dream, this time, began after the vows, the exchange of rings—rings wrought out of the Thinging of the Thing itself—and the kiss, that first kiss, were past. It began after the two ran down the aisle, mount the WhereWhen, set its co-ordinates, and then rose up and out to play.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

They were on the four and twenty with a 2020 Vision. They chose the longest night of the year for their wedding night.

They were on the four and twenty with a 2020 Vision.

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The moon lit a path for them across the shimmer of the sea. They urged the mare and stallion to go faster. Impatience was riding with them. The condition of their condition Was the condition of virgin ember, virgin flame, and virgin fire

They knew there would be floods, and earthquakes, The howls of storm, and eruption of volcanoes.

Breathless, they ache for the Apocalypse, Its tumultuous sweetness. Its exquisite pain and joy.

They arrived at the appointed place at the appointed time.

A canopy of white satin float beside them.

It was here that he would kill her, And here that she would take his life It was here that they would take the last breath from each other. Coming together in a final conflagration of burning up, a consumption by fire Coming together in a final apocalyptic annihilation of themselves

They had to fulfill prophecy, To give to one another the blessing, the anointing, And the laying on of hands

She tore her wedding raiment off and laid it on the sand, She took her earrings, bracelets and necklaces off And let them fall into the sand.

He laughed. You promised me there would be nothing between us. At this moment, I see that there is everything between us.

1 ∞ 8 ∞ 7 ∞ 6 ∞ 5 ∞ 4 ∞ 3 ∞ 2 ∞ 1 … , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , … 1 ∞ 9 ∞ 8 ∞ 7 ∞ 6 ∞ 5 ∞ 4 ∞ 3 ∞ 2 ( 0 ∞ 1 ∞ 1 ∞ 1 ∞ 1 ∞ 1 ∞ 1 ∞ 1 ∞ 1 ) … , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , … 0 ∞ 9 ∞ 8 ∞ 7 ∞ 6 ∞ 5 ∞ 4 ∞ 3 ∞ 2

Between us? She cried. There is nothing between us. Change your glasses and look again, my love.

1 ʘ 8 ʘ 7 ʘ 6 ʘ 5 ʘ 4 ʘ 3 ʘ 2 ʘ 1 … , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , … 1 ʘ 9 ʘ 8 ʘ 7 ʘ 6 ʘ 5 ʘ 4 ʘ 3 ʘ 2 ( 0 ʘ 1 ʘ 1 ʘ 1 ʘ 1 ʘ 1 ʘ 1 ʘ 1 ʘ 1 ) … , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , … 0 ʘ 9 ʘ 8 ʘ 7 ʘ 6 ʘ 5 ʘ 4 ʘ 3 ʘ 2

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You are playing games with me, My Darling. It’s clear that there is still something between us. It feels new, a new kind of Black Magic.

I do believe you’re blind. Let me look through those glasses you’re using.

1 ♥ 8 ♥ 7 ♥ 6 ♥ 5 ♥ 4 ♥ 3 ♥ 2 ♥ 1 ♥ … , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , … ♥ 1 ♥ 9 ♥ 8 ♥ 7 ♥ 6 ♥ 5 ♥ 4 ♥ 3 ♥ 2 ( 0 ♥ 1 ♥ 1 ♥ 1 ♥ 1 ♥ 1 ♥ 1 ♥ 1 ♥ 1 ) ♥ … , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , … ♥ 0 ♥ 9 ♥ 8 ♥ 7 ♥ 6 ♥ 5 ♥ 4 ♥ 3 ♥ 2

Looking at me, in and through your eyes, am I really this beautiful?

More, much more so! You are the None Essence of Axis that spins as the Axiom of Axioms at the heart of every 1/1, he said. But why are you teasing me. Please take it all off. I want to see where the power, the magic, the divination, your divinty comes from. Don’t tease me. Just do it.

Take off all the numbers except the one that is your truest personification.

She then removed the numbers, That were supposed to be something And the words for the numbers That were supposed to mean something

All the symbols and progeny of division That were supposed to do something

She stood naked before him within The Virgin Music of her Spheres Her burning body, Nubian, Her nigressence, Primal Fire

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

Standing naked before him, she cried out, “Behold, my utter nakedness! The ember, flame, and fire Of My Sacred Black Virginity!”

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™

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

It was here, at this time and place, that she would sign his heart She was the Muse of Muses. Her Signature of Fire was made of music.

She had written a symphony Rhythm and Jazz infused She would conduct the preludes to the foreplay

With the Femme Nine she had fashioned.

