\n\n\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbeautiful\n\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t[[&]]

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Two fools in love\n\nWhether that be word-less animals, like me, or, a million years ago, something/someone else, someone self-reflective...\n\n//I thought I'd never love again. You stand in front of me, weathered but still beautiful. Not in a garden, not amongst trees, it's not perfect, it's not even outdoors. But it is perfect. Again. For the first time, in a way. Because maybe this time it's not based in illusion. Was it ever based in illusion? Is there any point trying to differentiate between the true and the shallow, the fake?\n\nI know I'm weathered too. But anyways it doesn't matter. None of it matters. We kiss and it's like I'm melting into an ocean.\n\n...\n\nAnd then, normal life begins again. Inexorably. Slowly, in hints and starts. Isn't that always how it is, the everyday takes over? But, then again, isn't it always the case too that hints of something wondrous come peeking out again from behind fatigue, boredom, or dulled senses, like an animal peeking out from under the covers?//\n\nSo [[beautiful]]

[[credits]]\n[[epilogue]]\n

Choosing without knowing there is a choice. Loving without knowing that I love. Happy or sad without knowing.\n\n<<insert "Waterfalls.">> <<insert "The garden of Eden.">>\n\nLanguage, when you hear my words, creates a simulacra in your head of everything "out there" according to me.\n\nWithout language, everything "out there" is "in there" without self-reflection. There's no conception of me, there's just you. There's no conception of you even, to yourself. There's just what is. The garden of Eden.\n\n[[Language allows you to conceive of me.]]<<endinsert>><<endinsert>>

Like an Adam and an Eve.\n\nI don't know what that means. I don't even know who I am. [[That I am.]]

\n\n[[strong]]

There's a thing inside people's heads that knows it's it. Self-referential.\n\n[[That's not me.]]

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There was \s\n<<if $who eq "A quiet predator">>a burnt-out factory<<endif>>\s\n<<if $who eq "Nobody's watching, nobody's">>an absence<<endif>>\s\n<<if $who eq "Birds in the trees">>a place for us<<endif>>\s\n\nNow \s\n<<if $who eq "A quiet predator">>a cat licks her bloody paws\n<<endif>>\s\n<<if $who eq "Nobody's watching, nobody's">>there's a morning again<<endif>>\s\n<<if $who eq "Birds in the trees">>there are fossils and footsteps<<endif>>\s\n\n<<if $who eq "A quiet predator">>We've been caught\nno more babies for me and you\n\nThe animal sleeps\nand in her gut\nour bones turn to flowers<<endif>>\s\n<<if $who eq "Nobody's watching, nobody's">>We made pancakes\nand looked out through the smog\nto a trickling, concrete-lined river\nbusy highways arching over it\n\nThere is a shopping mall\nOne day it will be covered with flowers\nOne day we will be the flesh and blood\nof different creatures\n\nBut for now\nwe breathe this smog air\nand we bicycle to the river\nand we remember the animals that came before\nthat will come later\nLoving and dying\nin the tracks of our wheels\nin the fossils of our steps\n\nWe dream\nfor a while.\n<<endif>>\s\n<<if $who eq "Birds in the trees">>We loved here\na billion years ago\nnow someone loves again\n\nThere was a shopping mall\nNow it's all covered with flowers\nno memories\nno conception of myself or of you\n\nWe flit through the trees\nAcross the cracked concrete floor\nof an ages-old factory\n\nNot knowing these are the bones \nof a people who knew they were people\n\nYears ago\nthey were angry and young\nNow their highways run to fields of flowers\n\nDoes it matter what ended them\nEverything ends\nand changes\n\nAn animal dreams\nand loves\noutruns four-footed extinction\n\nand dreams again\none day to see its own dreams<<endif>>

[[Here we stand.]]

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nothing but flowers

I am conscious but not conscious of my consciousness. [[That's the way animals are.]]

Crabby O'Crankypants

The inspiration for this work is the song //(Nothing But) Flowers// by The Talking Heads. Many, many lyrics from the song are in this work, as anybody familiar with the song will know. Please don't sue me. For sure this was also inspired by //The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size// by Tor Nørretranders, by the first episode of //Cosmos// (2013), and stuff like that. \n[[Return|previous()]]

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In case you wanted to know how many endings there are, I can tell you right now. Not a big deal, at all. If you wanna know, here you go: <<replace "no. of endings">>3. Yep. 3. There you go.<<endreplace>>\n\n<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3t5nmgRVMs">The Talking Heads - "(Nothing But) Flowers" music video on YouTube</a>

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