Crab: A Polemic

D

DrKatz

Guest
I'm not sure anyone will like this, but if anyone does see what I'm going for and wants me to keep posting this story, just ask in the thread, and I will.

Prologue

To become requires rebirth, and I was born twice.
The first was in a place I shall not name, for it is wicked, and from Herodotus I learned that the wicked must be condemned to obscurity. From this place I emerged, wet and weeping, my four little pincer legs writhing in the ether of a sinful world.

I will not name this place. But you doubtless know its name, by its definition:

A school of Mahayana Buddhism that asserts that enlightenment can be attained through meditation, self-contemplation, and intuition rather than through faith and devotion and that is practiced mainly in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.

It is my understanding that the scientists who made this choice, who selected this name for the outworlds, (the same who named me and my kind as mere crustaceans), intended it to be sharply ironic.
I am told that in irony there is humor, but from Socrates I learned that it can also express the deepest meaning. And this irony bears immense significance to the nature of my continued existence.

For I was born out of a wicked place, a place completely devoid of faith, and, indeed, hope. And faith is the thing I now find of primary importance to my life. That, if I understand it correctly, is irony.

I learned more of irony from Kierkegaard, but this I will discuss later on.

My second birth, the real birth, the origin of "I" as signifier and signified, this happened in the library of the Black Mesa Research Facility in Black Mesa, Nevada.

It was there that I discovered Proust and Parmenides, Hobbes and Heidegger, Socrates and Spinoza. It was there that I was truly born, because it was there that I comprehended my existence.

And it was there that I understood difference.

Not difference per say, but différence. I was fortunate enough, upon the merging of dimensions, upon my exit from the portal, to land in a place of learning, a place conducive to understanding. A place that, in the trying times to follow, would ground my mercurial emotions with a base of continued admiration and respect for the world of human thought. For while my brethren worked on consuming the flesh, I consumed the word.

I fell from the wicked place, onto a book that changed my life.

On Grammatology. I had had the fortune not only to fall into a library, but onto philosophy, and onto the D's. And it could have been close. I could have fallen on Descartes. And what a mess that would have been. But Derrida served as a faithful teacher, and from him I discovered the rest: Plato, Aristotle, the Greeks, the scholastics, the enlightenment. It was from this that I discovered who I was.

Yes, I am a head-crab, this is true, and in this sense I am hardly individual.
But I am, perhaps, the only post-modern head-crab. I am a head-crab, but, in retrospect, I believe I can say with certainty that I am not head-crabness. There was difference, and this difference was in that I was missing something, a peculiar hunger, a lust for flesh. The white-frocked technicians, the blue shirted guards, the fatigued soldiers, those poor fools my compatriots so gleefully devoured, they did not interest me.

I had no lust save one, for the written word. Erasmus, Aquinas, Foucault. But most of all, the word of life. Thanks to Jesus with a little help from King James.

In the library of black mesa, among the dead and dieing, I accepted Christ into my alien heart and understood that I must achieve salvation.

It was in a library in Black Mesa where I understood that I must save my mortal soul.
That I must be born again. That I must become.

Which led me to the primary problem of my existence, one of paradox and contradiction.

For, as head-crab, I was not human. I was a creature of god, of course, but not his most beloved. I was the corporeal. I had mind, to be sure. And yet, as I devoured the greatest thinkers in western thought, I realized I was missing the divine. Do not call me a neo-Platonist. I cringe at the term. I am a crab of my times, and the neo-Platonists are dead, yet somewhere between Kant and Kuhn, I understood what I was missing. I could reconcile the teachings of the Lord with the philosophers. But ultimately, I could not reconcile the word with myself.

In order to become, in order to save my soul, I would need to obtain one.

It was at this that I left the library of Black Mesa, and at this that our story begins.
 
DrKatz, that was quite powerful.. certainly well written. Quite peculiar to use the headcrab, of all things, as a born again. However you write convincingly, so that the crab does seem to have some feasable resemblence to a human.

