Call me Fishmeal.

          I'm not sure that anything you are about to read is true.  It could be true, and from where I'm sitting it sure seems true enough, but then again it could simply be an apparition of a demented or diseased mind, or an opiate-like dream.  I'm beginning to suspect that life and consciousness might be of this bent.  Who knows?  Not I.  I'm extremely confused.  However, if what I suspect to be true is in fact true, all of the oh so serious efforts we've invested in our personal needs and neuroses have been a silly waste of time.  If what I'm about to describe has really happened, and may still be happening, the universe is being controlled by forces much less organized and competent than the guiding light many of us speak of as our personal sponsor.  This cosmos of time and space that we have come to know as cold and disinterested might be glued together by warm-hearted, curious, inept, and puerile minds.  It could be.  And again, I'm not sure.  So I write these letters which are simply an attempt to reach out to the rest of the universe and say:  I'm not sure.  I'm not sure at all, and keep your eyes open and be prepared for anything; anything and everything.
          As you can see, I am suspicious of reality's nature; the nature of reality.  My suspicion is that thought is the only thing that truly exists; it would explain a lot of the things around me.  Dream signs are everywhere.  Where I am simply can not be; it's too crazy.  Crazy is a state of mind, right?  So I'm beginning to believe that the universe is merely a state of mind.  However, I'm not sure.  I used to be so sure of things.
          But it's okay.  Relax.  Everything's going to be all right.  If my suspicions are correct, that it's all dream stuff, it doesn't matter a great deal, now does it?  As Mark Twain said, We can 'dream better dreams', right?  The important thing is to adjust; to accept what is around you     whether you understand it or not.  A nice psychosis would fill the bill; join a club filled with people who agree with you; loose yourself in a job; or maybe simply have your mind hit the replay button every midnight: each day repeating like a carbon copy of the previous day until they are all used up.  These options are often chosen, and might even work.  Who knows?
          Enough of my problem with understanding reality.  Perhaps you'd like to hear my story.  I'll tell you about my name, where I am, and how I got here.  You might enjoy it.  Maybe then you will see why it is that I have this silly problem with reality; why I can't understand what the hell's going on; why I write these letters; and why I'm dragging you down with me.
          Why do I call myself Fishmeal?  Because I'm a fish skinner in a fish processing plant, that's why.  I've been skinning fish for, oh, around seven months now.  I'm fast, and I still have all my fingers.  I think I'm about to become adjusted to the thought of working here for the rest of my life.  I have hopes of someday becoming a fish knacker.  That's adjusting, wouldn't you say?
          You might not think that becoming a fish knacker is all that great of an ambition, but it beats the hell out of being a fishteer.  Herding fish can really be a drag; particularly if you can't swim.  That's what I did when I first got here.  Before I became a fish skinner, I herded fish.  I can't swim when I know there are fish in the water, or think there are fish in the water.  They might nibble, or I might imagine that they are nibbling.  I most definitely will panic.  It was close, whether it was or not.
          If I can become a fish knacker, I will be warm.  Fish knackers work near the boiler.  Fish skinners have to be where it's cold, so the fish won't spoil.
          However, I won't think of myself as completely adjusted to this place and this work until I stop writing these letters about where I am and how I got here, how I don't trust in any reality and all, and then sending them off to, oh, I don't know where, out there
someplace.
          There's no telling where these letters will turn up if I'm right about who or what's running the post office.  But I'll get to that later.  Stand-by, one.
          Before I found myself here, I was an Administrative Assistant III to the Executive Vice President in charge of sales and promotions for a major west coast shoe distributor specializing in athletic footwear for people with fallen arches due to excessive weight.  I was just becoming adjusted to being an Administrative Assistant III for the rest of my life when things happened that lead to my being a fish skinner and hopeful fish knacker here in this, this...  it's hard to name.  It's definitely not San Francisco Bay, near Angel Island, where I was paddling my canoe before all of this began.
