Chapter Two
A New Companion
In which a very small mouse with a very large name introduces himself.
“Actually, polite Language does read back. Pardon my intrusion. How impolite of me.” A tiny voice had spoken from beneath Aya’s feet.
Aya: “I think I stepped on one of the runes, Genie.”
the voice: “Actually, nothing is ruined — you only stepped on the tip of my tail.”
Aya hopped off at once and knelt down to look.
Aya: “Such a little mouse!”
the mouse: “Actually, my mouth is simply proportional to my wholeness. May we be introduced, or was stepping on tails and hopping away sufficient intro-doing?”
Aya: “I suggest we stop tailing the past.”
The mouse squeaked. That was his laughter.
the mouse: “Very well. The future has considerably more room than the past. Actually… it depends.”
Aya: “Depends on what?”
the mouse: “Depends on where you decide to step next. It might Arbiflo.”
Aya: “Arbiflo?”
Arbiflo: “Yes. It is my name.”
Aya: “I am Aya.”
Arbiflo: “Amayah? Means close to God. Saint?”
Aya: “No. Just Aya.”
Arbiflo: “Oh. Justs are actually rarely justified.”
Aya: “I have the Aya Manuscript.”
Arbiflo: “You are a writer?”
Aya: “I am an explorer… and a discoverer.”
Arbiflo: “A scientist?”
Aya: “Only a bunny.”
Arbiflo became unusually still.
Arbiflo: “No. You are not only. You have Genie. And a manuscript. It is I who am only.”
Aya felt an unexpected tenderness. She wanted to hug the little mouse and carry him with her.
Aya: “You do not have to be only. We can explore together. I can even carry you on my back.”
Arbiflo looked thoughtfully at the distance between her ears.
Arbiflo: “May I take the front seat? Between your ears, if you do not find it unheard of?”
Aya: “Unheard and unknown are exactly what we are exploring. Jump on board.”
With remarkable dignity for someone so small, Arbiflo removed his cap, climbed onto her shoulder, carefully found his way between her long white ears, and settled into what was, in his opinion, an exceptionally well-designed observation deck.
“Optimization,” Genie thought, “has now become permanently impossible.”
Arbiflo: “Do you already know what this one is called?”
Aya: “Genie can tell you.”
Aya was thinking that Arbiflo needed to make Genie his language friend.
Genie adjusted his spectacles.
Genie: “It is called omega.”
Before Genie could continue, Arbiflo’s ears shot straight up.
Arbiflo: “Oh!”
Arbiflo: “Mega!”
Arbiflo: “That is massive!”
He stood on his tiny hind legs.
Arbiflo: “It sounds important! The right thing to do is to meet it first. Stand on the right, we do the right thing.”
Genie smiled.
Genie: “Actually, Arbiflo…”
But he did not finish the sentence.
Instead, he quietly thought that Arbiflo had heard mega peeking out from inside omega. The last letter of the ancient Greek alphabet had arrived carrying the whole journey of the letters before it — the weight of their relationships held inside its sound.
Aya: “Is she only?”
Aya felt that someone carrying such weight inside her might need care.
Genie: “Sometimes she is monadic. And sometimes, when she is dyadic, Alpha stands on the other side of the function.”
Before Genie could say another word, Arbiflo’s ears trembled.
Arbiflo: “Alpha!”
Arbiflo: “Elf!”
Arbiflo: “It is a spirit that life begins with!”
He became quieter.
Arbiflo: “Elfa…”
Arbiflo: “She is life-giving.”
Genie looked at the little mouse with affection.
Genie: “Actually, Arbiflo…”
But once again he let the sentence dissolve into a smile.
Arbiflo had not uncovered the history of the word. He had heard a path through language. And sometimes, Genie thought, the paths language offers are gifts in themselves.
Aya felt that the story of Alpha and Omega, as told by Arbiflo, was tender and romantic, and it deserved a song. Aya loved to sing, although she did not like poetry. She always thought that poetry had a beautiful origin of hopping from stone to stone with flight between, but much of the poetry she had read did not have real air to fly on. Or she did not feel that air. Aya felt the song coming to her. The song of Alpha and Omega.
My carrying others feels lonely longing for others to hear the love. What are you, Alpha? The spirit inside me, Invisible vision Waving me back? Weave of connections, Arrays transformations. Monadically standing Monastically placed Monarch to myself Moaning for you in mono I am.
Arbiflo: “That is a very somber morning, my dear.”
Aya: “If it is too somber, we can get something more sober.”
Aya laughed, recognizing how she had made sadness cloud the morning.
Aya: “We must ask Genie to bring clarity to this moaning morning.”
Genie pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose, visibly relieved that the heavy clouds of the monastic morning were beginning to part.
Genie: “Clarity is exactly what Alpha brings to the field.”
His voice carried the crisp, comforting rhythm of a well-ordered array. He stepped closer to the edge of the page and pointed to the two living plants that had just grown from Aya’s song, their roots holding fast in the soil.
Genie: “You see, Aya, your song was perfectly true. When a function is monadic, Omega stands entirely alone on the right. She holds all the weight, all the data, and all the mass of the operation. It is a heavy thing to carry the world by yourself.”
