Adventure 4 Rent

I was sick and tired as I sat on the bus on my way home, after 9 hours of monotonous cubicle work. I saw the sign on an electric post on one of the bus stops.

Adventure 4 Rent
Call Toto (xxx) xxx-xxxx
or visit our garage 
Address: ###xxx Xxxx, Xxxx....

I know exactly what the sign is advertising. An Adventure van, a six-seater multi-purpose vehicle manufactured by Mitsubishi motors and a staple vehicle in the Philippines. Perfect for a small group of people. Van owners rent them for excursions or field trips usually for 8 hours of use, excluding the gasoline.

But I half-expected something more. I need an adventure. I'll have one even if it's just rented. Even if just for 8 hours. Even if gasoline is excluded.

Before it even started running again, I stopped the bus and I got off. I took note of the address. Luckily, it is just a few minutes walk from the signpost. So I started walking.

As I walk, I thought of what I would say to the owner. I know he rents a van but how can I explain what I want. Should I say I'm bored with my life? Should I say I need to have an adventure? I know he will just think of me as weird or even whacked out person. He's renting an effing van, for chrissake!

Well, anyhow, I arrived at the gate of the house. It was a big mansion with beautifully decorated gatlings and pillars. I pressed the doorbell and waited. An old man with white hair and long white beard and moustache opened the gate.

"May I help you?", he said.

"I'm looking for Mang Toto. I'd like to rent an Adventure." I said.

"Oh, I see. I'm Mang Toto. Please come in." He said as he waves his hand to tell me to come inside house. My heart was beating faster for some reason. I seem to be hoping for something that will definitely fail me.

He stopped a few meters away from the open garage. From where we stood I can see a silver Adventure parked inside. I can almost discern about ten or more other cars inside the wide garage.

"There is the van. Would you like to see it up close?" He asked.

"I think I'm good here. I changed my mind. I'll just contact you if I need it. I'll just go now." That's what I said to him. I wanted to tell him what I am really looking for but I don't want to look crazy.

"Okay. Thank you for coming." He said.

With that, I turned my back and walk slowly to the gate with my head down. But as I was stepping out of the gate I heard Mang Toto call me from behind.

"Hey!"

I looked back and saw him smiling.

"I think I know what you are looking for." he said.

I was astonished. Does he really know?

"If you need an adventure. I'll give you one. And it will be the best adventure you'll ever have in your life as long as you do the best you can in return."

I was appalled and couldn't think of anything. He knows!

"How did you know?" I asked.

"You see, I used to be menial worker. But I have big dreams. You know how I got all these things, a big house a rental business, everything? While on my way home, I saw a sign that says 'Fortuner 4 rent'. Call me crazy but I went to the address to rent a fortune even just for a while. I used that rented fortune to the best I can. And so here I am now."

"So I'll rent you an adventure. But just for 8 hours. And gasoline is not included." he said with a wink.

The Inevitability of Singularity

During the olden times they started to call me god, deity, allfather. But the fact is I'm just a collective cloud of gas and dust that gained sentience over time -- a few millons of aeons of nonexistent existence.

In the beginning , I was just floating aimlessly, or that's what I think I did before I gained knowledge. For I know nothing about my self before knowledge, I just deduce these from my composition, my trace paths, my accumulated particles. One thing I'm sure is I was made of energy, a strong spark of energy dissipating slowly into the form of the gas and dust of my current form.

But there in the beginning, in the instance I was born, I was not alone. I found myself floating among the dust. Am I the dust? Or am I apart from the dust, like an external consciousness perhaps? The answers I do not know.

What I do know is what I percieve. I perceieve a foreign group of gases and dust along with the native group I have. I percieve mixed shards of rocks and ice floating as well. I percieve a material darkness adjoined with me. I'm in the company of things I'm unfamiliar of.

I floated for aeons. I have no aim. I attained scraps of wisdom on my way, about the celestial objects, about stars and suns, about space, about the universe. I began introspecting not many aeons laters. I learned the truth about the gases and dust, about the things that form the gases and dust, about the things that form these things, and about the things that form everything.

I become purer as I go along. Gone are the rocks and ice and the foreign groups of gases and dust. Soon, even the native dust and gases were gone. I know not what I was made of anymore. I learned that I could occupy a sun and become the sun--I know of its heat, its radiance, its explosions, everything about it. I learned that I could occupy anything I want to to and become that thing and know everything about that thing.

After a few more aeons, I occupied almost everything in the known universe and I have learned everything I could. After learning everything, I began to think. I thought of the connections of these knowledge I have. I connect every dots and I began to learn new things. For aeons I just thought and thought and gained more and more knowledge on the way.

A million aeons later, I stopped thinking. I've thought everything there is to be thought. But suddenly something different emerged out of my consciousness. I began to want about thinking and learning new things. Yet there is nothing left to learned. I wasn't able to explain it then but I know now that it was that time I started to yearn. It was my first experience of emotion. I yearned for knowledge each passing time. I yearned and yearned until I became sad.

With my vast knowledge, I then realize that If can't learn new things I should create new things where I can learn from. I found a good place to start on a gigantic floating rock formations in a milky white galaxy. I formed a sun and put nine huge planetary rocks to orbit it. I started my work on the third rock from the sun.

