Well, here we all are, she said, “I see you have survived the transition; always a positive sign. So, I think it’s time for a few introductions.”
Fefe looked around. Casting his eyes across the purple featureless landscape, he discovered that he was in the centre of a slowly revolving cylindrical wall comprised of what looked like a million dots but that eventually resolved themselves into pairs of eyes; eyes that had coalesced from the cloud-lumps that had previously formed part of the couch on which the shapely Glamorgonia lay comfortably reclined.
Ado, at the very centre of the eye of the hurricane-wall of eyes, didn’t appear to notice. He still seemed to be immersed in the after-effects of the amoebic transubstantiation from his childhood meme. The budding had taken it out of both him and Fefe but the latter, being only a kid, was too excited to have been bothered for long and was now jumping up and down clapping his hands in anticipation. Because, even though the landscape which, under the normal circumstances of child-induced night-scares, would have caused him to cower terrified under his blankets clutching his well-sucked, one-eyed, stuffing-popped teddy closely to his face, and even though Glamorgonia was as huge as the sky itself, he didn’t feel scared of her or the rather ectoplasmic situation. He knew that Glamorgonia, although part of him, was more interested in Ado and that, if he behaved himself (always a rather delicate operation in itself unless undertaken for self-preservation or self-advancement), he was as safe as he would have been if he had been tucked up in his own bed.
“Do pay attention, Ado,” chided Glamorgonia in a matronly yet kindly voice, “even though you’ve made a start all by yourself, it’s time to see how the rest have fared.”
Obediently Ado turned his head and attempted to fix his attention on Glamorgonia’s dulcet, rather strident tones. He leaned his head against the hand that was absent-mindedly stroking his hair.
“Pay attention everyone else!” continued Glamorgonia addressing the swirling cytolic cloud in a voice that could-not-be-disobeyed. As if transformed to a sonic wave that responded only to her, the eyes turned to look towards her, guilt appearing to wash them almost transparent.
But here, let us dwell a moment on the entity known as Glamorgonia. This matronly figure, plump, rounded yet generating an aura of wildly comfortable efficiency, seemed to be reclined restfully on a huge beige coloured armless couch. Her absolutely black hair was piled up on her head a la grecque ancienne and held in place by a fine string of pearls that was draped alluringly over one shoulder and ran seemingly endlessly around her neck. Her generous, yet shapely proportions were swathed in what Fefe thought looked like a freshly washed sheet that had been gathered in at her hour-glass waist by a thick golden belt, and that left her arms naked to the shoulder, while her princely, yet immensely shapely bust heaved strainingly as copious quantities of air, necessary to provide sufficient motive force to power the commanding words she uttered, were gracefully respired.
Once she was assured that all eyes were watching her, Glamorgonia turned back to the recently generated boy-man and said in a much quieter, gentler voice (although the sharp edges were detectable to all), “Now, let us commence.
“Ado, you have successfully made the transition from childhood to young-manhood.
“Fefe,” she continued glancing not unkindly at Fefe who had by now sat down cuddled close up to Ado and was sucking his thumb, “having been little more than a bundle of raw emotions encapsulated in a fluffy childhood outer carapace designed to endear him to his adult carers, was understandably not in a condition to appreciate the wonderful complexity of the human psyche.
“You,” she said in a voice that Ado thought was almost accusing him of something, the nature of which he was unaware, and pointing a shapely finger in Ado’s direction as her graceful respiration ruffled the hair on the heads of Ado and Fefe, both of whom were watching her wide-eyed in anticipation, “however, are and will be – different…,” the dots that followed her words antenatal with heady expectation.
All those who possessed eyes that did not belong to Glamorgonia held their breath.
Lovingly she stroked Ado’s hair with her shapely hand and smiled at him gently.
“I am here to inform you that you have to survive in a world that can, at times, be considered to be, hmmm – shall we say, rather thought-provoking. It can be hard and difficult but, if you can find the key and learn to live with all of the personalities with whom you have been assigned, it can also be immensely rewarding and fulfilling and,” she added hiding a tantalising titter behind a shapely hand, “not a little jolly exciting.”
She hesitated to gather the volume of air necessary to continue speaking and hopefully, although on this point she was rather doubtful, to allow her words to be absorbed. Then raising her shapely hand and sweeping it around the ectophloic wall she continued, “I am here to present you to yourself; the rest is up to you and, err, yourselves. Of course,” she added, almost as an afterthought, “I will perhaps lend a helping hand periodically, but only as required and if,” she added cryptically, “I am not otherwise engaged.”
Looking down at Ado, Glamorgonia resumed, “The first thing you may note in your trajectory as a human being, of course, is that you are conscious – you have a spark, a tiny sliver, the immensely delicate, yet immeasurably valuable and formidably strong jewel of consciousness.”