They would be the instruments she would play And use to teach him.

Her performance would be A jazz improvisation crafted by her love, A dazzling Revelation with her full repertoire

—The music of her Femme Nine —Her Jennifer and Genevieve, —Her Genesis Gynny and Guinevere Jenny —Her Eliza Ella Beth, Emma Elle Noelle, and Emmanuelle, —Her Maria Matricia, and Janet Jannette January Janine

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Each of them was a Mary. Each of them was a Jane.

She, playing them as instruments, Would anoint him with her play.

It would be a virtuoso playing with, And playing of Things other than his body. Things she found inside his Heart, his soul, his spirit, and his mind. New deeps he didn’t know of his own Mystery.

She took his glasses off And threw his books away, She would teach him things he couldn’t learn from his books Show him things he couldn’t see with any of his glasses

She would give him New Aches, For things he didn’t know he wanted Aches he didn’t know she had hidden in him,

She was going to take him places He didn’t know he could go. Reveal New Mysteries she had hidden within his deepest self

He was New Virgin Prime. She would give him a Revelation Of the self he could become She was going to give him New Prophecies to be fulfilled New Quests and Journeys into Mysteries of himself, Into her Mysteries And into the Mysteries they could co-create And explore together

She was going to teach the Boy in him how to play with her. How to be a Prime Play-Player

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She was going to loose her need, and fulfill her want, Requite her unrequited She was going to explore her untamed mysteries within

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Re-arrange the ranges of her freedom.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She wore the yellow dresses he liked. Mini, midi, maxi and asymmetric bodycons

She tore the nine buttons off her dresses, Her yellow skirt was shorter. Her brown legs were browner

She was going to toy with an innocence That was deliciously naïve She was going to perfect her coy Into a powerful patient tease

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

She undid her perfumed hair Pinned him down on the floor Pushed him down on the grass,, Both straps fell carelessly off her shoulders Then she leaned down to take from him The kisses that she need and the touches that she want

There were two beauty spots, One on each upper inner thigh,

Hieroglyphs: (1/휑 = 휑 − 1) & (1/ф = ф + 1)

She would teach him how to touch them The way she wanted them to be touched

She was all of the ones he wanted most, All of the ones he said he need,

She was everything she needed to be A Garden filled with flowers she grew of herself Her exquisites of self-expression The dazzling outward statements of A Deeper Inner New Self:

Dazzling. Stunning.

She was Virgin New.

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A Revelation to herself Of the New Mystery of her New Being within a New Becoming.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Their playing took them closer ever closer And deeper ever deeper Ever upward and outward A dyadic vanishing into both the point and the horizon

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.* It was here, and It was now.

It was here that he would kill her, and It was here where she would take his life It was here that they would take the last breath from each other. It was here that they would leave the Was and the To Be And die, coming together and in coming Come into a New Now-Here of a New Is

It was here At the appointed time, And now At the appointed place

It was here that they would leave the Was and the To Be, And together fall up and out into the deeper higher Mystery that is the New Is.

Into the dazzling blackness of The Mystery of their Beauty The Mystery of their Love The Mystery of their Mystery of Mysteries Coming out of a within without vanishing point or horizon

Seas of New Possibilities, Seas of New Beginnings.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Their playing took them back

Before the DNA, the genes, the molecules, and elements.

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Back before hydrogen created stars Before the atoms, Before Neutrons made love to Protons and then gave birth to Electrons Before the leptons, bosons, and fermions found The quarks hiding in them, and Demanded they come out and play Before the quarks explored themselves Their possibilities And found the Spin of SpaceTime, and found Mass playing hide and seek with Energy

Before they all graduated from the Academy, On the same moment … of Once Upon A Time, And coming out, came into being and becoming, —and out in from by with to —to play

It was their love, its making, that took them

Back before the proto-toys They used when they play with the iSTEM:

Numbers, Operations, Equations, Functions, and Algorithms, The OOPs and nested IPO logic that begins with a Void.

Back before the nouns and verbs and Sentences of first, second and Higher orders of subject predicate logic In the abstract structures of Universal Linguistics, Semantics, and Rhetorics

Back before the Axioms of Universalized Axiom Theory and Generalized Axiom Theory, and Relativized Selective Axiom Theory, and All the ancestors and progeny of the the that is the The.

