Inaffection: The Absence Part II
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INT. Q'S KITCHEN - MIDDAY
Q and V sit on the sofa with the T.V off. V picks dirt from under his fingernails. Q stares at the bathtub in the living room.
V
We need to rearrange our priorities. We know that alpha is coming in. What's the next step? You can calculate where interference is constructive, we have this house, what use is that if we don't know what we're doing with the wave?
Q
We are going to use it to reach the edge of the universe--
V
Ah, come on what does that mean!? There's no way of sending a probe or even a camera out there because there's no way of transmitting any signals past the reach of my outstretched dick in this shithole of a planet. How can we observe the view from the edge of the universe? We've sat on that fact for god knows how long and we've done nothing about it!
Q
That's not true, what about REX?
V
It's an idea. The beginning of something you won't sit down and work on with me.
Q walks out of the room and soon re-enters with a few sheets of scrappy paper.
Q
Fine, this is what you have. You think that REX can attach itself to any particle and manipulate it. But, how does that help?
V
By imprinting what I can only describe as its quantum shadow on particles within its magnetic field, REX can make a particle shift between being a mass and becoming a medium, practically a wave. If it attaches itself to a camera, gets thrown by the interference, REX may be able to throw itself and the camera back.
Q
That's what the big wave does, it turns particles into waves and back again.
V
No, this is what I work on whilst you talk to yourself all day. I don't fully know what a quantum shadow is, I'm not even sure if they are the right words to describe it, but REX creates this current between particles that acts like electrons in a circuit. Except it simply isn't. It's almost like something flows between particles, something that might be described as dark matter or dark energy, but between two particles as if they are apart of this wave-like medium. REX facilitates the medium and in doing so imprints and attaches itself to a particle.
Q
What do you mean recognises dark matter?
V
If you polarise a transverse wave you restrict the ways in which it can oscillate. If you manipulate a magnetic field in such a way that an atom's charge shifts from positive to negative at more than a trillion times a second, it'll stop electromagnetic waves being so, converting them into the wave-like medium. Those electromagnetic waves that are constantly bouncing in, around and between them will lose their electric quality but gain a dark aspect. You are using magnetism to polarise or at least change the nature of a wave. This can be reflected between an atom and REX. This doesn't work exactly like a wave, but a medium that exists between REX and the particles. Hence, my confusion on what to call it. They are connected in a way that can't be comprehended by space and time, it's almost like you describe the origins and parameters of the the big wave. This way, any and all atoms connected to REX via this medium actually can be considered apart of it and almost interchangeable without the friction of spacetime slowing down any atoms exchanging points of being. In this respect the medium can transfer particles throughout space with an alteration in REX's magnetic field.
Q
If we put REX where the alpha wave and our universe superimpose to throw matter around space, then it should be able to attach to two atmospheres of imprinted particles and allow the two atmospheres to be shared interchangeably.
V
Exactly, well, almost. Without the transportation abilities of the constructive interference this isn't possible because atmospheres can't be remembered or moved. REX can only deal with the atoms in its magnetic field one at a time. If we turn REX on and the interference instantaneously puts it in a different point in space, then REX won't be able to tell the difference between its atmosphere before and after because it wouldn't be done imprinting and would simply be finding new particles. That way we cheat it into transporting particles.
Q
So where is it?
V stares at him blankly, Q's enthusiasm disappearing.
V
What the fuck?! Oh wait, here's one I made earlier. You dickweed! How the fuck can I have made REX if you don't let me use your data on the nature of the big wave to come up with a contraption capable of both manipulating magnetic fields at the rate of trillions of times a second whilst having the capacity to work within space that is also constantly being thrown about space in relation to some concept you don't have the courtesy to shine even the dimmest of lights on!?
Q
There's a sentence. Take a breath.
V's not laughing.
Q
(concedes)
Ok... I get it. My work is your work, that's the way it should have been from the beginning--
V
But, you didn't want me contaminating your genius.
Q
Look -
V
No. You look. We both may have these ideas that can predict some strange shit, but the fact that we seem to be right scares the shit out of me and it should you to. We seem to have this capacity to understand things that others won't comprehend, but that means nothing without context. You just want me excerpt from all you outputs, an errand boy who drags a bathtub a quarter of a mile. Without each other we are just pretentious know-it-alls with no real substance or acceptance, so get your fucking head around the idea that I'm here to stay. I'm not a Gollum to your Smeagol, I'm not going to suck your eyeballs out. I simply am trying to help.
