No listen, you have to understand me. You're worth more than an automatic incantation for soothing crept doubts. If I said, "I love you," it couldn't have any meaning. It's a code word for something more, the nexus of an explosively branching web woven from thoughts and dreams. Why only three words for the reverence of your stubbled face's outline in halogen light? So little to celebrate your gently husky voice whispering compliments into my unworthy ear? I don't want to make this practical and efficient. Let's waste as many years in the tedious details as we can bear. Leave summarization to others.
When I was young, the mass was a mystic thing, all incense and dimness and ponderous songs. I followed my father to the altar, clutching his hand in the vague fear of a child uncomprehending. The priest held up a thin circular wafer, his lips moving through a quick and barely audible blessing. My father received this gift with cupped hands. He placed it respectfully in his mouth and crossed himself with a murmured, "In nomine Patri, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen." This Eucharist was all things mysterious about the adult world. It was the forbidden ritual, the unsatisfactory explanation, the condescension with a knowing laugh and pat on the head for good measure.
When I grew older and the novelty of privilege wore away, unleavened bread became righteous anger. Lie upon lie, concealment and hypocrisy set my blood a-boil. The system was a crock. I would never again surrender myself to the oppression of an organized religion. I wanted to lead a one man one child revolution against every mystic edifice erected by every holy church that had ever existed. Progress through catastrophe. The first step was to make a showy point of refusing communion. No other gesture was as significant.
Now this mere piece of bread brings disquiet, a longing for the occult. I want something strange and wonderful to believe in, some secret working behind the scenes. The cryptic beauty to the words, "this is my body, which will be given up for you," rings suddenly clear. And yet I know there is no real stability there. These meanings are like mist, they curl and fade whenever I reach for them.
"You've made a mathematic of him," she murmured with a soft-light smile as she lowered the pages back to the table. I woke from my nervous inner reflection and replied by puzzled silence.
"I mean," she continued, "you've plugged him into a formula like he was an array of data. Symbol A7 links to emotion M2. Three entries under column Alliteration, four under Dactyl Meter. Simple. No mess."
I asked incredulously, "And is that wrong?" She giggled pleasantly and shook her head, strands of red hair freeing themselves from behind her cartilage-pierced ear.
"No, but it's not quite accurate. We're made up of more than just input and output for a black box machine." I couldn't return an answer that might challenge her concise dismantlement.
Sipping coffee awkwardly and staring at the chaotic swirl of cream, I made the only objection available, "I can't understand him any other way."
She listened. There was silence again as she crafted some silver key for the padlock to my comprehension. With a smiling reassurance in her solution, she offered, "Don't think of these things as formulas. Think of them as spells. Read them in chant, not recitation. Consult your grimoire, not your textbook. Invoke spirits, not laws."
This wasn't quite enough to ease me. I sighed before wondering out-loud, "Why? How does that help?"
She was neither surprised, nor offended. "The technique is the same, just as meticulous. But the source is different. You're not dealing with an antiseptic body of axioms, you're dealing with the intertwining of incomprehensible and almost uncontrollable forces that permeate everything around us."
And this point we had been circling `round in a half-hour waltz of conversation, I finally understood.
A nodeshell challenge from etouffee. | 