Infact I enjoyed reading that so much that I signed up solely to write a reply to it. Do you write as a hobby? Or is it a career? Whatever it is, keep it up and God bless you.
 
Yeah, write more. I need something to keep me busy until writers block lays off for chapter 7 of my story...it's interesting to read.

good job,
Brad
 
Weird... but I couldn't stop reading. But I've gotta wonder how the philosophycrab does...
 
Chapter One: The River of Heraclitus

Here is chapter two. Thanks for your input.

I have considered the matter of beginnings for sometime. But, of course, any such search is ultimately fruitless. We cannot trace our origins, the moment of first consciousness, not truly, not ever. Our past is constantly fading into black, like a film in reverse, the beginning growing dimmer as we ourselves mature.

History turns time into narrative, and stories have a beginning and an end. And so, ultimately, will I. The self is the narrative, and the origin of self is, by its very nature, a problem that cannot be solved. But through history, this question, the problem itself, becomes the beginning of the story.

Therefore I will begin, naturally, unavoidably, unstoppably, with a problem.

The library of Black Mesa was my second womb. In it I found spiritual and intellectual nourishment. In it I found what I believed to be the human, and in it I found what I believed to be the divine.

But like young Augustine in the Milan garden, this realization only sparked another greater thirst. Augustine would devote himself to God, and so would I.

But I was not human. I lacked a soul of my own.

But I did not lack the company of souls. Upon exiting the library, in which I had existed and persisted in quiet solitude, I found a world that had been teeming with life. Writhing with it.

The moment the great oak doors of the library slammed behind me, I was met with my very first intellectual dilemma. For before me I found a great corridor, stretching on forever. Klaxons, flashing lights, broken pipes and broken bodies.

All broken, all bleeding. Except two. Leaning against the wall quivering, his hands covering his head was a man clad in white. A lab coat, glasses, hair on his knuckles but not on his head. A scientist.

And across from him, moving towards him slowly, creeping across the tile, was the mirror image of myself. A crab.

“Oh god, oh my god no!” said the scientist, the perfect representation of cowardice.

The crab said nothing, so I interjected.

“Pardon me, sirs, but could you help me?”

The crab maintained its silence. Whether this silence was a philosophical choice or not I have yet to discover. Perhaps he devoted his life to the written word, but I have yet to encounter any written works from a crab besides myself. An unfortunate truth I hope to remedy. But I digress.
The human, however, looked to me, and rubbed his eyes.

“You can talk? Amazing!”

At this, detecting comprehension if not intellect, I cleared my throat and spoke.

“I am a crab looking for the Consolation of Philosophy, a ship that has been missing since Boethius. I am also seeking the council of a man of theological-“

But at this the crab leaped at the scientist, and swallowed his head. The scientist writhed a bit, and fell back onto the floor. And I became, for the first time, angry. Perhaps not with the menis of godlike Achilles, but angry nonetheless.

“Excuse me, but I was asking the man a very simple question, before you so rudely interrupted, my modern day Alcibides.”

Neither the crab or the now still man seemed to pay me any mind, so I crawled towards them, and gave a poke with my front leg.

Nothing. I poked harder. No movement, though I thought I heard a gurgle from the throat – though if it was the man’s throat or the crab’s, I couldn’t say.

Finally I jumped headfirst into the two. “SIRS!”

At this, finally, movement. The forms rose. Without the grace of human motion, or the agility of the crab. The two lumbered as one. The hands began to change, to stretch, to stiffen. The stomach bulged, and broke. And I heard a cry that sounded as if it came from the very Island of Dr. Moreau himself (I admit that one indulgence. Reading a bit of Wells was the only departure I made from the world of philosophy while inside the library. But it was a trifle.)

