The Space Sieve Read online

PARTY, which had been on a Saturday, David told his mother he was sick and as a result he missed school for several days. This too was odd, as David had always been a diligent and interested student. During those days, when his mother left him alone in his room, David sat and studied the Device – which you will recall, in terms of any exterior trappings resembled more of a solid object than a Device. Initially, he ran his hands over it, looking for a seam, a flaw, some distinction – but he didn’t find any.

  He studied it for hours at a time while everything else about his life melted away. He became obsessed with it. He carefully considered the Device, and he pondered over it. As time passed, he grew tired and fell asleep in front of it. After several minutes passed he awakened and pored over the Device anew. This process – studying, falling asleep, awakening, studying – repeated time and time again. When his mother came to see him, he told her he was sick. He began more and more to look like he was sick. As the days passed, his mother and father became more and more concerned.

  As this continued for still more days, one evening David became exhausted and fell asleep as he had done so many times before. But when he awoke, he felt something was different. As he looked around his room, everything appeared to be where it was before, yet it was as though something had changed. He looked out the window. The sky, the ground, everything seemed unusual – as if he was living in a world that was similar to the one in which he had been, yet somehow it was not the same. (I will point out for you, that the world had not changed – but something about David had.) David now felt that somehow, he understood something about the dark object in his room that he hadn’t before. He moved near it, kneeled, and placed his hands on what I have referred to as the “keyboard.” And although I have called it that, the surface had been smooth.

  But it was smooth no longer. As David pressed his fingers on the flat space of the keyboard, the surface under his fingers became textured. And although he didn’t notice it at first, all over the surface of the Device patterns began to appear - broad swirls changing to a faint mosaic pattern, then swirls, other shapes, and so forth. The Device also became ever so slightly warmer, and for a few moments it expressed a faint hum. David didn’t notice the sound at first, until a single pitch penetrated the room, like a soprano hitting a single high note, a long-way off. Still unaware that there was a texture all over the Machine, David continued to focus on the keyboard, and the shapes and patterns that formed and flowed upon it.

  Then suddenly, he did notice the shapes and patterns all over the Device, and when he did, he began to move his hands differently upon the keyboard.

  This young person, David, was one of you who had intuition. What had happened here, for those of you who need everything explained to you, is that David’s mind had finally assimilated enough data that it had begun to make sense regarding the seemingly disconnected features of the Device. While someone such as David could never explain what was happening, his mind was working subconsciously, connecting what would have seemed to David like unrelated facts, and it was formulating a process to enable David to accomplish his goal. Each bit of data added to the intuitive process. David’s was beginning to obtain an inkling of the fact that this seemingly nondescript object was actually a Mechanism, and his subconscious mind was beginning to make sense of it.

  It would continue to make more and more sense of it. As David continued to press his fingers on the keyboard, the texture on the Device continued to move. But now, it began to move more deeply, or perhaps it would be accurate to say, more intensely.

  The Device all the while, remained essentially black. But in the light, shining from the window at the side of the room, the patterns and shapes could be seen all over it. David watched this, and he could see and feel the texture moving on the keyboard.

  I have mentioned part of the Machine that I called the “screen” that is above the keyboard. Once, while David was pressing his fingers on the flat, minimally-textured keyboard, a tiny yellow shape briefly appeared on the screen – on that part of the Device above the keyboard. Unlike the rest of the Device, the screen had no texture but was still completely smooth.

  Downstairs, David’s father (whose first name was “Leland”) was sitting in the living room with a friend from down the street. The friend’s name was Mike, and he was Leland’s best friend, meaning naturally that Leland and Mike were friends from their own youth.

  You are perhaps wondering what this has to do with the story. As I told you before, interacting with your language is unpleasant for me. I have no intention of spending any more time than is necessary in doing so. Telling this part of the story is important, as are all the other parts that I will relate.

  It is also worth mentioning that although the present events took place just after Thanksgiving, this particular evening was mild and pleasant. People were outside. Windows were open. David and his family live in the southwestern part of the United States (as do the other three children I mentioned previously). For those of you who are unfamiliar with this part of the country, suffice it to say that this time of year is considered to be very appealing for those who live there – very similar to a pleasant fall in the cooler parts of your world.