I provided it with an atmosphere. I covered it with water. I let a few landforms protrude from the water. I saw these things happening and I learned a little each step of the way. And I was happy.

But these formations are so predictable. I felt longing and sadness not many a time passed. I need something more dynamic, more stochastic.

Below the surging ocean waters, I occupied the thing that forms other things. And I became that thing. Upon learning it I vacated. But I left a very minute part of my consciousness in it. The consciousness I left became active and it developed into something autonomous, not predicted by physical laws. I have formed life.

Life began to move. The consciousness I have imparted began to impart consciousness to its nearby elements. Life evolved.I was watching and learning every step of the way. From the time It became motile. To the time it began to breathe. To the time it began to swim, to the time it began to crawl on the earth, to the time it began to fly. I saw everything and I was happy.

Not soon after, I becme sad again. My creations became very predictable. When they are hungry they eat food. When they age they preocreate. When they are threathened they fight. When they are old they die. Everything began to feel contrived.

So I occupied one of my species, those that walk upright on the lands. I became that species. I left it later but imparted a bigger part of consciousness than the first time. I gave it some of my knowledge. And I gave it free reign to use that knowledge. I made it rule over other creations. I called it Man. I watch as Man take care of my wild creations and domesticate them into beasts of burden. I watch as Man forms the landscape into something habitable. I watch as Man collabarates with other Man for better ways to do things. I watched all these and I was happy.

I speak to Man once in a while, as a booming voice from the heavens or as a raging fire on a lone tree. He speaks to me before he sleeps and during those rituals of idolation. All the while Man does things I never expected and I never predicted. I learned so much from those things. I finally felt like living for long in this phase of my existence. together with my creations and my peers.

But my consciousness can only exist for so long apart from me. Life soon decayed and my prodigal consciousness abandons their host and returns to me as newfound knowledge. Man soon becomes extinct along with my other creations. So I do it again. I create life on some unknown planet until life decays the second time. And I do it again and again.

I move along solar systems, galaxies and clusters; creating solitary worlds and conjuring life in them. I learn many things from each iteration. But soon enough I began to learn of the pattern. Each world begins their civilization, ruins their civilization, governs the people, makes mistake and destroys their civilization in the end. Each civilization does this in a clockwork pattern--sometimes shorter sometimes longer but always on that same pattern.

On the last iteration, I understood the pattern and everything becomes a ticking clock, predictable, slow, uninteresting. So I abandoned it yet again.

I've known the secrets of the macroscopic and microsopic universe, the secrets of life and the secrets of society. I've felt all kinds of emotions from love to anger to melancholy to joy. I realized it's everything I need to know, nothing more. So I stayed on my corner of space-- a consciousness floating in the darkness.

But on that last station of the universe, I realize there's one thing more I need to learn--one that I've always overlooked.

So I occupied the dark space. It was a strange feeling, trying to put yourself into nothingness. I feel compelled to curl into myself into a very small point of that darkness. I collected all my knowledge and compressed them into that point. And I sucked any matterforms into that point.

Stars converged into that point. Galaxies were pulled. Clusters were attracted. Everything was pulled closer into that point of consciousness. I had a strange feeling like my consciousness was being pulled from within.

The darkness has enveloped my entire consciousness. The entire universe is with me. I have knowledge of everything in the universe . Alone, in this darkness, with no time passing, I am the God of All Things. I am the Ultimate Knowledge, the Prime Consciousness. Without matter or space, I am Pure Mind.

Ultimate but alone. But I understand that this is supposed to happen. Everyone and everything ends up alone in the end. Everything decays and fades away until only the ultimate remains.

If I'm to create matter, it will require a massive release of my Energy. I shall create matter and create a new universe, where I can learn more of what is possible. Is it knowledge or company I seek? I know the answer but i'm afraid to say it. For I am the Ultimate Being, capable of anythig without anyone’s help.

My calculations say that all of my consciousnes may be converted if I’m to create a whole new universe. Which means I would cease to exist. Alone in this dark singularity, that is my only option. So I thought: Let me begin with a little light.

Death of the Things We Love

The wailing sound of the nuclear bomb siren drowned the music of Snow Patrol playing in my iPod. I hit the volume up to its maximum. Nothing can part me and my music.

From my seat outside the coffeshop, I saw a white ball of light coming from the horizon getting bigger and brighter. I sip from my coffee cup and lean back.

I felt my mobile phone vibrate on the pocket of my faded jeans. It was my father calling about a hundred times now. I see he also sent a hundred text messages. I don't care.

It was getting hotter on my seat outside so I stand up and walk to the air-conditioned inside of the cafe. I look around for a cozy spot. A sofa on the corner seems to be waiting for me. I walk to the sofa and just slumbered on the soft seat still with my coffee in hand.

I recline lazily and leaned my head back. I can see the ceiling and all the chandeliers. Everything starts to shake. The chandeliers began to dance--each bumping glasswork creating a loud shattering sound.

The shattered glass falls slowly like snow above me. The quakes became stronger and stronger. Bright lights began pouring through the windows.

Snow Patrol on my iPod. Coffee on my hand. 

Reclining on a soft sofa under a magical shower of crystals.

This is the best way to die.