Quoted By:
>Storytime
"It's not hot," you say.
Gil flicks a beetle off his glasses. "What?"
"There's a whole giant fire right there, and it's all weird and smoky and gross-smelling, but it's not <span class="mu-i">hot.</span> Right? Isn't it? Or can you feel any—"
He squints at the whole giant fire. "No, but I thought that was because I was... beetles? <span class="mu-i">You</span> can't feel any heat?"
"Nope." Except from the regular sunshine, though the smoke's blocking out most of that by now.
"Damn, so it's— it's not <span class="mu-i">real?</span> You could've walked right in and been—"
"No! No, I didn't— shut up." You are desperately trying to remember all the lectures you zoned out of. "It's, it's, it's— it's real. I think it's real. I think the <span class="mu-i">problem</span> is that it is real, and it's, um— it's eating all the not-real stuff? And the not-real stuff is... everything, since it's a manse, and... shut up!" (He looked like he was going to say something dumb.) "I'm working on it. It's eating the not-real stuff, it's... <span class="mu-g">a</span>ntithetical to it, probably, and it's not hot because..."
Gil's fingers drum thoughtfully against his chin. "...It's eating the heat?"
"What? No. Maybe? Maybe it's eating the..." There is nobody around to lecture you about the stupid metaphysical properties of stupid Wind Court fire. You tug the snake around your neck. "Look, it doesn't matter <span class="mu-i">how</span> it's not hot. The how doesn't matter. It just isn't. Which is <span class="mu-i">weird,</span> Gilbert, because if I or you or whoever went and got a match and lit it I think that'd be warm, wouldn't it? I think the kettle-corn cookers are warm. I think the beach bonfires are warm. It just makes sense. While this..."
"It's eating the <span class="mu-i">sense?</span>"
You stare out. The blaze covers a fair area: what used to be several tents, plus what would've been the promenade between. You're guessing. There's no tents and no area between them, only a blast-zone of white flames and black ash, and around the edges the world globbing, dripping, pooling— reducing all to nothing, because nothing is <span class="mu-i">real</span>. No matter how orderly or pleasant or unobstructive it is. No matter how many actual memories went into fashioning it. No matter how <span class="mu-i">realistic</span> it is. It's not real, so it's fuel for the fire, and you yank your attention back to Gil. "Um... yeah. Maybe. The sense, or the ver- very- verysimily- the fake-realness. The pretendingness. This place is fake-real and the fire has to make it <span class="mu-i">real-</span>real, because that's how it works— right?" You don't wait for the answer. "And it's not hot because nothing here can make it <span class="mu-i">pretend</span> to be hot?"
The fire crackles. The beetles whirr. "Uh," Gil says tactfully. "I never really got into the whole, um, theory..."
(1/4?)
