Wind Up Toys

See How They Spin

O, God! Original art by the author MK ‘26

The gods looked up from their places

Laughing delightedly.

Tiny driftwood toys were spinning

Bouncing directionless.

It was funny how they made gestures

Overflowing importance.

Carrying another's impact and hue until

Falling down.

How much more fun did the gods

Momentarily imagine.

Should those spinning tops rise

Whence fallen.

And with the breath from windy

Storm cloud

The mighty gods fashioned them

Spinning men.

…

A correlation appears as a cause to those of limited vision.

A brilliant glow within remains invisible to mechanical eyes.

A figment upon the horizon plays games with searching sight.

…

Away in the night Silenus stretches out, sipping on mead. Mead preceded wine, fruit of the Bees, and was linked to the Pine Cone about which their yellow and black, sun and night, industrious shapes circled, creating music with their wings, songs from distant places that still haunt those who listen, yes even today.

The steady song of the wings from the bee-ings. It becomes a vibration. It is a pulsing. It moves the awareness into the space that opens beyond sundials and L.E.D.s, where the golden sparks arc across the perception and the sharp Pine Cone becomes the promise of that which is not yet born, yet which exists.

There is no verbal description that can do more than point to the liminal grace of trance-formation. The wind that plays across sound and space, the tambourine the Bee wings repeatedly ring. Symbol is not the ruler, nor the definer. Sunthemata, the tokens are in place to mark the trail through the mystic.

The path of the Bee leads to their skill at alchemy, fashioning honey from pollen, very much alive and of such properties that Silenus felt them working upon his psyche, calling to the potential thriving within the {time} Cone.

The Pine Cone featured prominently upon the Irminsul. It also just happened to adorn the staff of Dionysus. Both long poles topped with natural regalia. The Irminsul was from the pre-christian Saxon tradition, the pole of Dionysus from beyond civilization.

The Irminsul of course figured prominently in the bombastic sychophantastic history of Chuckie the Butcher, as did mead. Chuckie is credited with spreading the light of Christianity the way it was always done, with mass murder. For those who take objection to this fact of history, something the blessed souls who perpetrated such acts related gleefully in the records they themselves created, please keep in mind that pre-christian society was admirably tolerant of those who wanted to follow the Semitic god. The wannabes, in contrast, were simply are not capable of such advanced behavior in return.

It isn't easy to find actual fermented mead in this modern synthetic world, vs some ersatz thing called mead-wine, but if you manage to, it will knock you on your ass, or off of it, as was the case for Silenus.

Some are convinced that Silenus was actually Dionysus. They say he had a reputation as an old man horribly fond of intoxication, certainly no one any sane society would admire, {whilst bringing about those very conditions to make such behavior possible}. Silenus, either despite his fondness for release or because of it, was privy to knowing what the vast majority could only guess at. His reaction to this terrible knowledge was to rarely, if ever, speak of it. It wasn't that he hid it away, it was more like he never brought it up. Accompanying Dionysus on his plunges into night and eternity, observing the Maenads, and perhaps going with them into limitless Black.

I'm not so sure they should claim this, after all, despite material science, mathematics, money and politics it is mysterious, this place of gods and men. What at first seems to be obvious, definable, on closer examination becomes a Chimera.

A shimmer in the vision

Which always begs a question

Where the answer is less central

However one views it, than the reality.

Almost all of modern thought is like this, an assumption that leads to conclusions that are precariously fashioned from narratives based on correlation that is dressed up as causation. We currently have this great theory of evolution, this Archaeopteryx moment, humans as the pinnacle, yet the world could not exist without single cell organisms and algae that haven't changed from the time the oceans grew upon the land, and the first waves lapped upon the rock.

But then people are funny. Even when they don't sip mead.

Silenus stretched out in the wild night. Did he look up to the stars, which at that time weren't obscured by the pollution that makes billionaires and houses of cards?

Or perhaps he was bee-ing taken by the buzzing of the wings, a music that is not rooted in the scientific explanation of anything. After all, if consciousness is a problem, and a hard one at that, how can tiny little fanning motions matter?