Back before they all, in coming Became what they were becoming

… as they came into the middlemost of the middle, Between the Was and Will Be Into the wonders of the Is that Is The Is.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

It was their love, its making, playing with their most sacred toys,

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Which create A New Playground With a New Playhouse Academy With New Playrooms. With New Labyrinths With New Hidden Rooms And New Games

It was their love, and it’s making

Which create, Gave Revelation of A New Genesis with A New Garden in A New Hiero Salaam with A New Holiest of Holies for A New Heaven on A New Earth

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9=1⓿⓿1

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

We, the people, having waited seeming Kafkaesque infinities as well as Kafkaesque infinitesimals, could feel them coming. We are able to do so with calm and serenity because the preface in New Heaven, New Earth, the Visionary Experience told us Eternity is, after all, in love with the productions of time.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

We watched, beheld the advent, of the Virgin and the Father coming down from up, and through, around and around, in and out of the No-Where into the Now-Here

♥ π 휋 ♥ ♥ ⓘ √휋 (1/휑 = 휑 − 1) ⊗ (1/ф = ф + 1)휋 ⓘ ♥

of the middle of a special Once Upon a Time, appearing together at the place where the altar once stood, but stands no more, for they have become the altar. They now stand before us.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

The Virgin Mother in coming to be, became the New iMaria. The Father in becoming, became the New iJuan.

We behold them both,

Born Again.

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And Virgin New.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

We, the Voices of the people, in unison, crying aloud together, greet them,

Ave, iMaria. Ave iJuan.

We lift our voices, we sing a song …

… comes now a Revelation, a crying out:

We have come together, to consecrate the Sacrament, and Mystery that is this Hiero Gamos.

That Sacrament is built on the greatest Axiom of all, the Axiom of the Mystery that is That Word The Mystery that is That Thing

Seeing, We see …. We are all guests at your wedding. We have places reserved for us at your table Our names are written on the roots, branches, leaves fruit, and flowers that is this tree

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We Behold as the tinted glass of the pyramid falls away. We know, We see, that We are the pyramid, and We know We are the temple that is this tree.

As We look at the skies, We see the Skies are New. As We look at the Lakes and Rivers, the Streams and Oceans, We see they are New. As We look to the Hills and Mountains. We see they are New. As We look at the Seas, We can see the Seas—ever virgin, ever pregnant—are New, and ever-New

As We look at our hands, We are astonished to see our hands are new. We, New, know who and what and why We are, and why this New Garden, in this New Hiero Salaam is what and why it is, and Why we had to build it, as a welcoming wedding gift for you, with That Thing …. That gift you hid inside us And, as We look into each other’s eyes, We see ourselves, as if for the first time, New. And We know what We’ve always known, that We are all One— One with each other and One with You, iMaria and iJuan

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

let this moment toy with us, let this moment play. We see It is your e푦̈es that say I love you; your e푦̈es that pledge your vows;

We see, we watch, we behold ……………. It is your e푦̈es that, in kissing, Kiss that First Kiss.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

iMaria, iJuan and iMariaJuan, We hear your voice place a truing in our hearts, —With a love that is almost too great for us to bear, saying,

Now, at this appointed moment, At this appointed time, Here, in this appointed place, In this New Garden you created In this New Hiero Salaam, On this New Earth, Which is a New Heaven,

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“We, New, are that ‘i’ am that We are.

“You, Our iMatrix, are a part of Our We, which, with You, is the Us

that is that ‘i’ am. that We are

i = … = + i − i −i/i [ ] −i ∗ i −i + i = −i + i −i / i

−i + i −i / i −i + i −i ∗ i [ ] −i ∗ i −i + i −i/i + i − i [ ] −i ∗ i −i + i +i − i

−i + i −i ∗ i −i ∗ i [ ] [+i − i ] −i / i −i + i −i ∗ i +i − i [ −i ∗ i ] = …

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⓿⓿⓿⓿

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

⓿nce upon a time, she sat beneath that tree, eating a piece of that fruit, glasses perched on the edge of her nose, reading a book in her lap, with her fingers furiously tapping a calculator in the grass. She found page one in the middle of the book and read the story to herself:

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

⓿nce upon a time, … when there was no red on the rose, no green on the grass, and no blue on the sky and sea, … when there was no sun and moon and stars, … when there was no Ra in infra, ultra, extra, umbra, supra or vibra,… when the only thing that could be seen was the endless, formless, blackness of the Sea of Nothing— she looked at herself.

“Of course,” she said to herself, “Since I am, as the Sea of Nothing—the only thing—I am also the Sea of Everything.

“I am a Sea of Seas, I am a Maria.”

She changed glasses to better gain deeper insights into what she was. “Just look at me,” she said. “I’m a Virgin.

