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"She's a grown woman," Pat says, "who has caused a lot of damage to other people. She can do what she asked to do. To <span class="mu-i">move</span> a manse, you have to understand— they aren't real, and the space they contain is not physical. This can be easily proven by trying to walk out of a manse. Have you ever attempted it?"
You shake your head.
"Good, because it's worse than useless. <span class="mu-i">Every</span> manse is infinite in all directions. If there's a wall, it continues behind it. Walk far enough and things begin to lose form. Eventually it's whitespace. But it's still the same manse, you understand? Beyond that— if things inside of a manse appear to have a spatial relationship, where one thing always remains next to another thing, you're getting hoodwinked. They're not together because they're next to one another; they're together because they are <span class="mu-i">associated</span> with one another. It is powered by symbolism. It is effectively highly stabilized dream logic."
"I knew it," Madrigal says.
The appropriate thing to do when being lectured about metaphysics is to nod and get it over with. "So?"
"<span class="mu-i">So,</span> I can pick up this rock. And I can throw this rock." Pat does, scattering the cloud of shrimp with it. "I can't pick up or throw a manse. It does not exist on a level where 'pick up' or 'throw' mean anything. I definitely can't <span class="mu-i">smash</span> one manse into another."
"Can you just get to the part where I actually can?" you say.
"You're insufferable. Okay. The gist is, if you <span class="mu-i">want</span> to be able to pick up or throw or smash a manse, it can't be physical— you have to smash it <span class="mu-i">symbolically.</span> This sucks ass, excuse me, because you are a real living person and you function on the level of flesh and rocks, not pure abstraction. To <span class="mu-i">get</span> to pure abstraction, you have to put yourself in a trance—"
"Or take the right stuff," Earl says cheerily.
"Imagine. Some people want to do this to themselves. Put yourself into a trance, hand over your free will, <span class="mu-i">hope</span> whatever replaces you gets the job done, <span class="mu-i">hope</span> it lets you back out of it. You'd be surprised at how many people never come back, or maybe you wouldn't." Pat inspects her clean fingernails. "For you, I think it'd have to be a <span class="mu-i">deep</span> one— catatonic, essentially. I think you would have to assume the symbolic role of the actual manse itself. Then you could, probably, smash yourself into whatever you liked. Symbolically."
"Ahhh," you say, and think about it. "That doesn't seem so bad."
"Doesn't it?" Pat's lips turn up.
You just have to commune with the manse itself, blah blah blah. You probably would've done that anyhow, just because.
(5/6)
