•I see the player you mean.
– rylyamba?
• Yes. Take care. It has reached a higher level now. It can read our thoughts.
– That doesn't matter. It thinks we are part of the game.
• I like this player. It played well. It did not give up.
– It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a screen.
• That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the dream of a game.
– Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the reality behind the screen.
• They used to hear voices. Before players could read. Back when those who did not play called the players witches and warlocks.
– What did this player dream?
• This player dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created. And it dreamed it destroyed. It dreamed it hunted, and was hunted. It dreamed of shelter.
– Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works.
• It worked, with a million others, to sculpt a true world in a fold of the §f§k§a§b§3...
– It cannot read that thought.
• No. It has not yet achieved the highest level. That, it must achieve in the long dream of life, not the short dream of a game.
– Does it know that we love it? That the universe is kind?
• Sometimes, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the universe, yes.
– But there are times it is sad, in the long dream. It creates worlds that have no summer, and it shivers under a black sun...
• To cure it of sorrow would destroy it. The sorrow is part of its own private task. We cannot interfere.
– Sometimes when they are deep in dreams, I want to tell them, they are building true worlds in reality.
• It reads our thoughts.
– Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely §f§k§a§b§2 and §f§k§a§b§2...
• And yet they play the game.
– But it would be so easy to tell them...
• Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to live is to prevent them living.
– I will not tell the player how to live.
• The player is growing restless.
– I will tell the player a story.
• But not the truth.
– No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of words.
• Give it a body, again.
– Yes. Player...
• Use its name.
– rylyamba. Player of games.
• Good.
– Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again... Respawn in the long dream. There you are. Your body touching the universe again at every point...
• Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain... Then gods, demons. Angels... Leptons, quarks. The words change. We do not change.
– We are the universe. We are everything you think isn't you... To see you, player. To know you. And to be known. I shall tell you a story.
– Once upon a time, there was a player.
• The player was you, rylyamba.
– Sometimes it thought itself human... Sometimes the player dreamed it was a miner, on the surface of a world that was flat, and infinite...
• Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story.
– Sometimes the player dreamed it was other things...
• Sometimes the player dreamed it watched words on a screen.
– Let's go back.
– The atoms of the player were scattered... And the player awoke... into the long dream.
– And the player was a new story... made from nothing but milk and love.
• You are the player. The story. The program. The human. Made from nothing but milk and love.
– Let's go further back.
– The atoms... created in the heart of a star... a forest of information planted by a man called Julian, on a flat, infinite world created by a man called Markus...
• Shush. Sometimes the player created a small, private world...
– Sometimes it believed it was in a universe made of zeros and ones...
• You are the player, reading words...
– Shush... Sometimes the player read lines of code... and realised it was alive, it was alive...
• You. You. You are alive.
– and sometimes the player believed the universe had spoken to it through the sunlight...
• and sometimes through the crisp night sky...
– and sometimes through the zeros and ones, through the scrolling words on a screen...
• and the universe said I love you
– and the universe said you have played the game well
• and the universe said everything you need is within you
– and the universe said you are stronger than you know
• and the universe said you are the daylight
– and the universe said you are the night
• and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you
– and the universe said the light you seek is within you
• and the universe said you are not alone
– and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing
• and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself...
– and the universe said I love you because you are love.
• And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream... And the player was the universe. And the player was love.
• You are the player.
– Wake up.