She held her hand out to Ado and he took it gently. He in turn clasped Fefe’s hand firmly in his other hand. Glamorgonia said, “Fasten your seat-belts – I mean metaphorically Ado, you don’t actually have one,” she observed as she watched Ado searching around him to see where the seat belt was located, “just hold tight. There will be just a little bump and then we will be afloat.”
She looked upwards and raised her free hand gracefully above her head, her curved arm reflecting the graceful curve of the inner walls of the octobuntle eye-cloud.
And together, they levitated gently and started to rise upwards. The eyes in the eye-wall watched them as they rose, their speed gathering until eventually they burst through the top of the eye-bundle and took to the skies silently leaving the storm cloud of eyes far below. Ado started as he looked down because there, left directly in the centre of the obtangular cylinder was the seated form of the young boy-man that was – himself – the figure gradually dwindling to a speck in the eye of a ocular hurricane.
Glamorgonia’s voice resounded clear and strong inside the heads of both Ado and Fefe, “We are taking a little trip outside of your consciousness Ado. Of course, once transition has passed, you will remember nothing about what you are going to see but, as you grow you may perhaps understand a little better,” said Glamorgonia with a sympathetic eye cast towards her protégé.
Continuing, she said, “You are still down there but your essence is coming with me to see the wonders and the limitations of what it means to be of human descent. I am taking you to where you can appreciate a viewpoint of where all humans find themselves in the universe. And, when we return, the process will be almost complete.”
Up they soared, lighter than air and with no sensation of moving other than a small disturbance that played with Fefe’s hair. Ado and Fefe were watching below fascinated by the view as the eye-cloud that was Ado dwindled into a revolving mass and gradually became a glowing yet transparent sphere floating on its own unsupported in the darkness and seemingly with nothing to hold it up.
“That,” explained Glamorgonia, “is the bubble of your consciousness Ado with all the multiple personalities that make up your psychoswarm contained within one neat little package. In its turn, that package, or bubble, is known amongst the Guiden-nymphensphere as a psychibobble.”
They continued to rise into a night sky that was punctuated with myriad brilliant stars. Suddenly, as they watched, another glowing transparent bubble appeared from the murk and gently bumped into the bubble that was Ado.
“And that,” explained Glamorgonia, “is another psychibobble that, I am told by my sister Guiden-nymphen, is another boy called Tron, who is in fact, your brother.”
Quickly after that, other psychibobbles appeared and bumped into those of Ado and Tron and the three watched as more and more psychibobbles appeared, all jostling for space in what became a very crowded multi-dimension.
“What you are looking at,” expounded Glamorgonia, “is a flock of psychoswarms all wrapped in their own individual psychibobbles.
“Actually,” she interposed, “the common collective noun for a group of psychibobbles is a ‘confrontation’, although under certain propitious circumstances such an agglomeration can become known as a ‘collaboration’ of psychibobbles.
“Each psychibobble you see is an individual person, some of whom are fully transisted and some of whom are currently transitioning. Now, what can you tell me about this particular, let us call it a collaboration?” she asked in her, by now familiar, school-mistressly manner.
Fefe’s free hand took his thumb from his mouth and shot up into the air, teeth bared in a wide grin, the strain to answer making his face red with exertion.
“My goodness Fefe,” said Glamorgonia laughingly, “I see you are taking your dada’s advice to heart, young man. Go on then, what can you tell us?”
“They are all separate from each other!” Fefe almost shouted as the words tumbled from his mouth.
Glamorgonia laughed, “Yes, you are right again! Look carefully and you will see that each bobble, whilst bouncing off another, does not actually physically interact with any of the other bobbles. Each and every psychibobble is completely cut off from any other!” she italicised.
As she said it, she looked hopefully at the two boys who looked back at her with blank eyes, understanding appearing to have gone on holiday.
But then, Ado brightened suddenly, “But, if they are cut off from each other, does that mean they cannot share things?” he asked.
“What a wonderful question, Ado,” replied Glamorgonia, “but yes, they can indeed communicate by a rather crude mechanism known as language, something you are both more than familiar with. However, unlike the Guiden-nymphen, they cannot communicate on a more elemental level. They cannot really know each other’s minds and they cannot feel or see each other’s emotions or hear each other’s thoughts.”
Glamorgonia sighed deeply and squeezed Ado’s hand, “It is a design fault, I think, and it has already been brought to the attention of the Cratore. But I understand that she has more, err, pressing issues to resolve beforehand.”
“They are pretty,” said Fefe, taking his thumb out of his mouth long enough to whisper the words.
“Yes, they are pretty,” muttered Ado, “and they seem to be having fun.”
“Well, if that is what is taken from this wonderful vantage point, then we have gone far to achieving an appropriate understanding of the phenomenon,” observed Glamorgonia with apparent satisfaction.
“In any case,” she continued, “complete awareness at this stage of development is not a stipulation. The most important thing is that you find the view, err, pretty.”
“Well, now that we have seen how humans relate to one another, it is time.”
She made sure that hands were firmly grasped and, in less than the time it takes a lamb to consider shaking its tail, the boys found themselves once again seated within Ado’s psychoswarm, with Ado at its exact centre.
“As I say,” continued Glamorgonia almost as if she had not moved at all, “the time has come Ado, or perhaps I should now refer to you as Heliosvart, for your to strike out on your own.
“You have a remarkable, interesting and highly fascinating time ahead of you but one that may, at times, seem like you are walking through a maze boobytrapped with hurdlepoople claws and exploding wheezlefizzles. And, although it is highly unlikely that you will remember anything of the discourse we have shared, you will hopefully be sensitive to vestiges of our brief sojourn together as you get to know different aspects of yourself.”
Glamorgonia reached down and took Ado / Heliosvart into the security of her shapely arms then, holding him out before her she said gently, “But whatever happens to you, remember always that, even if sometimes it does not appear so, you are much loved.”
With that, she unwound herself from the divan on which she had been comfortably reclining, turned to Fefe and held out her hand to him. With a big smile on his face, Fefe reached towards her but, suddenly changing his mind, he turned and threw his arms around Ado’s neck who, looking slightly surprised, gently returned the hug, drawing Fefe in close to him.
“Now, the time has come for you to strike out on your own,” said Glamorgonia, making as if to punch the air in encouragement.
“Don’t worry Ado,” said Fefe, “I will never be far away.”
Glamorgonia smiled and said, “And I am positive that Ado will never forget you and will view you as someone with whom he is more than comfortable. You have proved your worth and made a wonderful beginning, even if, at times, peppered with dubious decisions, on which to build.
“But now, come Fefe, time presses and you must let Ado adjust.”
Fefe reached up and, taking her hand, the two of them walked into the slowly revolving cloud, the eyes making way for them as they slowly disappeared into the misty distance.
To Ado, sitting alone now on the dusty ground, the wall looked much more translucent, as if it was losing its colour, fading.
And, as the silhouettes of Glamorgonia and Fefe became indistinct in the cloud, a single tear formed at the corner of his eye and quietly slid unnoticed down his cheek before an exhaustion transported him to dreams of silk.