It has to do with the discovery of subtle energy which is faster than the speed of light. Joe said that a scientist from Saginaw Valley State University, Max Gofigure figured out about subtle energy some time in the early twenty first century while reading "Cats Cradle" on the nonoflush; one quick crap and the world as the Virile Bastards knew it collapsed (Baldwin refers to this era as "The Collapse.").
When old Max wrote those equations on that ancient chalkboard, showing that E=MC squared was just part of another equation, you could almost feel the faces in the audience turn white. A lot of sacred professions died that day, mostly in the sciences. The new equation proved that you have to live forever and always did have to live forever no matter how terrifying the thought. It also proved that the dead weren't, that consciousness made sense for the first time being related to gravity and all, and "faith" turned out to be a force with magnetic fields.
The scientists were stunned to find out that God really was love. It was right there in the equation; God equals Love times Consciousness squared (something like that, my math skills are kind of rusty). You could prove it too. All you had to do was make the "subtle energy" bomb; (the S-Bomb), and you could theoretically blow a hole in the mental fabric of the universe. That would be a very irresponsible thing to do, of course. Everyone was pretty sure that no fool would build such a bomb. The energy released would be unimaginable.
A lot of bright guys wet their pants that day, especially when it dawned on them, one at a time, what the equation implied. The bomb could blow open the mental fabric of eternity and might release the dead, or trapped souls, or whatever God stored in heaven. Or else we could blow up heaven itself and create the next hell (or maybe that's how hells get created all over the universe once civilizations discover subtle energy). Nobody was sure what would happen if the bomb went off.
So, anyway, the equation proved that if you approached the speed of consciousness (nothing can travel faster than subtle energy) then you would arrive before you decided to leave. And when you did arrive before you decided you ought to have left, it didn't matter which way you think you should have gone because you were traveling through heaven which (according to the SE equation) is God's consciousness and is everywhere at once, or believes it is. In other words, time is frozen, it's an illusion. All time, backward and forward and now, has already happened and will always already have happen, or at least, thinks it already might have happened; probably forever (it's all about probability).
Anyway, it's irrelevant. They did use the S-Bomb and this is the world we got. It's kind of different from the predictions since time does seem to flow; only it's not like a river, it's more like fireworks or pool balls flying off in all directions. So, it could happen that two days is really sometimes ten minutes, but not so you could depend on it.
The scientists knew all about protons and photons and gravitons, and wontons, but they didn't know about spiritrons; that was the problem. They were so stuff oriented, they forget to look at non-stuff (non-stuffatrons). It's the rays of ethereal spiritrons that screw up time and space. When God sneezes out spiritrons the space time fabric gets wet and blows out. The result is that nobody can be here now; not that we ever could.
So, sometimes it seems like you are in the hospital after you got out of optometry prison, but then ten minutes (or three years) later, you think you were in the hospital and then in optometry school. Then, when you factor in being in the Sumerian army and being lost in the Moment and your dad screaming at you and your mother weeping and weeping no matter what the hell century it thought it was, well then, life is a bitch (or used to be or might be any minute).
Uncle Joe explained to me about Heaven, how it's not really up. It's because of Albert Einstein who discovered that energy and solid stuff were the same thing, one could turn into the other like magic. Then you could make bombs with the magic and blow up places like Japan. That's what Joe said. The equation showed that heaven is not up because it is everywhere now and always was.
That's enough thinking for today. No need to rush the story especially since when you get to the end you aren't, there not being any end and all. But it does make you wonder about God. What if God finds out he is not the only God and there are these other eternal things that also live eternally. What if we find out that the SE Equation is just part of an even bigger equation and we discover that maybe there are many frozen times flowing like fireworks in some other set of eternal infinities. That means forever would have to last forever. That could make a guy depressed, having to live forever many times over.
It's really hard to pee when your penis is wearing a hat and a sweater. The nurse who outfitted tiny Tim explained to me that I had a disease. It's called chronic masculinity and there is no cure. You can only treat the symptoms, she said. Evidently, if I understand her correctly, spitting in public places and urinating on national monuments are part of the disease. So, your penis has to wear a wool sweater and hat and you have to gargle soap and wear Mann Glasses just to keep the disease contained. I guess that's why I'm in this hospice, because I have a severe and advanced disease and there is no hope.
That's what I used to think (or might think later) except that I am sure I used to be a nice person. So I know that the disease is not all about guys all the time. That's where the cesspool alleles come in (or go out, or think they do).
That got me thinking about S curves and girl curves, how they are really the same. And then I thought, hey, I wonder what girls do in the shower. Then I though, hey, I wonder what the girls shower is like when there are ten girls all wet and giggling. Then I began to think about the Scared Mechanics, because Uncle Joe says they are all females. They have a huge sign above the front entrance of the Holy Ziggurat: "No Boys Allowed".
