The Arms That Howl

It is remarkable how the concepts of chaos and order parallel perception and reality.

The mammalian brain changes its thoughts, and reality grates upon that new perception. Clashing truth to belief. Sometimes reality gives way. Or perception adjusts. Only will may decide this, at any given moment.

The question of the parallel then arises. Which is order, and which is chaos?

Most fools would presume that human perception is fundamentally chaotic. Unable to focus, difficult to process. Reality however does not change from blink to blink. This must be true; it always has been. Yes?

Heh.

What if I told you that Order was perception, and reality was Chaos? What would you think if perception was what pulled you back from absolute electrifying madness?

It is true. The universes are insane.

As bracing as such a concept may be, consider its further implications. If perception paints an order upon it in which the human mind may function…what happens when you change your perception?

Can you change the color of songs, of thoughts, of color itself? Yes. There is a power in this. Build what you wish to see. Take turpentine to physics or nature.

But a price must also be paid. And when it is…there will come a moment when perception goes awry. As it finally, inevitably does.

There are incidents where perception shattered in the wake of chaos. A few of these incidents you have recorded in history; I will reveal them at a later date. What is important to learn from them is a truth abominable to human understanding.

Chaos is not bound by time.

Things done now (not perceived) may affect the past. They bend themselves into existence by brittling Time’s arrow.

And the future is influenced by the present. Both can be equally warped, but in different directions. It has happened because it will happen. Reality obeys Chaos, and Chaos does not coincide with the notion of before-now-after.

When the warping of today collides with the implacable whorls of tomorrow…what happens then?

The universal walls of Order – of Perception – begin to fray.

And in between those frays lurk the Arms That Howl.