Vol. 1, Issue #26 Jan. 19th - Feb. 1st, 2007

Blue Is the Self Leaving
By: Gregory Stapp

First ever teleported from one point to another. From Earth to the moon. A project termed Blue Ranger because objects-previous tended to report a blueness for which no stimulus could be identified. Questions arose. Some questions remain unanswered.

This is a story. Truth is defined by its object. A relation of events is the only means to express a given truth.

A great expanse of arid blue over a great expanse of wavering tan, dotted with a few exceptional white cubes. An artist was employed. And many engineers – men in white with tan Dickies, difficult to discern from the expanse of tan and the white cubes. An appropriate blue jumpsuit was tailored for the artist.

No shade and an unbearable heat. What was happening? Knowledge was limited. Learning is a continuum. Late in the evening, early in the morning. Breaks lasted as long as the heat of the day, during which the artist would recline in a room in nothing but underwear staring at the blue jumpsuit that hung swinging from a hook in the corner under the pulsing fan. The blue jump suit was congruent to cool. Whenever it was worn, the environment was cool – the interior of a dazzling white cube.

Dinner on Earth was always quiet. Much thinking and chewing of the little white cubes on the blue square plates. Discussion was later. Only thinking over dinner, even for the artist. The artist had to consider the approach, the follow-through and the effect. After dinner, coffee and discussion. The creamed coffee was as tan as the desert floor and served in palm-sized white cubes. Discussion centered on how and on safety. The artist was privy to these conversations and to all of the available facts. No questions were asked. All questions were rhetorical.

Everyday was as the one before it. Day and night. Day and night were also a continuum. Progress was difficult to discern.

Eventually, the course of days and nights did change. The artist was taken to another white cube, the one set away from the others, the snaggle-tooth in the jagged grin of the desert. The interior of this cube was unlike the others, and the change was significant. Change was easy to discern.

A glass tube was at room-center. Everything had to be contained. The floor was a deep earthen brown, the ceiling night-blue. Inside the glass tube, a small white cube, precisely like the food.

The artist was placed within the glass cylinder. The white cube was consumed. It was not food. It was noted by the engineers that the artist appeared to dissipate according to the same physical laws as gasses, approximately three minutes and eleven seconds from the point the white cube was ingested. The final log entry for that day indicated that there was much anxious waiting and milling about for unremarkable news from the moon.

…

Words are deficient. A recollection of an otherwise inexplicable blue moment. Notice was not taken during the moment. It was only a recollection –a thought planted not by experience, a retinal impression after looking at the sun. What is this? Words for colors are deficient. Blue is too generic, and yet any other term for any other hue of blue carries with it too many connotations. Nothing can be connoted in the recollection of an impression. And yet it was there and so utterly complete as to defy the idea that it had not been experienced.

Then the blue became, slowly, intermittently, a vast expanse of black speckled with glints of stars over a vast expanse of ghostly white dotted with green domes.

…

Arriving at the moon was more blinking than waking. One last blink on Earth, then blinking on the moon, but with a recollection of an enveloping blue that faded into black.

Dinners on the moon were all conversation and very little quiet thinking --grandiose vegan dinners of lush, vibrantly-colored foods. The artist was included in the conversations, but very little could be reported.

Brushes and a canvas and every conceivable hue of blue were provided to the artist, upon request. The artist was locked away within one of the green domes, upon request.

Phases passed. Dinners on the moon continued in conversation, but without a qualitative report from the artist, much was left to speculation. A majority of the speculation was about the artist rather than the rest of the experiment. This response was remarkable and not predicted. Nothing remarkable was reported concerning the artist’s physical or mental function. Both aspects appeared to be precisely the same as last recorded on Earth. And yet, this behavior was not predicted. What was happening? Over dinner on the moon, questions arose. Some questions remain unanswered.

--Engineer’s Note: The subject, Domino-192, herein referred to as “the artist”, was left alone in his dome for several phases, as per his request. When he did not emerge from his dome for quite some time, we investigated. Upon entry we discovered him sitting slumped in a corner with the above transcript in his hands. Across the main area of his dome he had scattered well over a thousand paper cubes, each approximately a cubic inch in volume, which he had painted blue. It appeared at first that the cubes had been scattered randomly as in a fit of rage, but on further examination two remarkable notes were made by this engineer: the cubes followed the exact scatter pattern of a pyramid from which the bottom stones had been removed one by one, and on the bottom of each of the bottom cubes the artist had written the same phrase, “Blue is the Self Leaving, by Domino-192.”

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