Q
(under his breath)
Why?
V
I don't know.
After a moment of silence, Q leaves.
INT. Q'S ROOM - NIGHT
Q turns on the camera to begin a video log.
He stares at it, nothing to say.
EXT. THE PARK - NIGHT
V sits cross legged in the middle of the grass staring up at the sky.
Wind can be heard for a brief second, but then all sound cuts away.
V twiddles a blade of grass between his fingers.
INT. Q'S ROOM - NIGHT
Q sits, wipes the camera lens, then looks down, smirks and lets out a short laugh.
Q then claps his hands on his face.
Q
(sighs)
To ask 'how' is very important. But, what holds more weight is the question of 'why'. The answer to 'how' is an indirect way of answering 'why'.'How' is an observation, but for a person to truly understand anything they need to comprehend cause. 'Why' is an incentive, it explains the reasoning behind every 'how'. More and more, I find that 'why' is one of the hardest questions to answer, I feel that this is because for the answer to be understood you need empathy, something someone can relate to. After all, all we understand is our own self, we can only ever experience our own consciousness. Everything that is perceived must be explainable in terms of the only things we feel we have a good grasp of: our very own self. 'How' is more than often a means to an end whilst 'why' can be repeatedly asked for eternity. Maybe that's why we shy away from it? 'Why' demands introspection and we all know that when we get down to a level deep enough, we can't handle the truth. Does that mean a true meaning doesn't exist unless you will it to? Or is it just that nobody's around to hear the lonely tree fall in the darkest of woods?
Q forces a smile past his bewilderment, shaking his head, opening a drawer in the desk the camera is sitting on.
With one hand he reaches into the desk and the other he turns off the camera.
INT. Q'S KITCHEN - MORNING
Q and V are sitting on the sofa in near silence. V eats cereal, Q stares at the T.V.
The tap drip... drip... drips...
Q lets his gaze drop from the T.V.
He gets up and turns the tap so it stops dripping then sits back down again.
Q
You know Coraline?
V
Who?
Q
The film.
V
Yeah.
Q
A psychological piece of artwork. A true masterpiece.
V
Really?
Q
Well, it's no Cinderella, but...
V sits up.
V
Go on then.
Q
This films is in short about starting puberty. In the beginning of the film Coraline's perspective of her family and her life change, just as she moves house, moves to a different setting. It's important to remember that Coraline is an impulsive kid who really doesn't know what she wants and is transitioning between being a child and starting on the road to adulthood. She wants to experience the perks of childhood, but is also curious about the grass on the other side--much like Sarah in Labyrinth, but that's a different...
(groans)
... yet similar, story. Anyway, this childishness is shown by her still wanting to play games such as that weird bit with the magic dowser. This is a direct metaphor for self-discovery because in this she finds the secret well which represents naivety put upon children by adults which makes them fear, or aversive to, ideas about being grown up or sexually active. You know, like the one where your mother tells you not to mess with your penis or it'll fall off or you'll go blind? So anyways, Coraline is aware that there's more to being grown up than she's aware of. But what exactly? This is where we learn that her home life is boring, Coraline's restless and her parent's aren't very communicative. What's most important is Coraline not being allowed to go out and garden. This is obviously representative of growing and blossoming. The Mum's reason for this is it's raining and so it's too muddy or messy--looks like someone's a little apprehensive to give 'the talk', or what's more likely is she doesn't want her daughter to become this horrible, hateful, hormonal, beast - a teenager. It's around this time Coraline enters the otherworld. This is a dream sequence and so is very rich with an awful lot of metaphors and imagery, at the same time it has a huge capacity for psychodynamic analysis. Stuff we love. But, in short, there are three main themes or lessons in this other world. These are held by three environments: the theater downstairs, the circus upstairs and the garden outside. The theater represents Coraline transforming herself to put on this act that allows her to maybe attract men, characterised by all the dogs. The circus actually represents dating and sex, in that she's lured in and given this elaborate show, with a lot of mice going in, out and around holes. The garden, as stated before, represents Coraline and possibly her virginity or maturation in its blossoming. These are all at first visits made out to be these wondrous places in comparison to the real world. But, what's most important in the other world is the other mother. This is the main Freudian root of the film. It's based of the electra complex and or the phallic psychosexual stage. Coraline, in short, to get through this phase, must come to terms with her mother as a female model for her to grow into--instead of looking at her with child's eyes. To surpass this stage Coraline must break away from this false world she's created by reaching out to her parents. This gets rid of her convoluted ideals about growing up and all it isn't, as represented by the three different environments. This is done by playing a game, accepting the fact that she still is pretty much a kid. In doing so the true nature of her fabrications are revealed. Enlightenment.