  Completely unaware of what David was doing, Leland sat in the dim light of the living room with Mike and they passed the time talking. Mike gestured as he talked about a bedroom of his that he planned to paint over the weekend.

  “I got four brushes last week,” Mike said. “I don’t clean ‘em when I’m done with them. I just throw ‘em away. I got four rollers too. Same thing – don’t clean ‘em.” He chuckled. “Life’s too short.”

  “Yeah,” Leland replied. “Well I clean the brushes. I don’t know. It just seems a waste not to.”

  “Well I don’t,” Mike replied, “I just use ‘em once and throw ‘em away. And I don’t use oil paint either. It’s too much work to clean up the brushes with solvent.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t clean ‘em.” Leland observed. “If you don’t clean the brushes then what difference does it make?

  A mockingbird began to sing in the distance, and a dog barked for a few moments.

  “Oh, yeah,” Mike realized. “Okay, yeah. I get it. Yeah.”

  The sound of a screen door slamming punctuated the conversation.

  Mike thought for a moment. “You know, it makes me wonder if I could have been using oil all these years instead of latex.”

  “Well look, Mike,” Leland pointed out, “I like latex anyway. I’ve used oil, but really, latex works better. It seems to make a nicer . . . hey but listen, what about rollers? I usually use those bigger, puffier rollers that soak up more paint. That’s how I get the job done fast. You know the more paint you have on the roller, the longer you can go before you have to dip it again.”

  “Yeah, well,” Mike continued, “I like the rollers that have a low pile – the thin ones. It takes longer, but I like the texture that you get better.”

  Upstairs, David continued to press his fingers on the keyboard.

  But now it was no longer entirely black.

  Colored buttons now covered the surface of the keyboard. I say “buttons” but they were really small, glassy, glowing forms that were somewhat elevated from the surface of the keyboard. Each button had a color and a texture, as well as a shape, and they ranged in from about the size of a pea to a grape, each one rising about half way from the keyboard. David pressed his fingers against these shapes now, in a deliberate, intense way.

  Had you seen him, you might have thought it looked almost like a virtuoso playing the piano, as David’s fingers danced upon the flashing keys.

  His abilities were remarkable. But as he progressed in his understanding, intuiting more and more as each minute passed, David began to grow weak, and he started to look exhausted. In what was becoming a growing euphoria to him, David was pushing his mind forward – faster and faster, and still faster it r
an. David was hurling his consciousness into the effort at an ever-increasing rate, and as he did so he drew more and more energy from his body – and he pulled that energy far faster than his brain and body had the capacity to replenish.

  David was also having trouble seeing. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes. Beads of sweat tracked down from his hairline.

  Leland paused, considering. “Well, so what about brushes then?” he asked. “Do you like skinny brushes too?”

  “You know it’s kind of funny,” Mike replied, chuckling and leaning forward with his hand to his chin like he had just discovered some profound truth. “Actually I like the puffier brushes. Y’know it’s kinda weird. I like the skimpier rollers, but I like the puffier brushes.”

  “No, not really,” Leland replied. “I like the puffier brushes too. It makes sense that you . . .”

  “No wait,” Mike interrupted. “It doesn’t make sense. Maybe I do like the skinny brushes – you know for some things puffy, for some things, skinny. I guess it depends on if I’m painting trim, or if . . .”

  Just then – for only a moment – a faint but definite sound broke the stillness of the evening. It was like the sound of a thousand car horns all honking simultaneously, far in the distance.

  “Hey, what was that?” Mike said, as he turned his head, listening.

  But it was not clear where the sound had come from.

  In David’s bedroom, the screen on the Device now flickered with dim, yellow shapes. Imagine a checkerboard of black and yellow, squeezed left-to-right, so that the yellow squares are tall and thin, like vertical pieces of macaroni. These yellow shapes were flashing and moving rapidly – left-to-right – right-to-left – on the screen. The keys under David’s fingers glowed and changed shape and color, illuminating his palms as David’s finger tips scampered upon them. As the yellow figures danced on the screen of the Device, their reflected, distorted shapes glinted like shooting stars in David’s wide, glassy eyes.

