(Untitled)

[veryscaryrobot]

"Just a Bud Lite."

"Rolling Rock. And a cheese steak."

"Can I have a strawberry daiquiri? With an umbrella? Can it be pink?"

"One ounce of columbite-tantalite, please."

Cameron examines her order. (It's not the daiquiri.)

Comments

[forced_pilgrim]

"Alms?"

Monkey loves columbite-tantalite! Probably.

Guess where Monkey is. It's a fun game.

[forced_pilgrim]

"Yes. Bodies decay, and become other things in the world of things," he says. "But this is not rebirth in the same sense. It is only the mutability of the material universe, where nothing is eternal."

[veryscaryrobot]

"Souls are reborn differently from bodies," Cameron says -- echoes back to him -- still sipping her milkshake. She's getting better at judging the suction required to get a mouthful of shake without interrupting her breathing. "Are they eternal?"

[forced_pilgrim]

"In a sense," Monkey says. "But because they are an illusion, ultimately no."

"To understand that your soul is not a soul, but a seamless piece of the universe, and to let go of personal identity--this is the last step."

"I have resumed my personal identity, to work for the salvation of all souls. To achieve this is the last desire I have; my last link to the illusory world. All else flows from that."

Monkey's milkshake is gone; he tosses the glass onto the bar, where it bursts apart into drifting sand.

[veryscaryrobot]

Cameron watches the glass turn to sand with her usual impersonal curiosity, and no surprise.

"The world is illusory?" This time she remembers to let her voice rise at the end of the sentence.

[forced_pilgrim]

"Yes," he says. "Because it is impermanent, and resides in our sense, which can be fooled, and..."

"Because it is." He shrugs, upside-downly. "Sand. It's all sand."

[veryscaryrobot]

The physical world can only be interacted with through physical senses and physical means. It's why she has a body, and it's why her eyes take in visual input, her skin registers sensation, and her mouth is equipped with taste sensors.

"Thank you for explaining."