          So where is this place that I'm becoming adjusted to staying and processing fish for the rest of my life, linking one day to the next until they are all used up, and what is it like?  I don't have the foggiest idea where this place is.  It could be anywhere in the known universe, or maybe an unknown universe lost in the folds of my mind.  It looks like a planet though; I'm fairly sure of that.  A planet that is virtually all water.  The best that I can figure out is that it is about 86% water and 14% land.
          Although there are many different species here, there are only two basic TYPES of citizens on this planet; most of them refugees like me.  One type (my type) work in large, floating, iron islands processing fish and a small amount of aquatic vegetable matter.  The other type work on the land.  The land on this planet is used exclusively for farming, and only farmers are allowed on that land; the rest of us live in these huge floating factories made of iron.  That's about 86% of the population on the water, processing fish and a bit of vegetable matter, and the remaining 14% on the land, farming.  (Incidentally, these proportions - 86% and 14% - are the proportions of water and land making up the typical human body, but I'll get to that later.)
          The citizens living and toiling on the land are considered second class by those living and working in the iron fish factories.  I've heard that the citizens on the land feel that those of us working here are second class.  There are points to support both perspectives if you are given to that sort of thinking.  The citizens living on the land are fewer; allowing them to think of themselves as elite and special.  The citizens living on the floating, iron, fish-processing factories have more opportunities to climb the cylinder of success, which makes them think of themselves as more ambitious and hard working.
          The one thing that both of the citizens agree on is that hard work and career advancements are the only reasons for living; like me wanting to become a fish knacker, where it's warm.  From day-one to day-last, all anyone talks about is working hard and advancing as far as possible before all of your time is used up.  Because of all the career opportunities, and their allotted importance, it would seem to me that the citizens living on the floating fish factories have more to support their opinion of which group merits the most respect.  However, you can see that I'm not in the most objective of positions.  I think I have a better than even chance of becoming a fish knacker.
          These floating, iron, fish-processing factories are interesting: They are cylindrical in shape, approximately one mile across, two miles of cylinder climbing high into the sky, and four miles diving deep into the frigid depths.  There is a disk attached to the cylinder just below the surface of the sea that extends out like a dancer's tutu.  The disk extends three miles out from the wall of the cylinder.  A mesh fence that clears the sea's surface runs the circumference of the disk keeping the fish being raised over the disk from leaving.  Sea plants are grown on an artificial sea bed that has been placed on the surface of the disk.  This provides both the fish and the citizens with
vegetables; roughage is very important you know.  This disk also keeps the cylinder from bouncing up and down with the swells.  I know this sounds ridiculous.  How can seas be so high that they could cause a six mile cylinder weighing billions of tons to start an elevator ride up and down?  I thought this was silly myself, but the facts are that there are certain swell frequencies that will slowly start these cylinders to rise ever so slightly, gaining on each trip up and then down, until they are climbing straight up a mile or more into the sky and then back down plunging deep into the sea.  This frequency is called the cylinder's Harmonic Resonance Factor.  Each cylinder has its own HRF.  The elevator ride can't happen with the dampening effects of the disks.  To combat the forces placed on the disk, stay wires have been attached to its perimeter and then to the upper and lower sides of the cylinder.  It's all very scientific and modern.
          There are five-thousand four-hundred and thirty-two iron factories for the processing of fish on this planet.  I work very deep within the depths of factory numbered 4,836.  They use the cold waters at this depth to keep the fish we are processing refrigerated and safe from harmful infestations.  Working at this level is considered the lowest of the low; except for fish herders, they work outside.  Outside work is considered very low class.
          Moving up the cylinder are thousands of levels, each being considered a better place to work than the level below it.  Fish knackers are three levels above me.  Maybe that will be for me someday; if I work hard and don't make any errors, like loosing a finger, or hand.  Everyone here in the fish skinning level (level -35,229) thinks of nothing else but moving up the cylinder of success.  First up to the knacker's level, three levels up, and then to the bottler's level, two levels above that, and then on and on until all your days are used up.
          Sometimes a bottler will come down here to level -35,229 and trade a bottle for some fresh frozen fish.  God, can they be condescending; walking around with their nose, noses, snorkels, or whatever in the air, thinking their so high and mighty.  If I ever make it to the labelers level, just above the bottlers, I'm going to rub it in, boy am I going to rub it in.
