The Price of Loneliness

Wake up. Living mostly alone, and even on the outskirts of a small Circus, is very convenient when you don’t want to be unnecessarily disturbed by strangers. You can do whatever you want whenever it comes to your mind. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, loneliness is very convenient even when your subconscious mind wants to bother you on its own. Wake up. Pomni, without opening his eyes, puts his cold feet into soft house slippers and feels his way down the stairs, miraculously not hitting the low ceiling of the bed with his forehead. In the hall in front of the main stage, his “friend” is already waiting for him. Excited, but not to the point of hysteria, still in control, with a permanent smile from ear to ear. — Listen to me, Pomni, and remember: in 69 months, 6 days, 42 minutes and 1 second, the Circus will end. End of the series. End of the world. Do you understand? End of the world! — And what should I do? - Pomni asks, shrugs his shoulders vaguely and smiles condescendingly. - Prevent it? Warn everyone? Or maybe spend the remaining days to the fullest? Jax, almost like a reflection, also shrugs, his face showing that he doubts what answer he will give, or whether he will say anything at all. In the morning, Pomni’s previous walk across the stage near the house seems like a dream. The only thing that reminds us of its authenticity is the black, careless felt-tip pen on her forearm: “69:6:42:1.” Pomni exhales through his teeth and trudges towards the wall calendar. 66 months, 3 days, 52 minutes and 24 seconds until the end of the world. “...Falls in the middle of October,” - Pomni drops her face in her hands and mutters dully through her fingers: “Octobers have always been unlucky months for me.” “Miss Pomni,” the psychoanalyst has a trained, soothing timbre of his voice, even if this is just another AI. - This is called obsessive states. Remember what I told you? — An unintelligible grunt in response, but the doctor calmly and patiently repeats what has already been reported. — Octobers do not bring misfortune, like any other months of autumn. You yourself find the details, cling to them yourself, give them characteristics and find evidence of their validity. In your condition, a person can prove to himself anything, even the most incredible. Even, - the psychoanalyst allows himself a scrupulously measured dose of a slight grin, - an imminent Apocalypse. — I didn’t talk about the Apocalypse! - the incorrect definition makes Pomni perk up. - There will be no wars, no shortages, no hordes of sinners, no rain of burning sulphur, no... - what else is there? - in general, nothing biblical. The world will just end. Will disappear. It’s as if the screenwriter will put an end to it, and the producers will take back their loot. — Miss Pomni, jester, but you are a sane person, - the “sane person” on the soft couch chuckles sarcastically, - and you must understand that predictions about the end of the world should not be taken on faith so easily. Especially if they were told to you by a person who only from afar resembles a friend. Especially if you take into account the surrounding circumstances. — The doctor quickly looks through his own notes and says thoughtfully: Miss, you are extremely agitated by the incident that happened in your room, so I strongly recommend that you increase the dose of tranquillisers. And I promise you, by the next time we meet, you will feel much better. 27 months, 5 days, 34 minutes and 7 seconds until the end of the world. In order to realise the illusory nature of her long-time “friend,” Pomni, in fact, did not require a doctor’s consultation - more than fifty pounds an hour! - no medications. Firstly, she remembered very well how she met her interlocutor who appeared from time to time: he accidentally almost got hit by a car, miraculously remained not only alive, but also unharmed, but he was very worried about this incident... and so he was worried. Secondly, her like-friend always claimed that he was from California, but knew absolutely nothing about his small homeland. And - here's the trick - when Pomni deliberately took out and read a guide to this outback, he also suddenly began to understand the history of his city, right after Pomni. Finally, the most striking thing that Pomni could not believe under any circumstances is that it is unlikely that a person could choose his own name in the Digital Circus. Jack looked like Pomni's age (logically, he was, if we consider the age of the subconscious equal to the physical one), spoke and acted as if Caine had created him, was always funny and drunk, but sometimes deadly serious, and said things like Pomni could not know and who completely rejected any evidence of his non-existence. For example, it was Jax who took Pomni out of her room exactly an hour before this thing collapsed on the roof above the bedroom. It was a “thing” - no one really knew what to call a heavy, pimply sheet of an unknown alloy, thick, with some kind of tubes, wires, liquid capsules inside. Even Caine had no idea about this. Nobody but Jax. — Detail of the pencil lining of the evil director, - he said nonchalantly, handing Pierce the bottle. - Oops! I shouldn't have told you that. There was more than one bottle, so Pomni doesn’t remember well the conversations of that night: there the essence will be lost, here there are words, some very curious, non-local ones... So it cannot be said that she believed something unconditionally. Although, after four days, she still cannot completely wash the black numbers from her own skin and perfectly remembers the word “director,” which somehow unrealistically explains everything. 