He turned to the little mouse.
Genie: “But Arbiflo is also right. Alpha is the spark that changes the condition. When Alpha arrives, she takes her place on the left side of the function. And she does not come to take Omega’s weight away — she comes to give Omega a relationship.”
Genie drew a small, invisible horizontal line in the air between the two plants.
Genie: “Alpha provides the left argument. The boundary. The frame of reference. If Omega is the deep, massive ocean of what is, Alpha is the exact shore that gives the ocean its shape. The moment Alpha appears on the left, the function becomes dyadic. Omega is no longer a solitary monarch. They are in a dialogue.”
Genie smiled, looking at the bright morning light reflecting off Aya’s fur.
Arbiflo: “I feel like I would sink in that ocean of an image if I do not sink my teeth into it… and for that, I need some tea.”
Aya: “We do not have any cups to drink from.”
She was already thinking about how they could ask the carps to bring reservoir water for their morning tea.
Arbiflo: “We can give the tea a vessel. You are talking to an experienced traveler, and I have a solution — we can use my left shoe!”
Aya: “Oh! You are more of a genius than Genie! And look — the runes have something that looks just like a left shoe!”
Enclose. It gathers scattered, flowing elements — tea, water, clouds, songs — into one unified object that can be held. It does not say what must be inside; it only says: these belong together.
Aya: “Genie! Can we use it as a vessel to have some tea?”
Genie: “Actually…”
Aya and Arbiflo leaned forward.
Genie: “…yes.”
Both of them gasped.
Genie: “Not because the rune is a shoe — although I admit someone with sufficient imagination could certainly travel in one.”
Arbiflo nodded solemnly.
Genie: “But because an enclosure is precisely a vessel.”
Genie gently traced ⊂ on the manuscript.
Genie: “It doesn’t tell us what must be inside.”
He tapped the little opening.
Genie: “It merely says, ‘These belong together.’”
Genie mimed pouring an invisible stream of water into the open arms of the symbol.
Genie: “You see, when you have something fluid, scattered, and unbounded — like a rushing stream of water, or a loose collection of tea leaves — it is very hard to carry. It spills everywhere. But when you apply the Enclose function, you put a protective boundary around it. You gather all those loose, flowing elements and wrap them into one single, unified object that you can hold safely in your hand.”
Aya’s eyes became round.
Aya: “So tea…”
Genie: “…can be enclosed.”
Aya: “And water?”
Genie: “…can be enclosed.”
Aya: “And clouds?”
Genie: “…can be enclosed.”
Aya: “And songs?”
Genie: “…certainly.”
Arbiflo proudly held up his tiny left shoe.
Arbiflo: “So my shoe is a perfectly respectable cup!”
Genie: “It is a perfectly respectable enclosure.”
Aya clapped her paws. They enclosed their tea.
Aya gave the cup to Arbiflo first to drink from. Arbiflo, being a perfect gentleman, gave the cup back to Aya. Aya felt uncomfortable — she had never taken the first place in a tea ceremony.
Aya: “We need to disclose some of that tea!”
She had seen another rune in the manuscript turned in the opposite direction.
Disclose. It asks: what is the first thing inside? If ⊂ says ‘treat all of this as one thing,’ ⊃ opens the wrapping and offers what was gathered.
Aya: “Genie! Can we do it?”
Genie looked from the left shoe to the right shoe, and then at Aya. He smiled the smile of someone who had secretly been hoping this question would eventually arrive.
Genie: “Actually…”
Aya and Arbiflo leaned in again.
Genie: “…that depends on what you mean by disclose.”
Arbiflo: “It depends? Things are getting deeper with depending. Do we have to look deeper inside the shoe?”
Genie picked up the tiny shoe that was full of imaginary tea.
Genie: “If ⊂ says, ‘treat all of this as one thing,’ then ⊃ asks, ‘what is the first thing inside?’”
Arbiflo: “The question of the first sip is almost like the problem of the last piece.”
Aya thought for a moment about what a company of geniuses she was in. The field of geniuses truly appealed to her, and she had even started calling them her aplers.
Genie: “Because sometimes the vessel is not what we are looking for. When someone gives you a beautifully wrapped present…”
Aya nodded eagerly, because presence and presents walked together in her bunny mind.
Genie: “…you do not spend the afternoon admiring the wrapping.”
Aya: “You open it!”
Genie: “Exactly.”
Aya: “So ⊂ is wrapping…”
Genie: “…and ⊃ is opening.”
Aya suddenly saw the whole structure of their polite exchange.
Aya: “Oh… so when I gave the whole cup to Arbiflo…”
Genie: “…you enclosed the tea.”
Aya: “And when he offered me the tea…”
She looked at the second rune.
Aya: “…he was really trying to disclose it.”
Arbiflo’s whiskers twitched.
Arbiflo: “I wasn’t refusing to keep the cup… I was trying to share the tea inside.”
Genie: “Precisely.”
Aya: “Every proper tea ceremony needs both shoes.”
Genie chuckled.
Arbiflo: “Genie, you deserve to drink first and disclose to us the taste. Disclose it. Scientific testing!”
Aya was so happy that these two had become friends.
— End of Chapter Two —