What Are Questions: A Fictional Narrative

“We have been through all this before. Really,” The Name sighed.

She suppressed the “With who?” thought. And promptly said, “With who?”

“With the Concepts,” The Name said.

“Now, the Concepts, as they are called, are creatures of Before. They belong to the one who is called Greatness. Greatness ‑‑ in truth, the word does not do the person of Greatness justice ‑‑ is rather large in scope, and Names are too small to describe this person. The Concepts were called into existence by Greatness, by a mistake Greatness once made. The Concepts knows this, and uses this fact prodigiously.”

The Name had a strange look, as if concentrating.

“What are the Concepts? The easiest way to talk about them, is to consider them to be alive. Based on a mistake, but alive, for when Greatness makes a mistake... well, you know. Names are Names of Power. That is, if there is a Name called Talk, then that is all that that Name does. The Name Talks. Not necessarily verbally, nor overly much, but, the Name Talks. Now, a Name can be a Concept. However, a Concept is not necessarily a Name, since a Name depends on somebody saying something.”

“The Concepts, being of Greatness, is more ancient than Time. Very much more ancient than Time. Time depends on sequence, and sequence is as simple as the natural numbers. So Sequence comes before Time, at the same Time as Time became Time. An easier way to say this, is to say that Sequence is greater than Time. Now, everybody knows all this, even if only intuitively, because `There is no new thing under the sun'. This, the Preacher said.”

“But he did not...”, and was stopped short. The thoughts racing to and from The Name with her were strange, and new and yet very very old.

“No h...

... middle of paper ...

...oring after-ward?” she asked for almost everyone.

“Simply because they have been done before, and all one learns from them is one's own power in doing someone else's love. To do one's own loves is love indeed, and, because of creation's lack of purpose there is no way to do one's own unique and new loves. I also, have no purpose in creation, for I have learnt the loves of it. So what is to be done? One does good, and one hopes that creation passes quickly.”

“So then creation is a place to learn other's loves?”

“Yes, for you know it is so,” many said in unity.

“Creation is used for learning the pitfalls of other's sensual loves, even though the earth's original purpose is much different,” The Name said.

“Original purpose? Be fruitful and multiply! For there be few that find Life,” The Name said.

“Why creation? For I felt that way,” and The Name, sighed.