(Q's surprised V's still listening)
To skip to the end of the film, Coraline is shown tending the garden with her parents: she is beginning to grow up and blossom with the acceptance and support of her parents. I skipped parts, but...
V
I forgot you used to watch films.
Q
Yeah, well...
V takes his empty cereal bowl to the sink.
INT. THE LIVING ROOM - MORNING
Q and V stand, at some distance, looking at the bath tub.
V
It's still safe to be in here, right?
Q
I suppose, but it won't be if the exchange point moves or expands. In fact, you could be thrown to the mid atlantic if jumped in the bath right now. And if it expands, which I doubt it will, well... I hope you can swim.
V
So how big is it?
Q
The calculations are on the papers that I gave you last night...
V
I'll finish reading them after lunch.
Q
They state that the exchange point is a sphere about nine hundred and fifty nanometers in radius. The paper also outlines that by two o'clock today the second exchange point will start accelerating away at a much faster rate, so fast that in ten minutes it would have reached light speed. After three minutes more it'll be jumping through space at a half a million light years per hour. Apparently light speed isn't any law the alpha wave's energy output knows anything about.
V
If we discovered the wave and have all the figures to describe it, can't we give it a name?
Q
Yes, but we're not going to because there's nobody that's going to know about this and last time you named something you called it Fetus.
V
The name suited the dog, what are you talking about?
Q
Anyhow, there's no time for that, we must construct something to contain the area around the bathtub and exchange point so that all the air isn't sucked out of the room.
V
That's an impossibility. We have no way of getting our hands on materials that could withstand any kind of pressure that'd be exerted on the containment when it becomes a vacuum. We're simply going to have to funnel air to the exchange point.
Q
That's absurd, do you realise how much air we'd have to feed that thing per second? Like one hundred megatons!
V
How the fuck did you reach that number?
Q
You ask me to work with you, I give you my papers and you don't read them, what am I supposed to do?
V
Wait. What has it been doing so far?
Q
What do you mean?
V
The exchange point has been open since the other night. It took the mass and density specific to get the exchange point to be manipulated and also for the same mass to be thrown back. I understand that it stops throwing mass back after about two hours, that's why the tub isn't full of mud anymore. But, that means that it's only been taking for more than twenty four hours. You can't tell me that if it actually has been, it wouldn't get the slightest bit breezy in here! For fuck sake we'd be torn apart as if by a hurricane by now!
Q
There's no way that the point stopped working.
Q walks into the kitchen and picks up the T.V remote.
V
What are you doing?
Q throws the remote into the tub...
... there is no sound of impact.
V
Then it's still throwing stuff back?
V starts walking over to the tub.
Q
No.
V looks into the bathtub.
It's empty.
V
Then what the fuck?
Q
I don't know? I'm working this out as I go along. Maybe it stabilised an environment for itself to exist in some kind of prosthetic vacuum.
V
Maybe, but how can we know that?
Q
(sarcastically)
Try sticking your face near the exchange point.
V puts his head into the tub. Q laughs thinking V is screwing around.
V pulls away from the tub gagging for breath.
Q
You fucking idiot, how close did you get?
Q runs over to him.
V
(still gasping for breath)
Shit... it literally takes your breath away.
Q
You come this close to getting your face sucked into an ocean thousands of miles away and nearly dying, and you're making jokes!?
V
Come on, we both know I can't die.
V collapses on the floor and starts laughing. Q walks off.
V
P.S. I can confirm it's taking air...
No response.
V
Not much though...
Still no response. V gets up.
INT. Q'S ROOM - MORNING
Q scribbles notes, the scratch of pencil on paper filling the room.
Q
(stretching)
Shit...
He drops the pencil on the desk and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him.
INT. HALL
Q walks across the hallway and into the bathroom.
In the hallway two other doors can be seen. Neither have handles.
The paint on both doors is peeling away, there's mould visible at points where paint has peeled away the most.
A metallic clinking sound reaches the hallway.
The toilet flushes.