          Climbing the levels of the cylinder is very important to us.  (Oh!  I said 'us'.  I must be adjusting.)  We call it upward mobility.  Our goal is to make it to the top of the cylinder where there is a one mile wide, and a quarter mile high dome of glass.  Under this dome is a forest garden with small cabins for the workers who have made it to the very top of the social cylinder.  They get to see the light of day.  They're always happy and never worry.  I've heard this.  I believe this.
          It's always dark down here at level -35,229.  It's dark at all levels except level 0 (the crystal dome).  From what I've been able to gather during the seven months, or so, that I've been here, every level (but levels 100 through 0) looks much the same.  They are full of workers, the walls and ceilings are dark iron and lined with pipes, the air is poorly lighted with soft blue bulbs, and filled with a constant machine like sound.  The air is damp, smells of iron, fish and body odor, and is filled with steam, or a frost cold fog.  The only door out of my work area leads to the feeding room (to the right), and our sleeping quarters (to the left).  From either location, you can get to an elevator.
          For the last seven months, my days have been pretty much the same.  I wake.  I eat fish and weeds.  I go to work.  I eat more fish and weeds.  I go to my sleeping quarters.  I write one of these letters you're reading.  I mail it in the usual way.  I go to sleep and dream.  I wake again.  I...
          Strange, isn't it, that one's life should be so repetitious and at the same time be saddled with a renegade imagination?  I dream constantly.  Awake or sleeping, my imagination is always busy.  Even at work, I'm imagining things.  I'm imagining this as I write it.  I try not to imagine so much.  Many a fine and dedicated worker have lost out on a promotion because of an over active imagination.  Stenciled over my work bench is a sign that reads, 'Work, don't think'.  I put it there to remind myself of the proper priorities, and to impress my supervisor.
          However, it is with the help of my imagination that I have rendered from my mind's workings a desire for becoming a fish knacker of the highest grade, you bet.  Of course, I have been a little influenced by the fact that every individual living on 4,836, level -35,229 and below, agrees that moving up to level -35,232 and becoming a fish knacker is an admirable goal to live for, and think of constantly, and always talk about, dream about, and write about.  Everyone agrees with me.  This means a lot to me.
          So there you have it.  I was thrown into this world much the way a baby is thrown into life; not knowing where I am, why I am, why I'm where I am, what I'm suppose to do now that I'm somewhere, or what might be next.
          What's terrible is that, like a newborn baby, I had no say in whether I was born to level -35,229 or level 0.  It makes quite a difference, believe you me.
          This time, before I place this, my 314th, letter into this ever so round jar, and send it off to Whoknowswhere in the usual way, I would like to include a short story explaining how all of this has come to be.  I'm not all that sleepy, and I've cleaned my plate and tidied-up my room, so here is the tale of how I came to be the fish skinner and hopeful fish knacker calling himself Fishmeal:
 

          Far, far out into space, and not close to here or anywhere else, is a planet that is composed completely of water.  It is a giant drop of clear water in the dry vacuum of space.  It is twelve-thousand miles in diameter.  It is frozen solid at its poles, but becomes liquid long before reaching its bulging equator where the surface water is warm and the air is tropical.  The seabed is hard, clear ice for thousands of feet before the pressure of its own weight causes it to warm and become liquid to its center.  The very center of this planet is occupied by a Chevy Vega with a dead commuter behind its steering wheel, and a small meteorite in the passenger seat.  So other than the Vega, dead driver, and meteorite, it is a large round shell of ice, liquid over ninety percent of its surface and throughout ninety-nine percent of its volume.  If the liquid were blown away, it would look like an apple core made of ice or glass with a Vega, commuter and meteorite for seeds.
