A TRAP for a THOUGHT-FORM
a novel in the series
"PLAYING ANOTHER REALITY"
Chapter 26. COME WHAT MAY
I woke up in the morning, of course. The program I had installed was running! So, being already a ghost or not yet, I decided that something should be changed.
“Where I will go and end up after the 40th night in the Mansion is a premature question, because today is only the 26th night of the 40. I have already felt at the level of knowledge that my reality should change fundamentally. It is stupid to wait idly for the transition through the Portal at midnight between the 40th and the 41st nights, stomping around in the same place. Time is the most valuable thing the magicians have. By the way, the space, where I will find myself after passing the Portal, probably depends on my conscious steps here and now until the 40th night. However, what to change, and how? For example, the same Blizzard. How can I change it? It seems to be something global, rather, someone’s global program, which cannot be hacked at once. Anyway, why not to work with the details, rewriting the surrounding reality (my little Ball, or the world) step by step, that is, changing the fragments of the installed programs for other or opposite ones, including by creating and installing of new programs? If you change at least a small fragment every day, sooner or later the reality will be completely different.”
I went into the kitchen to make coffee and had a tiny insight about the first step.
***
“The Old Khottabych got ahead of you!” laughed the Guardian, meeting me at the Mansion.
“He has a flying carpet!” I sighed.
“Don’t you have a broom?” the Guardian grinned. “How old is the author? More than 100? However, with a sense of humor. Even the title of the book ‘Come what may!’ gives away his joker’s nature!”
“Do you know what I like about this Old Man? He didn’t get angry at the world. Surely, he’s been through many tragedies, losses, separations, not to mention the war. And he has neither anger towards the authorities, nor envy of the young. His soul is one of the few that remained a solid spot of Light…”
The Guardian looked at me gloomily, realizing that I had thrown a pebble into his garden, but after hanging my furs on a hanger, he gestured me to proceed to the cafe. At the counter, where the coffee was brewed, I stopped the Guardian by hand.
“?!” he wondered. “Do you want tea?”
“No, but today, I will make coffee myself.”
“Do you think I used to add some hallucinogenic mushroom powder as a love potion? Well, at least let me make it to myself!”
“I’ll make coffee for myself and for you, don’t worry! Sit down, have a rest, relax.”
The Guardian was taken aback. He clearly didn’t expect such a turn of events, or “breaking the pattern” according to the magicians.
“You? But why? How?” he whispered.
“Me. Just like you. Because today, here and now, I WANT IT SO.”
***
Khottabych created a furor. During the break, everyone rushed to the Old Man with requests to sign them up for his carpet.
“Today you certainly look more cheerful!” Roman smiled.
“I decided to become a hacker!” I laughed.
“Have you already hacked something?”
“No, but I almost exploded the Guardian’s mind. If we have to do our bit, let’s do it with a bang! By the way, Roman. I thought, if we are ghosts, then it turns out that we are stuck between Worlds. Because, in theory, we are supposed to be greeted by family and friends in the Other World, right? However, neither mom, nor dad, nor Ray is here, not to mention other relatives and acquaintances.”
“Maybe,” Roman replied evasively.
“If we are gathered here until the 40th night, then we should have died all together on the same day, shouldn’t we?”
“All your authors, and you, and me, you mean?” Roman asked.
“Yes, Roman, that is nonsense, we couldn’t all die at the same time, except the Apocalypse. („I would like to die with you on the same day, but not here and not now, and certainly, not in the Past!“) So, that leads us to the conclusion: if we are ghosts, we are in an intermediate or suspended state, without the time limit of 40 days. Right?”
“Or we are not ghosts,” Roman clearly didn’t like the hypothesis of our otherworldliness.
“Ghosts or not ghosts, we need to change something!”
Roman was looking at “more cheerful” me with interest, and I was about to hug him by his neck, when the Guardian rang the bell.
“Today, will you reveal me the way of hacking the Matrix?” Roman asked aloud smiling.
“One of the ways, yes. In the language of magicians, it is called ‘breaking the pattern’. This technique was successfully used by Erickson with his patients, but we are going to act globally. If Erickson used the patients’ surprise to install a new program into their glitch-opened minds, we would surprise and recode the Matrix.”
Task No. 26. NON-STANDARD STEP
…Any non-standard step is worth a lot of standard ones, since any deviation from the norm in the current Matrix of your world (in the set of small programs), or simply a glitch, automatically moves you into the Transit Zone, from which you can step into a different version of your Future where your world wakes up changed.
If glitches don’t creep into the standard patterns of your world from outside, and you want to modify your unique reality, being its author, glitches are created by you purposefully inside.
Determine the standard programs of your world. Start with the simplest ones, i.e. the ritual rites that you perform daily. And try to make some changes to them.
For example: every morning at 10:00 a.m. you drink espresso without milk with two pieces of sugar from a black cup. Change at least one parameter of this program, and you will feel the Matrix of your world shuddering.
Any, even the slightest, deviation from the standard automatically starts the whole chain of changes, often invisible to the user.
The more changes you make to the familiar patterns of the world, the wider is the scope of the Transit Zone you move to, and the more options for your Tomorrow you get to choose from.
Don’t forget that hacking the Matrix is being made with a specific purpose, and not for fun. Keep on the inner screen a picture of your Happy Universe, where you want to end up, i.e. the creator of which you want to be.
***
“How do you do, the incomparable Alice djan?”
“Thank you, Wanderer! Today I re-coded a small cup of coffee.”
“Yes, you are a true magician, from all points of view! And how is your book doing?”
“I almost caught up with ‘here and now’, despite the fact I started writing this story later its official beginning. What do you think, if I am a ghost, what will happen to my book?”
“There are many ways to materialize a manuscript, Alice djan… But you are all about your own! About ghosts! Tomorrow afternoon I will send you a piece of the warm Sun from Armenia! Promise me that after catching it you won’t give it to the Blizzard!”