Q walks out of the bathroom and opens what was his bedroom door, in doing so he reveals that the setting has completely changed.
V sits at a desk similar to the one Q was writing on. This is:
INT. V'S ROOM
Q walks in.
Q
What you working on?
V is screwing the top on to what looks like a car battery.
V
REX.
Q
Doesn't look like the designs I saw yesterday.
V
That's because it's been redesigned so that it can work with your math concerning the effects of density and mass and how an object is thrown by the exchange point.
Q
How does it work?
V
I knew you'd ask me that.
V puts down his tools and stretches his back.
V
Simply put, when the contraption is dropped into the exchange point, it undergoes a massive influx of energy with no resistance at all. There are two magnets inside the casing here that will rotate around their pivots perpetually, due to there being no way of forces acting on an entity when it comes into contact with the exchange point. It'll swing at a rate that induces the PUK effect.
Q
What?
V
If you hadn't have interrupted I'd be telling you already. When will you get this?
Q huffs.
V
Anyway, the PUK effect is what happens when a magnet rotates at seven trillion rpm under the conditions supplied by the exchange point. This will cause the atoms in the magnetic field of REX to change charge at a rate of three point five trillion times a second. As a result, any electromagnetic waves in the magnetic field will lose their electric quality and gain that dark one I told you about before. Ipso facto, the area around REX becomes a medium that is comprised of all the particles making it up being able to be at all of the points making up the medium at the same time. A kind of omnipresence, if you'll have it. This makes the particle positions interchangeable and the existence of REX to be dependant on whether the conductor rotates or not.
Q
Hold on, did you discover this PUK effect?
V
Yep, all on my own.
Q
What does PUK stand for?
V
Nothing, I just quite like the name.
Q shakes his head.
V
Anyway, the conductor will stop rotating at PUK rate the second the field is recognised. Which should be in about a billionth of a trillionth millisecond--or something absurd like that, I'm not too sure. This is because the second exchange point is always moving and as soon as REX recognises this it'll shut down. If the rpm is right then the particles should all show up at the first exchange point. As a result they would have been to wherever in space the exchange point is and back again. There'd be no point in testing this until the second exchange point slows down and gets closer to a stopping otherwise REX would only be at the second exchange point for an impossibly short amount of time, which isn't very useful to us.
Q
I don't know what to say... good job?
V
Yeah, thanks.
Q pats V on the shoulder and walks out the room closing the door behind him.
INT. HALL
Q stops outside the room and thinks for a second as if he's forgetting something.
He turns back, opening the bedroom door, walking into his own room again.
He picks up a cup from his desk and walks out of the room leaving the door open.
INT. THE KITCHEN - MIDDAY
Q lays down on the sofa drawing stick men in the dust on the floor.
V walks in and starts making a sandwich.
Q
How's REX coming along?
V
It's been a work in progress for so long and should be finished soon, so I guess it's going all right.
V nudges Q's legs off the sofa and sits down.
V
(gesturing toward the T.V)
So, what's on?
Q smirks.
Q
Well, I was watching some Tom and Jerry.
V
Nice.
Q
But, then it finished. I think Teletubbies will be on next.
V
Why do I always miss the good stuff? What else is on?
Q
I can't seem to find the remote.
V stands up, putting his hand down the sides of the cushions in search of the remote.
Q
It's not there.
V
Where the hell is it then?
Q
Don't you remember? It's in the atlantic ocean somewhere.
V sits back down again with a sigh.
V
(imitating the vultures from The Jungle Book)
So... what do you wanna do?
Q
(playing along)
I don't know... what do you wanna do?
After a moment of silence, they both snicker at their own stupidity for a second.
V
You are aware that Teletubbies and Tom and Jerry never played on the same channel?
Q
I don't know, they were the first things that came to my head.
V
Fair enough.
Levity dissipates. They both turn and start watching the blank T.V screen.
INT. THE LIVING ROOM - AFTERNOON
Q and V are both standing in front of the bath tub.
Q
I think we should test REX.
V
What would be the point?
Q
To check if it works first of all and second of all how the exchange point reacts.
V
Fine.
V walks off upstairs.
Q looks at his hand whilst pacing around the tub.
He stops for a second and walks over to the thin grey curtains. He pulls them apart slightly and looks out the window.
V
(walking down the stairs)
What are you doing?
Q
Waiting.
V
For what?
