184. The Offending Eye

"The Offending Eye"
Cast Iron Will holds up Steeled Ivory (Victoria)

July 1997

A crisis. A critical point. We began the week with a deep depression. And yet ... the dance class finished on Monday and we had fun. Some of us did. We felt good that night. But then ... anxiety and fear set in and extreme discomfort waiting to hear whether we got into the dance therapy program. We want this something fierce. Really want to do the 10 month program. There have been times in the past when we wanted something so much and then were disappointed. Oh how it hurt. Will it be like that again? Can we bear it if we are turned down?

But a surprise. The teacher decides to offer all applicants a 9-month part-time program instead. And not to train to become a dance therapist but for each of us to do personal work. She thinks all of us are not ready for the training. At first that feels good. At least we get in. We get to do the program.

However, we spiral down into a pit of terrible despair despite the good news. It is because of a terrible memory. An unbearable memory. We write the details down but I do not want to speak the words. I do not want to know this.

There has been so much switching lately. And grief. And despair. Suicidal feelings are very strong too. everything seems pointless, lacking meaning and purpose.

A grid is drawn. 8 squares across. 6 squares down. Of the 48 squares an eye is placed in 19 of them. This is Victoria (6mf). “I” is placed in 22 squares. This is Voice-Mercury (6mf). One square, the top left one, has Bone Bruised (6mf) in it. The bottom right square has Brain (6mf) in it. Blue (6mf) has her square 7 across and 5 squares down. The Binary Codes (6mf) have 2 squares each in the center. Cast Iron Will/Wall (6mf) is the wall all around the grid and Place (6mf) surrounds the whole thing. This is Mainframe. This is The Codes and where they live. This is a puzzle and a program.

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WE ARE AN EYE and that’s all. The web has become only an eye staring out of the darkness and the emptiness

Victoria is on a rampage. She says “if we cannot pluck out the offending eye then we have to break the offending hand.” I don’t know what she means but she bangs her hand against the wall, pounding out her vicious fear and rage. She wants to cripple us, break our hand our fingers so we can’t use them anymore.

Steeled Ivy (Victoria) is not a child by any means. Nerves of steel as her name says. And determination to match. She has managed to silence pretty well all of us, even Cast Iron Will. What can be said of her and our despair? There is nothing – has been nothing to match it so far. Why she assaults her hand we’re not sure. We are sure she does not know our hands belong to Hands (4) or even Raven (3). She does not seem to be aware of who the rest of us are, beyond the borders of Mainframe. She’s heard things but I don’t think she accepts them as any sort of truth. She knows that somehow we are called Caer so she says she will leave behind one who will be called Caer.

Our hand looks terrible – all colours of the rainbow and swollen here and there. We cannot make a fist out of it. Maybe she wants that, wants us not to take a stand.

The Mainframe reaches beneath that deepest pit in the Iew Sae – a great black pit of Despair. The Codes know of that feeling at least. Whether they actually know of the Sae or any others living around there or even upwards – up the Central Core – I don’t know.

-    Signed Bone Bruised

Seems to be a war on between Voice-Mercury and Victoria. It’s very difficult to stop.

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In hospital again. Victoria has brought us here. Well, her hand bashing and overdose of Ativan is what brought us here. Made a lot of us scared and we decided it would be best to be in hospital where we have a certain degree of safety. But sitting in Emergency is a drag and we want to go home already.

Victoria and Voice-Mercury are twins! And Blue is in her teens I think. Victoria keeps referring to “Philip”. She means Brain.