18 months, 11 days, 10 minutes and 24 seconds until the end of the world. Tall grass sweeps the sky with the tops of its stems, erasing the clouds from it. Pomni and the rest of the five lie on their backs in the middle of a weed-covered wasteland on the outskirts of the Circus and look high, high, imagining a scattering of stars above a layer of colourless blue-white atmosphere. — Surely not from the future? - Pomni asks incredulously, chewing a blade of grass. -You knew about that... thing in advance. — Pencil trim, - Jax corrects her automatically. - No, I’m not from the future, although you know... sometimes large distances in space are comparable to tunnels in time. But no, that's not what I'm talking about. I just have... well, let's call it a radar, very sensitive, sub-ethereal, which can pick up things for which your human devices are not sensitive enough. — So, you have technologies of the future? - Pomni presses her line. — No, no! Distant technologies! Not in time, in space. - Pomni chuckles in disbelief. — Doesn’t your future technology tell you anything else important? - Jax misses the hairpin and frowns. — Not sure. The sensitive computer detected something strange. It’s a pity that the creator of this pencil, from which the casing has fallen off, was not here yet... only its user. — That is?.. — Here he is from the future, yes. What do they say there? Bingo! 15 months, 22 days, 43 minutes and 29 seconds until the end of the world. The psychoanalyst often tells Pomni that she needs to communicate with people as often as possible (with people who can support, even if they are not real, he emphasises), so she goes to a party in Caine’s next adventure in Ailrtong, where she knows different people (one or two) and miscalculated. The psychoanalyst advises making new friends, and Pomni introduces herself to a jelly dinosaur, a cowboy who looks like an Arab, with lively sparkling eyes. She is overjoyed to learn that her new friend, Gamigoo, is knowledgeable in astrophysics, and bombards her with questions about time travel. The cowboy is surprised - usually in his world they prefer other conversations - but it cannot be said that he does not like it, rather the opposite. Not even five minutes pass before he gets carried away in conversation. — To travel through time you need a ship and a portal, - says Gamigoo confidently. - Any ship will do. — Even a “Delorean”, like in “Back to the Future”? - Pomni smiles. — Even a “Delorean,” - the dinosaur laughs. — I don’t know why I mentioned him. - I didn't really watch the movie... — I don't even know what it is. — You know, one of my friends, - Pomni says carefully, - claims that you can travel without a ship. — He probably means teleportation, - Gamigoo suggests. - But to travel through time, you still need a ship, no matter what, as long as it has a speed approaching and exceeding the speed of light, and, most importantly, a portal. — What if you move only in space? — Then teleport is enough, - the cowboy graciously allows. — And this same friend of mine says that sometimes traveling in space is very similar to traveling in time and vice versa. — Hmm, how many points of view do you want to hear? - the dinosaur giggles. Pomni also smiles, but in a strange, self-absorbed way: — All. He listens attentively about Einstein's theory of relativity, general and special, he nods in agreement when Gamigoo talks about units of time and the periods of revolution of planets, suns, galaxies around the centers of gravity, he picks up and concentrates when he moves from the field of exact sciences to near-philosophical topics. — If someone moves over long distances, so much so that the civilisations inhabiting the points of his departure and destination are almost isolated from each other and have different rates and paths of development, then this is tantamount to traveling in time or between options for the development of events, - the cowboy reflects. Pomni listens to him. 5 months, 7 days, 1 minute and 59 seconds until the end of the world. Pomni can't sit on the couch; she paces around the office. — Of course, I can’t do anything! “I hear you talk about interplanetary travel,” she mimics. - And then he took it, clicked, and Gamigoo... Nightmare guy! — Have you never seen your new friend again? — the psychoanalyst clarifies. Pomni stops abruptly and clenches her fists. — No. — So, he left... just exploding from a click? — Do you think I’m crazy? I understand perfectly where the boundaries of reality are. And in general, it was HE who claimed that everyone who was created by Caine is alive, and I’m just retelling what I heard. The doctor raises his hands disarmingly, pauses and asks carefully, wondering in advance which tranquilliser to prescribe Pomni this time: — How long have you seen that friend of yours who is from the future? Pomni falls onto the couch and says gloomily: — In my opinion, he is also not from our world... 