  Somewhat absent-mindedly now, David occasionally wiped a tear from an eye, and increasingly, he also had to wipe the sweat that was running into his eyes when he felt it sting. Each time he lifted a hand from the keyboard, the lighted buttons clustered to the side of the keyboard underneath the one hand that was still on the keyboard. When he returned both hands to the keyboard, the buttons spread back so they were again under both hands.

  The stillness of the evening in David’s room was disturbed now by a faint roaring sound, and the objects upon his dresser trembled slightly. Occasionally, the gathering darkness was punctuated by brief, intermittent tones.

  The usually innocent face of the boy was turning grim and grey now, like a drug addict craving his next injection. His body and his brain were becoming depleted. As his eyes scanned the yellow colors sweeping across the screen, the expression on his face became disturbing to behold. For one more minute of progress with this Machine, David would have traded his entire existence. He would not have been right to do so, but he would have. There was now for David, nothing else that mattered in the world, past, present, or future. This was everything to him – and far more than anything that he had ever known. It was all that mattered to him now.

  Obviously, his behavior had become self destructive and inexcusable. It would be of little use to David if while he gained a greater understanding of the Device, he died as a result.

  I say “obviously,” but I mean it is obvious only from your standpoint, inasmuch as you are creatures which must come to terms with the fact that you can die. But on another level, from my standpoint his willingness to sacrifice to gain further knowledge of this Machine was a great tribute to his intelligence. For while you all must die, David on the other hand had discovered something unique and more incalculably vast than anyone in your world could ever conceive. And moreover, David not only had it, he was quickly learning how to operate it.

  Pausing briefly to wonder about the sound they had just heard, the two adults downstairs quickly resumed their inanity.

  “Well but,” Leland continued, a puzzled look on his face, “for me, painting is something I do just because it needs to be done. The thing is, Mike, you actually like to go paint a room.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” said Mike, “I do like to paint. But I leave wallpaper to my wife.”

  At this moment, David’s mother, Sharon, was just outside the living room window – outside the room where Leland and Mike were talking. She was digging in the flower bed there, next to the house, planting some bulbs for next spring. A few small children were playing down the street.

  “I generally use a fine finish brush for around windows and stuff,” said Mike. “I’ve never been one to tape.”

  “Well,” replied Leland, “That’s what I was saying. You like to do the job, so you use a finish brush. I use tape because it’s faster and I just want to get it over with.”

  Mike crinkled his nose, thinking. “No, no I don’t know if I would say that using a finish brush is the harder way to do it. Maybe it’s slower, maybe it isn’t. I just like to use them.”

  “Yeah well,” Leland followed up, “anybody who uses a finish brush is going to be . .”

  Suddenly, Leland leaned forward in his chair and looked out the window of the living room into the gathering darkness of the evening.

  “What . . . what is that?” He said, as he stood up. “What in blazes is that?!”

  Mike looked blankly at him, at first unable to shift from the idle satisfaction of the evening. But when he realized the level of concern clearly evident in his friend’s face, Mike turned to see what Leland was looking at.

  But by then, Leland had already leapt to the window. Instantly, Mike also saw what Leland could see, and he jumped into a crouching position very close alongside him as they both cast their concerned stare out the window. Indistinctly, they could feel each other’s body heat, and could smell each other’s rising emotion.

  Leland’s mouth moved, and he mumbled faintly. “Mike, what is it?” Mike turned to Leland briefly, and Leland could tell Mike was breathing very fast, and he noticed that Mike’s breath smelled bad.

  Then Mike saw something even more terrifying.

  “Leland,” Mike said, and his voice shook. “Look … your wife.” And then Leland too saw that his wife Sharon was just outside the window, kneeling in the flower bed.

  And although the ghastly apparition that had transfixed Leland and Mike was lowering itself very near to Sharon, she had not seen it yet. Nor had she seen Leland and Mike in the window, gape-mouthed and motionless.

