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Reference: Post 100, Loops of String
Mr. Liddell is sitting upright in a shallow carton outside Diddlie’s carport. He is wearing a yellow waistcoat with gold pocket watch chain attached to his buttonhole. His ears are upright and his nose is pulsating. Above him the hickories’ green fades to yellow under fall’s weakening sunshine.
“I have never seen a rabbit wearing a yellow waistcoat before.”
Diddlie is busy with her goldenrod harvest and doesn’t look up.
“Hi Fred.”
“What are you going to do with it all?”
“You mean the rod? Mr. Liddell is going to tell me.”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“No, you’re not tuned in.”
“I don’t think I have ever found the rabbit wavelength.”
“It is an anomaly in the electromagnetic spectrum.”
“I am sure it must be. What kind of receiver do you use?”
“I don’t know. I guess it came built into my brain.”
“Well the visible part is 380 to 750 nanometers.”
“What is a nanometer?”
“It is one billionth of a meter.”
“Did you hear that Mr. Liddell?”
He shows no sign of hearing the question.
“By the way, why are all your doors and windows open?”
“The Red Queen is out flying.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She has got to get in and out somehow!”
“Doesn’t she have a preferred path?”
“No, it depends on her direction. First, she grows a single yellow feather in her left wing and, after a few days, she just takes off.”
“Where to?”
“She will be going up to alternative realities.”
“Yes, there is plenty of that around. She may be gone a long time!”
“She will also explore the toxic AI in corporate clouds and suburbs of independent thought and much more.”
“I thought she stayed in the house.”
“This is harvest time. Things are different.”
“I feel as if I have stepped into another dimension!”
“Fred, I am afraid you have. The measure of things at harvest time changes every year.”
“Okay, so this year the goldenrod bloomed in fall, as usual.”
She hands me a bloom head with unusually large petals.
“This is Solidago and it blooms until the first frost.”
“Is this something to do with Mr. Liddell’s yellow waistcoat?”
“He always wears it at harvest time.”
“That’s why I have never seen it before!”
“Well, he is usually a regular rabbit.”
“You mean now he is something else?”
“Think of a red admiral which eats through the first stage of life as a caterpillar before it becomes a chrysalis then a flying swatch of color.”
“Okay, so Mr. Liddell’s rabbit stage is pre-waistcoat.”
“Kind of, sort of, I mean, not literally.”
“Well, how long will he be in his present stage?”
“As long as it takes.”
“As long as what takes?”
“As long as it takes for him to burrow down into the facts.”
“You mean he is moving into a rabbit hole?”
“You might say that.”
“Well, I did.”
“He moves among various strata of the national unconscious, at this time of year especially the adolescent stage.”
“Why the adolescent stage?”
“It is registering very high among those around the president.”
“So, he is sensitive to emotional development.”
“Yes, it is part of his instinctive gage of our national spiritual maturity.”
“Mr. Liddell does the groundwork and the Red Queen does the atmospherics.”
“Yeah, she’s a regular parrot the rest of the time.”
“What kind of parrot is she?”
“A red one.”
“I mean what breed?”
“An ornithologist would say she is a scarlet macaw.”
“I take it there is more to it than that.”
“Oh! a lot more in mysteries beyond our knowledge.”
“Do you think I can find out more online?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Can you suggest any search terms?”
“Well, I saw Macadamia online last night.”
“You saw a picture.”
“Yes alright, a vid in fact.”
“I don’t mean to split hairs, but the distinction seems more and more important lately.”
“Why Fred? Isn’t it kind of obvious?”
“We are all seeing more pictures of the world and less of the living world.”
“Again, it seems kind of obvious.”
“It is obvious until I think of the differences.”
“Such as?”
“Looking at a picture or a vid is like having a reminder. Being with someone is a unique moment.”
“Look, Fred, we have known each other for years. How can you say this is unique?”
“I don’t know what you are going to say next or what will happen.”
“What do you mean, happen?”
“The weather might change, a stray dog might come by, a meteorite might flash across the sky and land in your compost heap.”
“Yes, look at all those crows!”
“They are settling in your hickories, Did.”
She points towards the utility pole on the corner.
“There’s one on the street light too.”
They caw and flutter and then they all take off.
“There, you see what I mean about stuff happening!”
“Okay, so I saw a vid of yellow haired Macadamia on his gold-plated plane saying we are all stuck in butter.”
“In butter? What was the context?”
“Tariffs of course!”
“Is he going to put a tariff on butter?”
“Yes, he is going to put a hundred percent tariff on Danish butter until Denmark hands over Greenland.”
“I don’t remember seeing Danish butter in the stores around here.”
“Congress is stuck on the issue.”
“Well, most of our butter comes from California. I don’t see the problem.”
“Right, and that is a blue state.”
“Yes, when the coastal fog clears.”
“Tariffs might be good for them if Danish butter had a big market share, but it doesn’t.”
“I think the Danes export a lot of butter to the UK, Did.”
“That’s right, my cousin has it in the fridge.”
“Is the president mixed up on this?”
“Mac was saying that we import more than half our butter from Denmark.”
“That’s nonsense, Did.”
“A reporter pointed that out to him while he was standing in the doorway to his jet- stream-office.”
“Yes, he likes to meet reporters in that doorway.”
“Right, keeps him above objective reality.”
“Yeah, in his own algorithm.”
“I suppose it also gives him a way out!”
“Seems to me he pursues his objectives in many realities.”
“The Red Queen likes to track them.”
“So how did he get out of this one?”
“He told the reporter she was wrong and a very nasty woman for saying a thing like that.”
“Well Did, true or untrue it is important because the president said it.”
“And it takes up time.”
“Wastes time, you mean!”
“From his elevated point of view, it prevents some other reality from getting in the way of his own.”
“So, he talks about an unreal butter market.”
”That market is an alternative fact.”
“It isn’t any kind of fact because it is untrue.”
“Fred, all alternative facts are untrue. That is the alternative.”
“I see, it is part of the alternative reality.”
“It is all about controlling the narrative.”
“Is that what the Red Queen is flying into?”
“Oh yes, for sure, she flies very well into that headwind and resets her bearings.”
“I see, and Mr. Liddell is, ah, doing what?”
“He is grounding.”
“Okay, meaning what?”
“Well, it is a lot of dirt and stuff but there are also gems, minerals, and maybe some oil and gas.”
“You mean dirt on someone’s enemies?”
“Depending on your point of view that stuff is treasure or just dirt.”
“Wait a minute where is Mr. Liddell?”
“He left when the crows came.”
“He did? I never noticed.”
“No, you were watching the crows.”
“Did they bring him an announcement or something?”
“I don’t know. The crows brought a lot of interference.”
“You mean they have a wavelength too?”
“Yeah, but there’s isn’t enough bandwidth for them and the Red Queen all together.”