0 months, 2 days, 36 minutes and 23 seconds until the end of the world. The mirror of the medicine cabinet reflects one face - Pomni. Either Jax is standing at such an angle behind the jester's shoulder that he simply misses him, or the hallucinations obey their own physical laws. Pomni does not open the door; the bottle with a label bearing his name remains untouched. — And I understood what you were talking about, - Pomni reports. — Your travel device is a teleporter, not a time machine, but qualitatively they are almost the same. Well, that is, for the traveler, he doesn’t care what the origin of what he sees is. — Something like that, - Jax agrees. He looks at Pomni for a while and still decides to offer: — I deciphered the signal from the sub-ethereal sensitive computer. In two days, an auditor, cleaners and producers with builders will arrive here. They... like... destroy worlds... Do you understand what I mean? — Yes, - Pomni answers with a calmness that does not fit with the meaning of the message. — No, you’re probably not quite... — You already told me, - she interrupts Jax. He doesn’t remember, but nods just in case: perhaps he was drunk... although Jax had not noticed his memory loss before. — And I offered you?.. — Yes. Get out if you have the chance. I'm staying. — But, Pomni, for what? — Jax is shocked to the core. He is so used to being cheerful that he simply cannot imagine how he can exchange the fate of entertainment and adventure for a settled life... and, especially, death. — I’m lonely, - Pomni answers simply and shrugs, saying that it’s impossible to list them all, - and I alone am not worth them. - For the sake of Gamigoo, for the sake of the doctor, for the sake of all of you and Caine, for the sake of that Gerald the bartender from the old house... — Take your time, - Jax interrupts. - I will come to you again, and then you will give me the final answer. Pomni shrugs again. Somewhere in mid-October. The rain has covered the roof, the pebbles on the garden paths and the grass with a damp film, and now they glisten under the slanting rays of the sun breaking through from behind the alarmingly angular, mossy brick-like hulks. The destroyers descend quietly, almost silently - and this also causes fear, horror of the irrational lightness of these colossuses from the point of view of earthly technology. Trembling flooded the minds of everyone, even the most level-headed AIs and humans, turning them into ugly screaming, scurrying, laughing and sobbing madmen. Pomni stands unshakably, looking at the sky, squinting slightly - a crazy bastion of calm in this normal idiotic world. She smiles at the sky. A deafening grinding and crashing sound is heard - a sheet of cladding fell right onto the roof of Pierce’s separate room. Everything is going right. 0 months, 0 days, 0 minutes and 4 seconds until the end of the world. 3 seconds until the end of the world. 2 seconds until the end of the world. 1 second until the end of the world. Maybe, December. Being alive and alone in the middle of the endless emptiness is torture. Pomni had never imagined before how wonderful it was to feel a lack of love and attention when there was someone to complain about it. Now is the time for re-evaluation. There is no circus. There is no home. There is no meaning to life. There are no disgustingly boring AIs with their stupid conversations... There are no people at all. There are, of course, five, but... Pomni is completely alone, surrounded by alien creatures. — Jax, do you only have teleports or time machines too? — she finally asks the question that worries her. — We have everything. And in “we” I mean “we all”, - the rabbit answers blithely. Since they got on board the absolute void (for some reason the builders were too lazy to destroy it too), he has been carefree itself. — I want to go back. Jax freezes. — This is impossible! Your house doesn't exist, and you can't just go back in time to the Circus: it will either lead to the same result that we have, or create a paradox, or both! — Well, what will NOT create a paradox, but will leave me in the Circus? — Pomni asks naively. — I can’t calculate it myself, - Jax answers carefully. — What if YOU come back and tell me everything that will happen? — Spoilers. Paradox. — Maybe we can try?.. 69 months, 6 days, 42 minutes and 1 second until the end of the world. — Hey, Pomni! The pebble hits the glass loudly. —Wake up. Wake up! — Jax? What are you doing here? — Oh, that means we already know each other... I have to tell you something. I promised you. - Pomni yawns loudly. — Ehhhm... when? — In about five and a quarter years. — Are you drunk? Jax watches everything that happens vigilantly. Pomni’s house is intact, nothing unusual happens overnight. Jax tells a lot of jokes, half of which Pomni doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t dare tell the main thing. In 69 months, Pomni will ask him herself. And at that moment Jax will not be able to help but save her. 69 months, 6 days, 42 minutes and 1 second until the end of the world. Wake up. — Pomni, the world is going to end soon. This sounds crazy, but you have to believe me - you yourself will ask me in five years to tell you everything now... It was extremely unpleasant to die... Who knew that Miss Pomni, jester, an example of American sanity, would, out of pity and civic responsibility, hand over her friend Jax to the “yellow madhouse”? It was not possible to escape, so this option is closed. Jax rejoices in his foresight, that he created in advance a paradox that returns him to absolute emptiness in the event of death during chronoportation. 69 months, 6 days, 42 minutes and 1 second until the end of the world. Jax looks out the dimly lit window of a lonely room on the edge of the Circus. He picks up a pebble from the ground... and drops it. Stop, he needs to try this option too. — Goodbye, Pomni, - Jax whispers to the window and walks away, wiping the edges of his eyes with his ears as he goes.