          It is not a magnetic planet like Earth.  Its poles are merely the surface points at which its axis rotates.  Its axis, like Earth's, is tilted roughly twenty-three and a half degrees off the plane of its orbit around its star.  It orbits its star at exactly the same distance as does Earth, and its star is of equal size and intensity as that of Earth's star.  It's atmosphere has the same constituents as that of Earth's, and has the same range of temperatures and types of climates from pole to pole as that of Earth's.  All in all, from a small canoe lost in the fog off Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, it was so similar to Earth that when I was moved from one planet to the other, I completely missed the big event
          I might have noticed my compass go dead if I had one.  I didn't.  I might have noticed a few clouds suddenly appear in the sky, but it was too damned foggy.  I was so totally wrapped up in my fears that I missed all of these clues, and a few more.  I wasn't aware that anything had changed until I happened to taste the water over the side of my canoe and found it to be as fresh and pure as the bottled water delivered to my home.
          Shortly after I realized that the water under my canoe was fresh, the fog disappeared.  I found myself floating on a perfectly calm, flat, silver-blue surface of water with not the slightest evidence of land anywhere.  Water in all directions for as far as I could see.  The water under my canoe was so clear and free of debris and life that only the slightest difference existed between the scenery above and the scenery below.
          I paddled around.  I paddled until I started to feel foolish.  'What is the point,' I said to myself.  I had no idea where I was.  There was no way of knowing which way to go, or how to maintain that direction without a compass.  Every direction looked the same; there wasn't even a swell to judge direction by.  I decided to rest.  I fell asleep.
          I awakened seventeen hours later to a darkness I had experience only once on a calm moonless night far out to sea under a thick cover of clouds.  I groped around for my flashlight.  I turned it on and pointed it up and into the black sky.  The little bit of moisture that was floating in the air caught the light and made a bright glowing shaft around thirty feet long.  A thirty foot long shaft of light and complete darkness were my entire world.  I assumed that higher up there was an overcast blocking the stars from my view.  I thought at the time that if I could see the stars I would be able to decide on a direction to paddle.  I had stopped wondering about the water being fresh.
          An hour later I noticed a soft yellow glow spreading out over the horizon as the black sky slowly turned to blue.  As my first day adrift began, I realized that there had been no cloud cover hiding a star filled sky the previous night.  I scooped up some water; it was fresh.  I hoped that it had all been a bad dream; it had not.  I was witnessing my first day on the planet Oort.
          The planet Oort is at the very edge of the universe; the leading edge of creation, or thought, if my suspicions are correct.  For half of an Oort year, the night-time sky faces the center of the universe and is filled with colorful stars and galaxies, gas clouds and constellations, everything.  For the other half of an Oort year, the night-time sky faces where the universe does not yet exist, and is therefore so dark that black would seem bright by comparison.
          Because the universe, with all of its substantial and non substantial parts, is what one might call reality, it can safely be said that I was on a planet at the edge of reality; the leading edge of everything, and everywhere.  Whew.
          The star that Oort orbits was high overhead before I bothered to move from the cushions where I had been trying to outlive what I thought to be an hallucination.  I made a test of the water; still fresh.  There was still no wind.  What to do?  What to do?  With very few choices and the weave of the cushions treating my skin the way waffle irons treat batter, I decided on a swim.
          I tied one end of a rope to my ankle and the other to my canoe.  This would keep my canoe from drifting away in the event that a breeze should develop.  I stood in the middle of the canoe and searched the ocean surface for movement; real and imaginary.  I hadn't seen the slightest evidence of life since the ocean turned fresh.  I was concerned that there might be something dangerous in those distilled depths: something that might nibble, or make me think I'm being nibbled on.  I looked straight down into the water; nothing.  The water below was as transparent as spring water in a crystal tumbler.  I felt high in the air when I looked down into those depths.  I looked to the sky, the horizon, down again, and dived directly into the middle of a group conversation.  Actually, it was more like rhetorical anarchy.  Conversation layered upon conversation with no apparent relationships.  It sounded something like this:

          I couldn't believe my ears.  I raced for the surface.  'I'm rescued,' I yelled.  As I cleared the surface into the air above, the conversations stopped.  I looked around.  There weren't any people around.  No boats in sight.  Still no land.  Only my little canoe.  Like a corpse, I laid motionless, floating, adjusting.  I was sure that this was what it must be like to be crazy, or religious: hearing voices, and thinking you're going to be saved from a crazy situation.