Glamorgonia hesitated and raising her shapely hand, lay a finger delicately on her shapely lips then, after having considered, continued, “Even as I contemplate this statement, I realise that it is not actually true as none of your kind actually considers their consciousness; it is taken for granted and rarely appreciated for the untold wonders that are packed into such a small space of – well, nothing.
“Still,” she ventured, “I think that will agree that you can indeed remark upon activity around you. Is that not so?” She looked enquiringly at Ado who managed a slight nod.
Satisfied, she continued, “As you grow, you will become aware that human beings have come a long way in revealing the secrets of a subject they have labelled as ‘science’. But not even the brightest of minds has managed to divine where the spark of consciousness, common to all living creatures yet unquestionably individual, elusive yet so powerful, actually comes from. And none know to where it retires when expiry claims the enveloping biology. But, even though you cannot feel it, touch it, smell it or see it, it is a reality and one of the most precious of gifts, as it gives you the ability to perceive the unparalleled glory of the world around you.
“Contained within that spark of consciousness, comes all the complexity that is intelligible reasoning. It is nothing at all, it is an invisible space filled with a marvellous, delicious mechanism around which knowledge can accrete, civilisations can rise and fall, and empires can be forged and destroyed. It is the greatest and most powerful of gifts and I am very pleased to announce Ado, that it is something with which you too have been endowed.”
Her gaze moved to encompass the floating, jockeying eyes, that upon closer inspection seemed, each pair, to possess its own inner light and its own guarded thoughts, and then moved like a searchlight back to encompass Ado.
“Now, your consciousness permits the accumulation of personalities and, of course, each human is made up of too many of them to be fully introduced. You will get to learn more about them as you grow older and, of course one hopes, wiser. They, in turn, will get to know more about you and, make no mistake; each will try to make themselves felt. Because each one is as distinctly similar as ice is from water, as day is from night and as heat is from cold. And each possesses its own personality jostling for a space within vanishingly eclectic horizons, the limits of which are set only by you.”
Ado appeared to notice the eyes for the first time and cowered under their combined gaze; a million eyes, a million hims spiralling upward and amalgamating into an ominously dark cumulonimbus cloud form that was lost in the troposphere of his perception. Fefe looked out from behind Ado’s back and sucked his thumb, his eyes by now semi-closed.
“Your psyche, your id, is made up of many facets or, as I have just intoned, personalities, that together make, and will continue to make up,” she delicately inclined her shapely neck to glance almost sympathetically at Ado, “at least for as long as the spark of consciousness deigns to remain within your organic confines, the basis of your world experience. All humans are apportioned with these similar rather complex characteristics at birth; it’s what makes a human being a human being. However, it should be noted that some are more, or less developed than others and some are very susceptible to outside stimuli while others care not and take their cue from you or from some other extraneous source, the nature of which defies definition.
“Are you still with me, Ado?” she said sharply, observing the dropping eyelids and the half-open mouth filled with a lolling tongue that, upon being noticed, was tucked away quickly as eyes all over the eye-cloud snapped open, instantly alert.
“Now, you are a human being, Ado,” she stopped for a moment and looked carefully at Ado as if checking the veracity of her statement then, seemingly satisfied, resumed her reasoning, “and human beings are a maelstrom of differing and often conflicting emotions, each of which can be considered to have its own personality. It is important that we try to attain knowledge about these various aspects of our collective psyche or, as it is known amongst Guiden-nymphen, our psychoswarm, so that as our body ages, we can evolve towards, let us say, completion.
“Of course, conclusion of completion is, under normal circumstances, an impossibility, as the perceptively insignificant yet ultimately stable state of biological termination that we have come to know as death, tends to truncate our best efforts at full achievement. But we can certainly go a long way towards this happy state.
“But,” she added, an afterthought causing her eyes to half shut as if emphasising the mystery, “as the consciousness is entirely indestructible, who knows whether the process actually reaches final conclusion, err, ultimately.”
“As you go through your life-journey, and if you are lucky enough to survive the vagaries of existence, you may note that Fefe will be with you for much of the way, and he will indeed appear within you; sometimes at moments that may not be, let us say, opportune. You may also note that some of the characters that you will become familiar with in a moment will change greatly, while others will remain static, or indeed atrophy and fade away. And all will be shaped by the physical journey you take, the other perambulatory mortals you meet, where and how you live, and the choices you make in response to the fortuitous yet perceptibly subjective experiences against which you will abrade throughout your journey.
“I will not bore you with the tedious debate about nature versus nurture, only to say that each human being is born unique; each is born with an innumerable amount of personality traits of all shapes, sizes, colours and tastes, and you are no different. You are unique and therefore, dare I mention it at this stage, you are wonderful.
“Whether you believe you are indeed wonderful or not depends on how you relate with your psychoswarm and how it relates to you.
“And, with that said,” Glamorgonia looked up at the looming cylindrical eye-cloud and reached towards the wall that was slowly revolving around the two boys; one a child, the other a child-man and said, “let’s see who’s first,” and a pleasingly shapely fingernail touched the blinking wall.