  But now I need to digress again.

  The Device that David was beginning to operate upstairs in his room – in cases such as this it will spawn another Mechanism, and I would like to take a moment to tell you about it. This ancillary Apparatus – the one that Leland and Mike were looking at – the one that was now only inches from David’s mother – actually 21 inches from her at its closest point – this Apparatus was created as a direct result of David’s actions with the Device that he was operating in his room. It is called a “Tic.”

  As the Tic lowered, inching closer to David’s mother, Leland began to turn white. He felt a huge lump in his throat – as if it were the size of a baseball and as hard – and it was getting bigger. It hurt a lot, and he could hardly breathe.

  Mike, for his part, felt his lower parts – the parts or your bodies where you emanate your bodily wastes – contracting and relaxing involuntarily, very rapidly.

  And now, here I must stop and tell you more about the Tic, while you might wish I would continue with the story. So you see the problem I have, don’t you? I have to describe things for you every so often, yet how can I do it without stopping the story? The problem is with your language, not with me.

  But here I do need to tell you what the Tic actually is. I need to describe it to you. It is an interesting and important Mechanism, and it will play an important role la
ter in this story.

  You might want to say that creatures such as I and such as others within the total sphere of existence who have the ability to create powerful Devices for our amusement are irresponsible to let them fall in the hands of lesser creatures, and in a sense, you are right. What I am about to say is no defense of that. Yet, perhaps it does offer some redemption for us.

  Each major Device has a safety feature. Nobody makes anybody include it, but they do anyway. The Tic then is that safety feature for the Machine that David is beginning to operate in his room.

  But now I begin to tire of calling it only the “Device” or the “Machine” and I also need to differentiate it from the Tic. Yet while the “Tic” has a name you can pronounce the name of the Device that David is operating cannot be pronounced by your kind. Therefore hereafter at times I will call the Device one of the names that David will give it. He will call it many things eventually – one of them being the “Infernal Contraption” – but this is not the one I wish to use right now. David will first come to call the Device “the Space Sieve,” and this is the name I will now sometimes use for it also.

  And so, David sat in front of the Space Sieve, and pressed the glowing, ever-changing colored buttons, and gazed captivated at the yellow shapes flickering across its screen.

  I say “sat” because while he had been kneeling in front of it, he did so no longer. The Device has the ability to create, and David used it to create a stool: the seat of which was about an inch thick and about a foot in diameter, with a metal frame under it that curved over to the Device. And while this stool may have at this moment appeared to be part of the Device, it was not. David simply determined that he needed it, and so he created it, based on his understanding of the Device, and his increasing ability to use it.

  And he was increasing in his ability to use the Device. Indeed, of all the lesser creatures who have encountered a Mechanism, I have never seen anybody gain knowledge of its operation as fast as this boy was doing. And that is saying something. For you will recall that chronicling the unfortunate occurrences when a Device such as this is left lying around is something I do as a hobby. So I’ve seen quite a few cases where a Device falls into the hands of an inferior being and that being learns a sufficient amount to be able to start to use it. And in all of it, I have never seen another case where any being obtained this knowledge as fast or as fully as this boy David did - all the more distinctive and indeed disturbing, in view of the fact that this Device was the most powerful one that I have ever seen. And I have seen them all.

  Previously, I mentioned that there were two unique reasons that I produced this document. This then, was one of those reasons: the magnitude of this Device, combined with this particular boy’s skill in using it, his abilities being such that it’s almost unnecessary to tell you more about the Tic. But since the Tic will appear later in this story, this is as good a time to talk about it as any.

  When a Device such as the Space Sieve detects that someone has begun to figure out how to use it, it creates – spawns if you will – the Tic. The Tic forms therefore, when the Space Sieve detects that it is beginning to be operated by a novice. The Tic has one function, and one only, and that function is as follows: the Tic completely neutralizes the external effects of the Space Sieve. The Space Sieve can still perform internal functions, such as the lights, buttons, and the chair that David is sitting on, etc., but it cannot operate on its external environment while the Tic is present. The Tic can do only one thing, but it can do that one thing perfectly. It renders the Space Sieve ineffectual.