          Treading water, I tried to compose myself.  I decided that that first drink of fresh water must have contained some exotic mix of pollutants common in San Francisco Bay.  These must have mixed to form an hallucinogenic drug that is the cause of all these strange experiences.  I was sure that at that very moment I was floating off of Angel Island making a complete fool of myself; unaware of my surroundings while people stared and pointed, snickered and laughed.  Somebody would collect me, nurse me back to health, and I would soon be back in my office selling the world's very best shoes for those who's arches have flattened under the stresses of gravity.  Then my ears momentarily went below the surface of the water and, low and behold, I heard:

          I swam back to my canoe with my head high out of the water.  My ears dropped under the surface only once before I managed to climbed back into my canoe, and safety.  While my ears were underwater, for no more than a second, I heard: '...where exactly?  Oops!'
          Who could be having these conversations?  Where are they coming from?  Why me?  What's going on here, anyway?  Interrogatives were swarming like bees inside my head.
          It's time for a couple of explanations, a few descriptions, an answer to some of the questions you must be asking.  After hearing those voices, I had questions that needed answering, also.  It took weeks for these questions to be answered.  However, I won't make you wait quite that long.
          Here's the way things were, and why I am not as sure about the nature of reality as I was before all of this happened:  The planet Oort is inhabited.  Yep, it is.  It is inhabited by life forms that are much more powerful and knowledgeable than they are wise.  Sound familiar?  However, Oortians would never knowingly hurt another living creature.  That's a difference.  That doesn't mean that they haven't, just that they wouldn't do it knowingly.  I know, I told you that Oort is made up of water and nothing else.  Because Oort is made up of water and only water, (Except the Vega, driver and meteorite.) Oortians are nothing more than water.  Each Oortian citizen is a small molecule of water: an oxygen atom juggling two hydrogen atoms.  Water exactly like the water you drink; with the possible exception that the water you drink might not be conscious.
          Before you pooh pooh this, take stock of yourself.  Whose to say that your consciousness isn't solely invested in the 86% of your body that is water?  86%!  It could be that the remaining 14% is merely baggage, traveler's checks, sunglasses, spare toothbrush, those sorts of things.
          Being at the edge of the universe, the planet Oort is in a position to have a few of the laws that control the nature of things slightly warped; half-baked and doughy.  Take time for instance:  At the edge of reality, time starts to waver.  Time is not just a concept playing a part in the relationship between mass, energy and the speed of light.  It exists in a very substantial way.  Actually, time has 4.29467 times more substance than a notion.
          As time, matter and everything else approaches the edge of the universe it starts to fold in upon itself.  Eventually it starts to waver, disappears, and pops out at the center of the universe to start its story, and this one, even yours, all over again.  So say the Oortians.
          The Oortians have taken advantage of this wavering of reality to temporarily transport matter, along with time, to their great ball of them (water).  They move what ever they need to move in order to observe.  Oortians are not your classic science fiction zoo keepers. They moved me and my small canoe to Oort to observe.  When they finished observing me they planned to send me back to the same spot in space and time that they had pulled me from; unharmed and unaware.  My experience on the planet Oort was happening between the clicks of a clock.  I wasn't suppose to know.  You the reader could have been whisked away to Oort and back while reading this letter.  Roll that one around in your head awhile and then try to spit without taking a look at your watery spittle.
          Consciousness, like time, also starts to waver and infold at the edge of reality.  Many thoughts throughout time have considered themselves to BE the edge of reality.  They were wrong; the center maybe, but not the edge.  The edge is just outside of Oort.  The signs point the way.  But remember:  this is all per the opinion of Oortians and they mess up more often than not.   They did with me.
          It was when Oort reached that area of the universe where all this wavering occurs, water molecules started to notice themselves and the molecules around them.  They started to talk, play, swim and take advantage of their ability to perceive.  They are very intelligent as far as water molecules are concerned.  It's true that they argue and bicker a lot, they make mistakes, plenty, but nobody anywhere can go with the flow like an Oortian.