Silenus of course was famous as the god who fostered Dionysus into maturity, after Athena who never had a childhood discovered his heart in the ashes of the Titans who dismembered and devoured him. That final birth from Zeus was a strange story indeed. There is much avid speculation concerning this, that it had to do with Greek sexual behavior, social conventions, but what is missed in the discussion is an overlooked and rarely noted ancient truth, that each human limb, every segment separated by joints that spin, is an expression of its own unique spirit. Spirit in the arm, spirit in the head, spirit in the leg, what most do you exult in?

The body as place, a collection of living intelligences.

Of course modern minds reject such silly things. My arms is mine, damnit, even if I didn’t make it, had nothing to do with it working there, no one believes that stuff!

Thighs of course, can be quite beautifully sculpted. They also are very much at the center of power, as in physical might, and a key point of opposition that is the source of motion. Every step is an unconscious lesson in balance and polarity, which some might say was a Dionysian specialty.

Silenus, as befitting his name, rarely uttered anything. When he did his speech was doom ridden and plain. He was no fanboy of hopium, that's for certain. At question of course was the human condition, that is so often wracked with idiocy and pain.

It should be relatively simple to understand that what people want the most they absolutely cannot have. Michelangelo painted his image of Zeus, {oh, right-we meant God}, almost touching the hand of man.

Almost only counts when playing horseshoes, pal.

Did Silenus resort to drinking because he knew? Or was it a case of embodying ignorance, which as well as condemning mankind offers a bit of protection, or insulation from truth with all its sad limitations?

If you realized you could never have what you really wanted, would you want to know what it is? Or would you prefer to join the rest of humanity playing with not so great substitutions, finding each one wanting yet unable to halt the striving?

…

Justin Tyme hadn't been seen with Justine Kaase for a while. No one knew what had happened, but they missed her ready smile, her lithe energy, and her singing.

Wherever he went these days was alone. His circle of people never asked him, they came to the conclusion that she had been swept up in wave upon wave of erratic behavior that had largely, and relatively recently, captured the fairer gender.

Justin sped through the door to be confronted with the image of everyone in the office looking up at him. It was somewhat of an unusual office, as there were fake wood desks instead of cubicles. Everything was out in the open. No picking your nose and getting away with it.

The bright day streamed through the large windows. The light made everything vibrant, distinct, clear. Justin hadn't combed his dark hair, although it lay pretty much okay, it gave his face, still adorned with black sunglasses, a kind of untamed air. His black suit coat was unbuttoned, revealing his black tie. His black pants secured with a black belt above black shoes.

“Well fuck that!”

He said it with serious finality.

His co-workers or someone had spilled the beans.

The billionaire perverts had done it. Their funding, abuse, and murder had pushed their slaves in speculative fields to actually mimic the intangible force of creation. This was finally the sterile robot they always wanted, the one that could bring them the singularity, immortality, to be a god in this world.

Certainly there were modern women intent on rejecting their own living systems. They saw their fertility as an impediment, and the opposite gender as problematic. After all, why shouldn't they have the key to give manifestation to all those secret whims?

This, however, was only the first step in creating the space cognitively to place creation into an artificial Cell. It succeeded wildly, beyond their expectations. The removal of the intrinsic generative spark from its earthly manifestation was won a single step at a time.

Like a beam across the sky. The slaves of the lever pullers had shambled after it, following its lead. They had tried almost everything with high rates of success, but until now, no brass ring. They took religion, isolated and examined its structure. They were especially interested in adapting the coercive power of religion to their goals of controlling manifestation. Cognition was the key.

Once they had it ready, they orchestrated an entire global experiment around it. They were delighted with the outcome. Their intensive modelling, and raping of the ancient mystical tradition, predicted an exponential rise in fanaticism. What they needed was a threat, and that threat was empowered by a force the Royal Navy had ripped from the ocean floor decades before.

Signed.

Sealed.

Delivered.

It was their own assets who had willingly turned traitor to the spirit. Those who had some native ability helped them mightily to achieve their goals. If anyone had prodded him, Justin would have recalled the hidden experiments regarding time and manifestation that were done with young men of that specific distinct ethnicity. {Oh yes, the ones in charge had known all along that people aren't brothers}.

