I found him by accident, quite by luck it seemed. Coming off a riff of sleep; dead to everything, almost to even me. I couldn’t feel my left index finger. It didn’t exist in the natural world. Same with whole right arm. Flop over onto back and wait. Blood can flow. Sense comes raging back.
But knowing is a lagging indicator. It hesitates; it waits; then it sees a world of being coalesce. I stand on solid marble, magma long congealed. Square, foursquare it is, and firm as earth can call to being. In this place down is down, and up is unequivocally up. I like it here. It plays. Another plate is attached and another on beyond. I belly up to my firm flat plat and wait. On my belly is the place to be, hugging all of earth in one cosmic sweet embrace.
He manifests. There, standing on my plate. A male energy; two legs, two arms, one head. No phallus. Why so bereft? What would he do with it? With no need to dominate, impregnate, urinate, why waste skin on an atavistic appendage? So why then is he here, standing with attitude on my substrate? I have called him; that’s sure. I want validity.
“See me,” I demand. “Know me. Acknowledge my unique self. I ask this. It is my prayer.”
No ears protrude from any apex, carapace nor crown. He has no need to hear. I have no need to speak except to align words to my will and admire them. Even forming words into coherent concept is a power play. What do I have to prove and to whom? But he knows whereof I speak, or would speak if I had a mouth. I seem to have become thought, pure thought, as I form knowing into strings of testament. I hear no answer with my not-ears. I close my not-eyes and slide across the smooth plane, on my not-belly, arriving at an edge. There it stops, but another one begins. It, too, is a familiar plane, a home. I step across and slide to yet another edge. I recognize three plates—three—a magic number. They are all mine to explore at will, if that is something I would do.
I awake to lack of breath. I breathe. In the world of friendly plates I had no need to respirate. What would not-lungs do with air? It is a strange world this awakening, where breathing is an act of will. If I am to face this yet-another-day, I must arise and claim it. And that’s exactly what I do.
As an afterthought, I wonder what his name was. “Easy,” my inner voice replies. It’s Psi!”