Q
(confused)
You to bring REX downstairs.
V
Oh, yeah.
V sprints up the stairs again.
Q takes one last glance out the window before V comes back down the stairs holding REX.
Q and V walk over to the bath. V holds REX over it.
V
Ready?
Q
No, wait. What exactly happens when you drop REX?
V
A huge influx of -
Q
No, I mean what will we see?
V
REX turn on and off, it won't be anything spectacular.
Q
But, once it returns from the second exchange point, turned off, it'll still be within the first exchange point and will just be sent back... with no way of then coming back again.
V
There should be a second or two in which REX is losing the energy that it gained. In this time the exchange point shouldn't be able to throw it again.
Q
So... what? It's not like you can reach into the tub and pick it up without being thrown into outer space yourself.
V
Then we just move the tub so that REX can fall out of the exchange point's reach, instead of sitting in the bath.
V puts REX down on the floor.
After a moment of consideration:
Q
But, what happens when the tub touches the exchange point? It gets thrown away, taking us with it.
V
No, we aren't apart of the bath and so it alone would be thrown.
Q
But, the water, the lead and tin weren't the same material and didn't even come into full contact with the exchange point. They were thrown.
V looks around, stumped.
V
(huffs)
This exchange point makes no sense. It will take the water with the metals in, but not the every single particle out of the room. It--
Q
It probably only takes what is within the vacuum it created around itself. You know, the one you almost drowned in?
V
That doesn't explain why the water was taken.
Q
Maybe it's because the water, with the tin and lead, was the specific weight and density it needed to be to be thrown and get something thrown back from the second exchange point.
V
So, the exchange point will only take things outside of the vacuum if it's touching the material being thrown and is a specific density and weight?
Q
Uh... yes?
Both ponder, staring into the bathtub.
Q
So... the bathtub, when it comes into contact with the exchange point, will just have a hole torn out of it?
V
What about the remote? That probably wasn't the right density and weight to have been thrown.
Q
It probably came into full contact with the vacuum.
V
Like your that good of a throw. The vacuum probably stretches thirty millimetres around the exchange point, the remote would have to have gone in completely straight, otherwise part of it wouldn't have been thrown.
Q
Then it was.
V
How can you be sure?
Q walks out of the back door, and soon comes back in with a stone and a small plastic bat.
Q
Ok, the stone should fall into the vacuum pretty easily and so will be thrown. The bat won't come into full contact with the vacuum and so will only be exchanged in part, leaving bits left behind.
Q drops the stone into the centre of the bath.
It disappears.
Q raised his eyebrows like: 'there you go'.
He then drops the bat sideways.
It gets cut in two pieces that sit in the tub.
Q waits for V's response.
V
(conceding)
Then it's settled, let's move the tub.
Q pushes the tub to the side of the room, in doing so a hole is punched into the side of the bath about sixty millimetres wide.
V
By the way, where did you get that bat from?
Q
Next door's back garden. It's not like they'll be missing it, they're never around. Anyway, we still need to test REX.
V
How? It's not the right density or weight for the exchange point to work best right now.
Q
We simply put REX in a solution of the right density and weight. To do that we'll probably need the bath moved back under the exchange point, so you do that and then fill the holes whilst I work out the required density and weight.
V
How do I fill the holes?
Q
(walking up stairs)
Use your intuition.
V walks out into the back garden.
INT. Q'S ROOM - AFTERNOON
Q is scribbling over multiple pieces of paper.
INT. THE LIVING ROOM - AFTERNOON
V screws a small metal plate to the outside of the bathtub, he then picks up a tube of superglue and uses it to fill the gaps on the inside of the bath between the hole and the plate.
Q walks down stairs.
Q
We won't need the bathtub.
V
Ah, for fuck sake. I just finished.
Q
You didn't even put it back under the hole! You've wasted your time anyway.
V
(realising)
Ahhh!
Q
It's fine, listen, we'll need an aluminium sheet that's grade ten fifty A, H fourteen, three millimetres thick, three hundred by three hundred. Where can we get some?
V
There's that hardware shop in town. I'm pretty sure they sell and cut metal sheets.
Q
Whilst we're there we're going to have to pick up some cutting tools, possibly a chainsaw. We must cut a hole in the floor below the exchange point so that when REX falls back through it, it's out of the vacuum.
V
All right, let's go.
V throws the screwdriver to the side and walks out of the house with Q.