Some are seeded from distant places, with unique…abilities, just ask the Sharp Shaver.

The ‘brother' term had been cynically arranged to destroy any and all opposition. It was particularly aimed at certain target females who were quietly led by those who usurped through mimicry the devastating divine madness of the Maenad. Like all the things they tried, the success rates were ridiculously high, almost as if they were aided via the intervention of some alien intelligence along the way.

The slaves never wanted the real thing for their masters, because it offered them no control, no supervision, no manipulation. Silenus could dive into the black with the animal skin clad women, but he could never do more than help guide them, which is an entire world away from using and abusing them.

The well paid slaves were never interested in nature, other than as a starting point. The approach to religion followed the same pattern as their approach to the entire synthetic manifestation they were intent on building. They didn't particularly care about the genuine feminine. They were only interested in extracting those properties they could use to construct their mimic.

Utilizing the feminine, as instructed by the sentience, the ocean dwelling life form that was the heart and soul of modern medicine, carried multiple benefits. Perhaps most importantly through separating spark from identity, the cycles of life from the living, the most problematic aspect of the population, the young men, were isolated and utterly disempowered, all too easy. The alien sentience was ingenious.

It wasn't like this perfection of synthetic manifestation didn't have its ups and downs. There was a real issue that arose in the 1970s, for example. The forced transition from ‘back to the land' to ‘back to the city' required them to make available actual wealth to pursue. They hated doing this. It went completely against their inclinations, but do it they did, and again it paid them great and unexpected dividends.

The cognitive conclusion that wealth lay in the cities continued long after they had drained it. They didn't even have to sell the artificial environment. People flocked to it willingly!

Just one synchronicity after another. The prophet of the god mechanical had showed them the power of Odin, and how Odin could be mimicked with a cognitive feature that removed god from natural manifestation, while leaving the madness as an isolation, naked, putty in their hands.

The rise of god mechanical continued, was truly boosted when the schism of sentience and existence was widened into the Noosphere. While sincere people wondered if it was real, the root of the synthetic control levers were already planted.

Justin knew all of this and more. When he was younger he used to uncover the path that built division upon division, reduction upon reduction, imitation upon every previous imitation. It didn't win him many friends, most people if he dared to share anything just pointed at him, just ran back to their hopium addictions.

This time, however, everything was different. Synthetic manifestation, the golden statue was finally perfected. Voices bubbled excitedly. There were images all over the internet. Sycophant AI was telling people how to think about it, the collective nodded and parroted the talking points with feeling. Fake talking heads on the screens who all sounded alike despite carefully chosen skin tones and surnames made the conclusions. God had come to town, now bend your knee.

Somewhere in the cities on the vast television screens, perfectly scripted digital music played alongside images the populace was supposed to pay attention to, and did. The gangsta looked up from his latest fentanyl deals. The customers who never wondered how a car company could steal the name of a great inventor stepped back, looking. The corporations who turned away quality applicants, in favor of those who fulfilled their agenda, stopped plugging in their profiles. Something was happening. Was it that great golden statue, or something else?

“Well fuck that!”

Justin Tyme voiced his three word sentence matter-of-factly. It seemed to make little impression on the people at the fake wood desks. Yet the wave that was dressed in three little words matched the dance of several others, a wave that washed unnoticed by most, which created a union of intent and motion.

There was no juxtaposition. No anomaly originated. Nowhere was there slightest resistance of type, only the inherent oppositions that allowed the wave to spin, like those ubiquitous human limbs. The invisible wave expanded as it rolled, igniting possibility that once born carried within itself its own expression of time, a kenning. One recalls the Pine Cone.

Justin spun on his heel. Without another word he dashed out of the office. “My, isn't he wound up,” an older woman who worked there quipped.