  That anything can render the Space Sieve ineffectual is truly remarkable but it is particularly so, given the unique scope and power of this particluar Device.

  Once a Space Sieve has spawned a Tic, there is one, and only one, external function that the Space Sieve can do. That one remaining function is that it can be used to remove the Tic.

  Once – indeed if – the Space Sieve detects that it is being operated by a skilled operator, as opposed to a novice, the Space Sieve can then be used to remove the Tic. This allows the Space Sieve to regain full functionality. Typically, this does not ever happen, as a novice typically cannot ever become a skilled operator by himself. This is because once the external functions of the Space Sieve have been neutralized by the Tic, the educational feedback to the operator is eliminated – the operator can no longer learn new information about it. The operator of the Space Sieve, when there is a Tic present, no longer sees things happening as he operates the Device. He therefore can derive no further experience about how to operate the Space Sieve.

  Let me make an analogy. Perhaps I should have done so earlier. But here will do. Can you tell me how to ride a bicycle? Can you explain it? Try telling someone how to ride a bicycle then have them go right off and do it. Of course, you can’t, and they can’t. The only way to ride a bike is to try it.

  As you push the bike, as you feel the inertia, the gravity, as you sense the movement, the pedals, the wheels, the handlebars, your mind begins to draw intuitive connections between all this information even though you have no perception of this at all. The feedback you obtain from trying allows your mind to formulate what to try next and more information is obtained as you continue to try. Your skill advances, and as it does, your mind receives still more information, and you improve further. Even though riding a bike, water skiing, ice skating, etc., would be very complicated operations for you to do by thinking, almost anyone can do it, if they keep trying. Your mind, working with your body, makes the necessary adjustments to be able to do it. You don’t even realize it is happening. This is the intuitive mind I described earlier.

  Now suppose you tried to ride the bike, but you couldn’t see, or feel, or hear. In other words, suppose you got no feedback as you tried to ride it. You could never learn how, could you?

  Do you see the almost-foolproof genius of the Tic? Up until this point, David had examined the Device carefully and then he had placed his hands on it in a certain way, which had caused the texture to appear. This texture and the way it shifted in response to David’s hands provided his mind with enough information to bring out the illuminated keys I mentioned, and then various lights on the screen. This provided yet more information to him, as he touched the keys and watched the lights. As the process continued, he learned more, made the Device do more, learned more, etc. But once the Device detected that David was a novice – inexperienced – it created the Tic as it was designed to do.

  The effect of the Tic was then to stop the external function of the Device. This lack of external function was intended to stop the learning process.

  Now here you might wonder whether all creatures would have the same senses as humans do, and whether the Device was emitting only stimuli that you could recognize. The answer is: it was not. But the question is irrelevant. The point is that it was emitting stimuli that you can recognize.

  The idea then, was that once the Tic appeared, David – or whoever – could push the buttons all he wanted as he tried different things, but nothing new would happen. Since nothing new would happen, nothing new would be learned, and the learning process would stop. So the Device thereby, would have been rendered effectively inert, and harmless.

  At least that is what is supposed to happen, and it’s what almost always does happen when somebody accidentally comes across an advanced Machine.

  But with this boy, that is not what happened. By the time the Tic was spawned, David already knew too much about the Device.

  The Tic looked like a large duffel bag, 73 inches tall, and 21 feet in diameter, with the bottom round, and the top more pointed. It materialized in a vertical orientation, and was a dull white color overall. Randomly (or so it appeared) over the surface, were colored lights every 6-12 inches or so, each light one solid color. The lights were hemispherical in shape, about 1 inch in diameter, like colored, illuminated ping-pong ball halves
stuck to the sides of the Tic.

  One of the lights was different, however. What that one looked like was this: Hold out your hand and extend a finger horizontally, then make the end of this finger point down. Now imagine a light on the end of it, shining down. While all other lights on the Tic were colored, this one was white.

  The Tic just hung there in mid-air, silently beside David’s mother, unseen by her.