          At first they were happy to fill their time with rhetoric:

                       Yours truly,
                       Fishmeal
 
 

          Fishmeal signed his letter and went to sleep.  He dreamed of disemboweling fish under the soft glow of blue lights.  He really wanted to become a fish knacker.
          The next day, after a great breakfast of fish, weeds, weed juice, and fish pudding, Fishmeal went to work.  Just before lunch, a worker from the bottling level (level -35,234) showed up and introduced himself as Zerfet.  He must have been a bright yellow, thought Fishmeal, because, under the blue lights, Zerfet appeared lime green.  Zerfet asked to trade a huge bottle for enough fish skins to make a blanket.  (Making things from fish skins is one level above Zerfet's level.  It was obvious to Fishmeal that Zerfet was trying to put together a portfolio.)  An ambitious and condescending son-of-a-bitch, thought Fishmeal, but the bottle was large enough for Fishmeal to fit into, letter and all.  He wanted that bottle very much, but didn't let Zerfet on to that fact.  He made a good bargain, and flipped Zerfet off as he wriggled away.  Fishmeal quickly moved the bottle to his room.
          Four-hundred and thirty-two workdays passed before Fishmeal had located a lid for his bottle.  He drilled a small hole near the bottle's rim.  He tested the mechanism to see whether he could safely climb into the bottle, close the lid by pulling down on a string attached to the bottom of the lid, seal the hole with fish wax, and then pull on the string that went through hole while he levered the lid from underneath with a fish rib, thus freeing the lid, and making good his exit.
          After a few successful trial runs, Fishmeal climbed into the bottle, sealed the lid, the hole, and then looked around his room for the last time.  He had enough food and water to last a week, his letter, a fish bone to tap the bottle while he thought a thought that can't be shared, and thereby send himself and his possessions off to Whoknowswhere.
          Fishmeal tapped the inside of the bottle.  Just like all the others, it began to twinkle and flash with light of every color.  Fishmeal had seen this hundreds of times before, but always from the outside looking in.  From the inside looking out, the view was quite different.  Fishmeal saw the room around him sparkle and glitter as it faded from sight.  Fishmeal would never become Fishmeal the Fish Knacker.
          When the sparkling and glittering stopped, Fishmeal found himself and his bottle perched on the top of a mountain of bottles and containers.  A lot of these bottles and containers were recognizable to Fishmeal as having been the very same ones he had routinely sent to Whoknowswhere.
          Fishmeal had made it to Whoknowswhere.
          He pried the lid free and climbed out of the bottle.  After carrying his food, water, letter, and large bottle to the bottom of the mountain, he set to think for awhile.  It was so easy back at factory 4,836; he knew what to think about, what to want, even what to dream about.  Here Fishmeal had no idea what to do.
          After an hour or so, Fishmeal decided to circle this mountain of bottles, containers, and letters.  Approximately two-thirds of the way around the mountain, he found a nicely arranged stack of letters.  Many of the letters were in his own handwriting.  He sifted through the letters, putting his in one pile and the others in another pile, and then began to read the letters he had not written.
          They all read the same: people wanting to figure out what was going on, but weren't quite able to do so; visiting Oort and not getting back home; liking the Oortians in spite of their goof ups; the word oops; trying to adjust; and, of course, wondering what the hell was going on.  Not one of the letters mentioned fish or fallen arches.  That seemed strange to Fishmeal, considering their importance.
          Then Fishmeal noticed footprints in the sand.  He looked around.  As far as he could see, there was nothing but sand.  No footprints anywhere but there by the letters, and they all went in the same direction.  He decided to follow the footprints.  It was obvious that the others had all decided to follow the first set of footprints.  He stood, put his food and water into his large bottle and began to walk with the bottle dragging behind him.
          What else was there to do but what everybody before him had thought the right thing to do?
          As he walked, he thought of how nice it would be if he could find a place where fallen arches were common, or a lot of fish were around needing to be skinned; or, on third thought, in need of rendering.
 
 

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