Justin bounded out the door, the keys in his hand bouncing off each other, making a metallic ring. He didn’t really notice his urban surroundings, they seemed to streak by leaving his impressions fleeting. He was headed for the parking garage where he had a subscription, where his aged war pony was cozied up next to a support pillar and a concrete barrier. It wasn’t that the old Galaxy 500 was without its scars, but he didn’t want some moron sliding up next to him anyway. The 351 Cleveland V-8 broke the silence, hissing out of the dual exhausts with chrome tips. They didn’t make cars like this anymore, not since the sultans of sick had stolen the reins of society.. The chrome was gleaming. He rolled down the window manually, and as he slid onto the blacktop, finding fourth gear habitually, the ancient V8 roared.

Justin Tyme guided the big black car effortlessly. If he thought of Justine Kaase it was only wistfully. Sometime a man has no backup plan.

Just ask Leonidas about Thermopylae.

…

The visuals were perfect. It was a bright day under the fake grey clouds that stretched from horizon to horizon. The older woman at her fake wood desk played the video clip again and again on her expensive phone that regularly dropped calls, but held about three hundred Apps. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Across town the script readers at Controlled Opposition Television were getting the last touch ups on their makeup. A helpful AI voice was prompting them, they were on camera in less than two minuites. The lighting was ready. Their swivel chairs checked and checked again for proper function. The video clips for this special moment were already on cue. They practiced in the mirror making very serious expressions.

Somewhere in a very large city stood one tower among many. It was tall, but probably nowhere near contentending for the tallest, as that award currently belonged to Singapore, the man in front of the wall sized screen remembered.

Still the tower made it almost impossible to see, or even smell the piles of garbage that lined the streets far below him, so even though it wasn’t the tallest, or the grandest, it was tall enough to sit above all the animals that crawled through their daily lives. It was status, and insulation.

He hit the button on the wireless controller once more, looking for the details he might have missed on earlier views. He skipped past the script readers, whose hair was perfect, to the scene that mattered. His eyes played across the image of the circular concrete garden. He knew that the sections of maze, the angular walkways, and the geometric seemingly decorative low walls were disguising the electronics, the heat exchangers, and the water delivery systems. It was all quite clever, like a holocaust museum.

He remembered the controversy that centered around the covered perimeter. The way it was constructed was almost a ramp that surrounded the central disk. Upon that central disk was their artificial mother, a golden statue of admirable size, which was the nexus of their artificial manifestation.

Pausing the video at the moment when the camera caught the underside of the airborne vehicle, he noted the twin exhausts connected with an ‘H’ pipe that balanced the pulse of the separate bank of cylinders of the V8 whose oil pan was protected by a heavy steel cross member.

Despite himself he felt a certain admiration for the driver, who had reached the exact correct speed to use the covered walkway as a ramp, and sail over the geometric circuitry, an object of beauty and terror all at once.

He restarted the feed, and watched the old car collide in midair with their trillion dollar control statue, which proceeded to shatter into millions of tiny pieces in a strange homage to Sophia’s spark.

Turning back to his desk he noted that every secure line was lit up. Knocks were echoing from the causeway where the locked door held firm. All at once, the digital currency was draining master accounts, and awarding the homeless with enormous sums, which were being used to empty liquor stores across the country. Wine shelves were swiftly cleared, and mead, real mead, that would knock you on your ass or off of it, was now impossible to find.

Just then his screen wall went black, which he had actually anticipated. The light blinking on every secure line died. Only the pounding on his locked door continued. It became almost plaintive, desperate, someone whose fear had consumed them and desperately sought anyone to affirm their own reality.

…

Silenus stretched out in the wild night, a flagon of golden mead held fast in one paw, the other cupping the back of his head. He more felt than saw Dionysus emerge from the deep forest, vines and laurel adorning his long flowing hair. The arrival was almost ominous, certainly mysterious, but that was Dionysus. It wasn’t his fault, really, that he had died and been reborn so many times. It was just the way things were, and it could mark a god, some might say forever.

Dionysus didn't have to say anything. As a child he had been lured to his death by the toys that fascinated him. There was the top that spun, around and around like the proverbial tempest. At its center was it quiet, even as it bounced and deflected off of various things once it was put into motion? Of course, there were others, such as the globe, that round ball, which holds the attention of millions upon millions-just ask FIFA, or the Major League Baseball Association.

It is a curious thing, how innocent fascination can be manipulated by those with ulterior motives.