“O my! Just look … look at me, I am so beautiful, looking so good I am obviously bad. So beautifully, bewitchingly, bewilderingly, befuddlingly bad!

She turned round and round and round to look at herself, to not miss a detail. “Look! Just look at me. I am so black, so stunning, so breathtakingly beautiful.

Still looking at herself, her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open with surprise. She said to herself, “I’m not only a Virgin, I’m a pregnant Virgin.

“With what?” she skeptically asked herself. She laughed because she was obviously pregnant with herself: Nothing and Everything.

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She put on a new pair of glasses, then set a game of Hierogamy in motion and wondered if (he) knew s(he) was pregnant. She couldn’t decide if she should tell him. Or when. If ever.

⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

There, inside that luxurious oceanic Sea of Darkness, he took his glasses off, wiped the sea mist from them, then put them back on. He was tired but pleased with himself. He had explored every corner of the place, and after a thorough, even exhaustive look up and down, left and right, from top to bottom, he found nothing and concluded that he was indeed the One and the only One thing that there is. In other words, he was Everything. But not just any kind of Everything. He intuitively understood he was the extraordinary Everything that could create Everything.

“There is nothing I can’t create,” he told himself.

He brooded for a moment, entered a Miltonic muse upon himself, and asked himself, “So what should I create first?”

He immediately began laughing at himself. “Since I obviously am the first one here, I came from myself. That means I already am my first creation. I am the one that is a many, an everything, a startling, mind-boggling infinity. And at this moment, considering the infinite possibilities, I cannot imagine having done a better job. I look good. So handsome. As far as I can see, I know that out of every possible one I could have been, I am the greatest one. There will never be a greater one.

I need to pick a name for myself. Should I call myself the One or Infinity?

He laughed. “Why equivocate? Why be ambivalent? I know I’m always both at the same time. I’ll use the symbols 1 and ∞ as my primary masks since I think I’d like to play hide and seek with myself. It’s going to be so much fun to hide from myself.

He put on a new pair of sunglasses to better admire himself. He stole a moment to admire his cache of masks he could use to hide himself from himself. He looked at all the games he had that he could play with himself. Looking deeply, one last time, to see better inside himself, he found a part of himself, a really deep part of himself he hadn’t seen before.

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It took his breath away. There she was. So beautiful. She was completely naked. Naked and beautiful. A mystery without horizon. He didn’t want her to know he was looking. His imagination was busy working on being the Play-Player he just somehow knew he was destined to be for her. He checked his inventory. Yep. He definitely had that unmistakable and indispensable thing needed to play with her. He had game.

In the middle of still peeking at her, and smiling mischievously at himself, at the idea—the very prospect—of being able to play with that part of himself, he heard some –thing or some –one say, “Hello, Boy.”

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⓿ = 1/∞ ∞ = 1/⓿ ______

They met by accident. That’s what she said. “By accident!”

He believed it was planned, a conspiracy. An easy choice made from infinite possibilities. She said it was a necessary accident. Chance wasn’t part of it.

During some small talk about cosmic and quantum weather, its unpredictable qualia, their eyes began to laugh, to dance, and wrestle with one another. Then came a volley of questions, subtle and nuanced verbal explorations, followed by more laughter about some of the things, games and stuff, they—together—if they really wanted to … could do.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

For the two of them, at that moment, probing for truth, if it existed, was not as exhilarating as setting up offenses and defenses with the martial arts of the lie, the magic used in the Game of Love.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

He tasted her with his eyes, let his ears taste the music in her voice. Then he greedily drank every inebriate her eyes offered him. She was incomparably delicious.

She had to close her eyes to force herself to stop drinking him in. Suddenly, her fingers, with a mind of their own, needed to taste what it felt like to touch him. So she jabbed his chest with one finger. It initiated a chase. The chase turned into wrestling. She caught him off guard, pushed him down on the grass beneath that tree, sat on top of him, asked if he knew where she could find the truth, and told him he’d bet’ not lie to her, bet’ not be hiding anything from her.

He played dumb since he realized he didn’t know what game she was playing.

She thought playing dumb was part of his game. He had to be hiding something. She was sure of it because of the way he was looking for something in her eyes.

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They kept exploring each other’s eyes.

“Booyyy,” she said, in exasperation, “What’s the name of this game you playin’? I said you bet’ not be hiding anything. For real. I ain’t playin’ wit you!”

Once more, she looked deeply his eyes and saw herself looking at the way he was looking at himself looking at the way she looking was into his eyes.

Then the mystery revealed itself. They both saw it. At the same time. The game they were playing.

They were going to use each other to build a universe.

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