I'm having trouble tracking lately. I start out to the bathroom and end up pinching a nurse. Then I have to gargle that crap, and then I remember I should have gone to the bathroom and not soiled the inside of my hospital gown, down my leg, and onto the good doctor's shoes. Then they have to give me emergency punches to the jaw and some kind of nose spray that makes you scream and fall asleep. It's a short term memory problem, I think; not getting to the bathroom on time.
Anyway, when I dream I remember stuff that happened in the twilight zone; that's another name for the Trinket Jungle, did I mention that? A lot of interesting stuff happened in the Jungle before I even got to visionary school; I just keep forgetting to remember to write it down. Uncle Joe says you need at least a few experiences in life before you get to be visionary. I think I might qualify, if I could remember.
Oh, by the way, there's no jungle and no trinkets in the Trinket Jungle. It's what Uncle Joe calls "the mess that separates reality from Sumeria". It's really just the crap the S-bomb tossed out of Chicago; lots of smashed cars and old crushed coffins (with leg bones sticking out).
The S-bomb went off like an inverted mushroom cloud; it blew down instead of up. Then it vomited like a volcano, but lava didn't flow out. Instead, huge pieces of potlatch culture exploded back up like refrigerator confetti. This was followed by a series of convulsive mini-vomits. The result was a series of concentric trash heaps piled up around Sumeria, some as high as twenty story buildings. Walking from Detroit to Sumeria is not easy. The path goes up and down like a trashy sine wave.
About a mile from Sumeria is The Roiling; also called "The Turmoil", or "The Turbulence". The shadow people come and go from The Roiling; these ethereal creatures inhabit the Trinket Jungle and they don't much like strangers. The Roiling churns and swirls, colored lights flash from it, a singing thunder echos outward, and mood lightning chills you to the bone. The Roiling is a concentric turbulence that surrounds and defines Sumeria's borders. It's also a portal of some kind, real mortals cannot get through; but I did- go figure.
Mood storms (called "mood swings") swirl through the Trinket Jungle like weather fronts. They originate from The Roiling. Gale force manic weather blows in on a high pressure front, followed by depressing winter mood low pressure weather. Sometimes it rains blood, and then sometimes it rains frosted flakes or saltine crackers, or whatever (once it rained purple hearts). Most of the time though, the weather is neutral, blah, except for the yellowish smoky fog so thick that you can't see your camel's head; it's called the Fog of Loneliness. Once you learn to drink the fog, it quenches your thirst, but it leaves your tongue yellow.
The Jungle also has a personality and can dream. Travelers can get caught up in these dreams; they can lose the ability to tell reality from unreality, especially as they get close to The Roiling. With evolution dead, The Roiling was free to burp up all manner of strange mood creatures. It seems to spit out shadow fauna and flora; much of it based on fluid mechanics and childrens literature. I don't know how long I was in The Jungle, but I saw a hookah smoking caterpillar, talking U.J. rabbits, a hundred pound tape worm with a bad attitude, a floor lamb with a Pinnocho nose, and pancake flowers. The U.J. (Universal Joint) Rabbits are especially fascinating. There are thousands of them, each somewhat different. They talk, their heads swivel 360 degrees, they have rollerball feet, and they blow jet fuel out their ass; they are very fast. I have seen them eat rubber, oil filters, leather seats, and hub caps. The flora is mostly variations on the Jungle weed; a sea anemone that looks like a car door knob.
I didn't know until I showed up in Sumeria that no human being had ever crossed into unreality. Somehow, I got through The Roiling. I survived mood swings, starvation, dehydration, hypothermia, and hot flashes. Only much later did I find out that my dead brother and several generations of dead relatives solved the secret of the Roiling long enough to get me through.
The S-bomb essentially destroyed evolution; it shredded mentality and left unreality in the hands of optometrists (not to be confused with your father's optometrist). These Sumerian eye professionals evolved from Trinket Jungle shadow males; they are now Auto Priests. They were (and still are) serial killing dream weavers. There is a strange kind of mushroom that only grows on these serial killing males. It's called the Death Cap (Amanita phalloides), or Destroying Angel, or Death Angel (Amanita ocreata). Never eat a shadow male.
Ironically, the shadow males of the Jungle no longer look or act like the Sumerian shadow males. The shadow males of the Jungle live in the confusion between reality and unrealty; the Sumerian Shadows exist totally in unreality. They now hate each other. Sumeria created the Trinket Rangers, a savage fighting army that murders not for pleasure, but because they are ordered to kill. They move from unreality to confusion and try to fight their way into reality.