The next morning, John lay in bed as late as he could, dreaming and thinking and letting all this new knowledge seep into his consciousness. Updating his model of himself, changing himself.

Eventually he rose, showered, dressed and headed out of the flat to meet his friend for bunch at a local greasy spoon.

“Shammy, dude, you feeling better?” his friend asked as John approached the table, getting up from his chair to give his friend a greeting hug.

“Hey Jim, yeah. Booze man. Who’d drink it?”

“It’s clearly the devil’s work,” Jim joked.

They scanned the menu and each ordered some food, mostly fried meat, and some tea.

“Did you at least get some fun in return for that hangover?” Jim asked.

“Yeah, crazy times. Crazy times. Picked up this weird booklet from somewhere or another. Dunno where. It’s been doing my head in.” John dropped his crumpled copy of " Do Dream-Sheep Bleat?" onto the table.

“Oh yeah?” Jim picked it up and glanced at the cover, “’ consciousness, cognizance and conjuring’ huh?

Sounds like exactly the kinda hippie crap you hate.”

John looked his friend in the eye for a moment, wondering how exactly that friend of his came to the conclusion that he’d hate the book. Had he, John, been conscious, for a second, inside Jim’s head? Had some version of him read the words and prompted Jim to spit out that statement? Had Jim seen, however subconsciously, the look on a Mini-John’s face?

“Normally, yeah. This one seems to have affected me though. I’ve been dreaming about that damned penguin from the cover. Not sure if the book makes any more sense than the deranged penguin in my dream though.”

“Sounds interesting. Can I borrow it?”

“Sure, I think the penguin

would like that. That’s why I brought it for you. It’s got some weird anti-copyright agreement on the last page that insists I give someone a copy.”

“Who gave it to you?” Jim asked.

“Dunno. Too drunk to remember. Some girl in a club maybe. Someone doing the penguin’s bidding.”

Jim looked into John’s face. “Are you gonna join a cult now?” he asked, “the cult of the penguin?”

John laughed, “Heh, no. It’s not like that. I don’t think it’s like that,” John wondered to himself if it was in fact exactly like that. It hadn’t even occurred to him until then. His subconscious mind asked the little model of the penguin in his brain, and it too laughed and said it wasn’t.

“What’s it about then?” Jim asked.

John did his best to explain, and during the explaining reinforced and

reinterpreted the subject in his own brain. Neurons grew, synapses strengthened, he built his own conclusions from the scant evidence in the text itself, his vague memories of it, and his own answers to the questions it posed.

“So our consciousness is spread around the entire community, our friends and relatives, not just confined within our own brain?” Jim was incredulous. As John would have been.

“Sort of, I think.”

“And we can bend the universe to our own will by spreading our

consciousness more explicitly through magical symbols?”

“Maybe. Dunno. Its probably a load of crap.” John admitted. Having to explain it to someone had shown up all the faults in his own understanding. “Just read it man, let me know what you think. Tell me about its flaws so I can just get on with my life.”

Jim looked up from his bacon and into John’s face. “You’ve read it, you’re smarter than me, you’re practically a scientist when you wanna be, you tell me it’s faults.”

Calling John a scientist made John’s brain conjure up his own mental image of himself as a scientist. Ask the kinds of questions that Scientist-John would ask.

“Right. Well. I guess there’s a testable hypothesis in there somewhere. I mean if this ‘sidual magic’ works then we can try it out, right? Give it a go. See what happens.” John was vaguely surprised this hadn’t occurred to him already.

“Which means doing what, exactly?” Jim asked.

John asked the little model of the penguin in his mind exactly how they could test the things he’d been saying.

" Thanks for making me conscious for a while,"

it replied, " but I already said this: build a symbol – that will help. Include aspects of me in it if you want. I’d like that. Then spread it, as far and wide as you can."

John felt like he was being manipulated, somehow being forced by his own brain, by some virtual parasite that had infected him and was now pushing the atoms of his neurons around to make him do it’s bidding.

But it was true that there was only one way to test this stuff. To really give it a go.

“I guess,” said John, “that we have to warp the penguin to our own needs, spread it as far and wide as we can, then see what happens. See if it affects people. See if it changes their minds, and through them and their actions changes the world itself. Bends it to our will.”

“I’m certainly up for some universe-bending, sounds like fun!” Jim replied, “what shape do we wanna bend it into?”

“Ah, now, that’s the question I guess.” John put down his fork, sated, “What do we want Jim? Riches? Fame? Influence? Truth? Love? Sex? Global understanding? World peace?”

Jim nodded vigorously, “They all sound good.”

“As far as I can tell, I think

they’re probably all already in the penguin.” John mused.

“That penguin sounds like one hell of a guy.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Except he’s not a

guy. He’s a symbol. A sidual. Made conscious in the actions of our neural networks.”

“Also,” said Jim, “he’s a penguin.”

“Apparently.”

“You know what we should do?” asked Jim, “We should make a film out of it or something.”

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