  But now, the children down the street saw it. Two of them were riding bicycles. When the one in front saw the Tic lowering beside David’s mother he stopped his bike suddenly and the other child crashed into him. A little girl in the yard nearby looked at the boys for a second, and then she turned and saw the Tic too. Her eyes grew wide for a moment, and then she became concerned and began to scream in short, high-pitched bursts. This screaming caused David’s mother to turn and then she saw the Tic, silently hovering only inches away from her, there in the dusky evening, its lights glowing disinterestedly.

  David’s mother caught her breath, looked the Tic up and down and then threw down her trowel. While the appearance of the Tic is not frightening per se, it is sufficiently unusual to cause some concern in lesser creatures such as yourselves. Sharon first held one hand toward the Tic (but not touching it fortunately), and then screamed a long, full, continuous scream. She immediately took another breath, and she screamed again.

  At this point, Leland suddenly threw himself against the screen of the window, attempting to attack the Tic that he perceived was threatening his wife. (And may I just comment here: this was brave of him.)

  But fortunately, he missed it. When he collided with the window screen, it momentarily caught him and before giving way, held him back just enough that he fell down next to the house. His wife momentarily looked at him, and he at her. But as their gazes both whipped back toward the Tic, it had disappeared.

  (Incidentally, when a Tic is spawned, it forms proximate to the Space Sieve, but its exact location is random. Its appearance next to David’s mother was a coincidence.)

  The Tic was gone, because it had been removed. If you’ve been paying attention, you know what that means. And if you haven’t been, what it means is that the Space Sieve, tragically, now believed it was in the hands of an experienced operator. David had learned enough to operate it with sufficient skill to remove the Tic. The Space Sieve was now operating with full functionality, in the hands of someone who had sufficient skill to get past the Tic.

  While very interesting, this was a great tragedy. It was a tragedy for David, for his family, for the other three children I mentioned previously who were at the Thanksgiving party, and for their families. And it was even more of a tragedy for many other beings of which you are presently unaware.

  Upstairs in David’s bedroom now, the screen of the Space Sieve had changed completely. In place of the yellow parallelograms that had been moving across it, the screen first glowed crystal blue, then black, and then it had images – and the images that appeared now were very easy to distinguish. If you have ever seen images of stellar phenomena, such as nebulae, galaxies, planets and the like – this is what blazed upon the screen of the Device, changing from place to place, from scene to scene, at David’s will.

  What he now saw so vividly on the screen of the Space Sieve – and as it all lay waiting obediently and patiently for his next whim and for the next movement of his fingertips – was nothing less than the totality of all creation.

  Except these were not images. Although still in his bedroom, and although I seriously doubt that you can comprehend it, David was looking directly at the actual stellar objects themselves. To repeat: As David’s view through the screen of the Device skipped from place to place, galaxy to galaxy, reality to reality, like a child flipping through channels of one of your televisions, what David was seeing were not images. Through the power of the Device, David was looking directly at the actual objects themselves as if through an open window.

  If you can’t comprehend how that is possible, you needn’t try to, nor worry about the fact that you can’t.

  David’s eyes, while still eager, were glazed now, and he looked very ill. His skin had a lifeless yellow cast, his clothes were drenched with sweat and his clammy hands trembled. His level of obsession and skill with the Device had continued to increase, but his physical mind and body were depleted. He would have given everything to continue, but the sugars, nutrients, cells, and energy levels inside his own physical body had reached their limit. His body could go no further.

  To his dizzy dismay, David’s shaking hands involuntarily fell to his side. The Space Sieve immediately turned dark and smooth as it had originally been, and the stool upon which David sat – the stool that he had created with the Space Sieve – disappeared – and David fell onto the floor.

  Outside the house, his parents frantically looked around for the just-vanished Tic. Until they heard the thump from upstairs they had been so preoccupied they had completely forgotten about that which they considered most precious – their children.

  Sharon and Leland, together with Mike dashed up the stairs to find their little ones. They quickly identified the locations of their other children, but when they found David they became hysterical.

  He was lying on the floor in an unnatural position near the strange object, his mouth open, his hair wet.