“You sure this author guy won’t mind that we’re ripping off his stuff?” asked Jim.

“You read the book dude, did it sound to you like the author thought spreading his ideas around was ’ ripping him off?'”

Jim pondered it for a second, aware of the penguin on his shoulder laughing at the very idea, “I think he actually wants

us to do this.”

“Indeed.”

“Maybe we should, you know, at least ask

though? We’ve blatantly just turned the text of that book into an animation.”

The penguin in each of their brains doubled over in a way that would give a zoo keeper fits of worry, laughing their heads off. The head of the penguin in Jim’s mind actually did dislodge and roll around the floor, still laughing.

“Nah” they said in unison.

“You know,” said John, “doing this stuff together has been such a laugh. Creating. Rewriting the ideas. Doing stuff. Trying to change the world rather than just living in it. So much more interesting than just the booze and dancing and flirting with girls we’ve generally done together before.”

“And I feel like my little model of you, the Mini-John in my head, has grown. I can feel you. I can feel you conscious, thinking, living in my own brain.”

“Eww.”

“No really, it’s like actually building things together has transferred more of our minds into each other, don’t you think?”

John nodded, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m glad we did this even if the experiment is a failure. Maybe it already isn’t.”

“Shall we watch it one more time?” Jim asked.

“It’d be a crime not to, that penguin’s waddle makes me laugh so hard. Good job on that dude. It’s not the waddle I saw, but it’s better than the waddle I saw.”

“The way you voice him is insane though, that kinda quacky-growly voice. He never spoke that way until I heard you do it, now he does it that way all the time.”

Jim hit the play button on his media player and the two of them crowded around Jim’s screen. The penguins in their minds peering over their shoulders, glad that they’d been made conscious for a while.

The screen showed a hissing static-filled television, zooming out to see a virtual copy of John lying snoring on a sofa.

“When people see that John there, snoring on the screen, you think you’ll be conscious in their minds? Conscious but sleeping?” asked Jim.

The Mini-John in Jim’s mind answered “I dunno” before the one in the room with him did. To be fair, it had many milliseconds advance warning of the question.

“I dunno” said the one in the room with him, “probably not. How can you be consciously unconscious in someone else’s brain? Does that even make sense?”

The John on the screen awoke with a start. He yawned, sighed, put his head in his hands then wobbled towards the kitchen.

“I like the way you’ve animated it so the thirst shows on my face,” John said, “God damn, I felt so drained and tired back then.”

Soon, an image of the book itself was shown in the animated John’s virtual hand, blurry like his vision.

“Should we have used the original cover, do you think?” Jim asked.

“Nah. Our penguin is better. The eyes are blacker, darker, more intense. The wings more curvy. It’s better that way, the subconscious themes stand out more.”

“You don’t think it’s overdoing it?” Jim had wanted to use the original penguin, but John had insisted they could improve it, make it more penguin than the penguin itself. He insisted the penguin on his shoulder agreed. Weirdly, the penguin on Jim’s shoulder had agreed too, though Jim himself remained unsure.

The two watched in silence for a few minutes longer. Anticipating the knock at the door.

“That shot of the peep-hole is genius, the way the black slitty eye blinks back at him.”

“I just drew it how you described it” Jim pointed out, modestly.

On the screen, an animated John opened the door and the first view of the real, virtual animated penguin brushed past him into the flat. The penguins on each of their shoulders clapped their flippers together to applaud, and then high-fived each other.

A few seconds later, Jim started to worry again, “Are you sure we should have changed the dialog here?”

“No choice. Too slow in the original printed form. We had to make the animation less than ten minutes long remember. There’s a lot to get through.”

They watched as the animated penguin and the animated John sparred together verbally. Then as the animated John faced his hungover day working at the bookshop.

“I still think we should have made the nun more penguin-like.” John said.

“Dude, she’s a nun, she has to look like a nun! No point over-playing it.”

“I wonder what she’s doing now? Praying? Do you think she brought that book to consolidate her fading faith?”

“Who cares dude, she’s just a narrative device. She’s no more conscious than the penguin’s on our shoulders.”

“Yeah, to you maybe, I actually saw her. She was pretty.” John was lost for a moment recalling the event.

“I’m glad we cut all that Buffy crap,” Jim said, “the whole scene was just filler. Who cares how consciousness affects memory, and memory affects consciousness. Things just are. They are what they are. How they came to be that way is bunk.”

John wasn’t so sure, but couldn’t be bothered to argue, “Humm,” he said.

The next time either of them spoke was the moment that the animated Mini-Storm in the animated John’s dream climbed naked out of his bed.

“You should have never broken up with her you know John, that arse is fucking incredible.”

“Yeah, well, maybe. But you should have heard her insane crazy whining all day long. No arse is worth that.” John said.

“But you’re half as insane as her now dude,” Jim pointed out, “Practicing bizarre magical rituals.”

“True. True. Anyway, shut up, the dialog in this dream sequence is the best part of the entire story.”

A short while later Jim started to get excited again, “I’m in the story any second now,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the fucking star. I can’t believe I let you change it so that it’s your idea to make this film.”

“It was my idea you bastard! I’m the damned animator here.”

“We both know it was the penguin’s idea.”

“Well. Yeah. That too. Shut up and watch. This next bit where we watch the film together is bleedin’ mental. Though how I let you cut out the months and months of animation work I put in is beyond my comprehension. It’s like the effort I put into this project is cut down to nothing.”

“Look, they’re pressing play.”

The image on the screen zoomed into the screen the animated Jim and John were watching. They reviewed their work together, commenting on it as they went. Towards the end, the animated Jim and John pressed play on the film the two of them had made, and watched it together, commenting on it as it played. Time itself warped around their actions, tied itself in knots.

Like Achilles’ race with a turtle, the film refused to move forward, quickening and speeding up but never quite coming to an end. An infinite series, ever accelerating, never quite reaching the next frame. It sped on and on, until the entire story was captured in a single image, a single instant of time.

All that you could see on screen was the penguin, and the penguin was laughing. Laughing for ever, timelessly, captured in the process of teaching, of transferring his consciousness into the viewer, the reader, into you.

The model of yourself in your own mind was altered, changed to reflect your new knowledge. Your models of Jim, John, the penguin and the Mini-Storm in John’s brain started to compete to be implemented in your wetware along with those of your family, your friends, your own model of yourself.

Next Chapter