Parmenides would have you think there is no change, while Heraclitus would argue that change is everything. And I will tell you that they are both wrong. It was Heraclitus’ disciple, whom Kierkegaard so despised over two thousand years later, who began to sniff the truth of our chemical existence. Heraclitus said “You cannot step into the same river twice.” The world is always in flux, changing, moving. Within this worldview, there can be no god, because there can be no origin. The story comes out of nothing. The arrow of time is missing its bow, the falcon it’s falconer.

But it was his disciple, whose name is lost to time, who first saw the very crux of our times when he said “There is no same river.” In one statement he could puncture two thousand years of thought. Was he not speaking of platonic forms, was he not speaking of Kant and his Kingdom of ends? The river may very well be unchanging, but all rivers were not Heraclitus’ river.

And, seeing the zombie before me, I realized that all crabs were not me. Speech, for one, seemed lost on them. And with it, the life of the mind. But the crude act I saw displayed before me, the lust for flesh, could perhaps mean salvation for myself.
Perhaps, in the merging of bodies, the crab and man became one. Perhaps, I thought, I could do the same.

And gain a soul. So the search began. I turned away from the mindless zombie.

“Plink plink plink.”

A loud tapping, from the end of the hallway. I followed the noise to its source.
 
I find this very interesting. Write more!
 
Chapter Two: The Demur Gadfly

Ok, next chapter. Like I said, each time I get feedback I will post again. So keep it coming.

Foucault: Ultimately, Black Mesa is Panopticon. “Freeman” is watched, as all are watched.
Benthem: OMG, that is like so not true. Get your filthy mitts off my idea.
Foucault: Your dissension is noted, yet I cannot concur. You cannot ignore the true meaning of your invention. It is an element of your reactionary nature to distrust my adaptation.
Benthem: It is an element of my reactionary nature to kick your French butt! Where is Burke when I need him? What is it with you and video games anyway?
Foucault: I find the G-Man an incredibly attractive entity.
Benthem: Dude, you are soooo Gay.
Foucault: So?

“Plink plink plink.”

Like Theseus and his string, I pursued the noise. Through complexes and corridors, foyers and first aid centers. Through the bowels of Black Mesa.

What I saw must surely have compared to what Tacitus peered into as he saw his city burn. Perhaps it was worse, but who am I to say. I was merely a crab without a soul.

And with this in mind I followed the noise, but remained alert, looking for any sign of life. Looking for a survivor. I had made up my mind – I would need a soul, and I would have to procure it from a man. And in this was my primary dilemma – to do so would be an act of violence. An original sin, if my humanity was born out of such violence.
An unacceptable quid pro quo.

These were the thoughts that filled my mind as I finally approached the source of the tapping.
At last, I reached a huge blast door, slowly closing. Next to it, in great capitals, was displayed the following text: “ROCKET TESTING LAB: BLAST PIT”.

So I hopped through the doors, and into darkness. A hallway, a light at the end. The tapping, growing louder and louder as I crept through.

And then I saw him. Clad in a blue, with a helmet and a vest. Holding a gun, leaning towards the opening at the end of the hallway. I approached and raised my voice.

“Pardon me, but I was wondering if you could help me settle a theological conundrum I have been-“

He didn’t notice my query. Instead, he threw himself into the doorway, at the end of the hallway, the source of the tapping. I heard him scream.

“Take this you sonofabitch!” And he emptied his gun into the brightness. Round after round.
The tapping stopped, for one brief moment. And then he screamed again, but not words, not this time. For a great green tentacle had reached out of the light, pierced his vest, and drew him screaming from my view with Herculean strength. I heard a crunch, and then silence. And then the tapping, again. So I went to the end of the hallway, to address my concerns.

“Such rudeness! This is the second man I have attempted to speak with, and again I am prevented from evening posing my question!”

I gazed out from the hallway. Into a great pit. A blast pit. But where rocket engines should have been, I saw only three green trunks. At my speech, all three raised themselves and turned to me.

Perhaps my foolishness would be my end, I thought. No matter then – without a soul, there would be no hell for me. I had every reason to be brave, to be brash and bold.

The tentacles turned to me, but did not strike. Instead, they merely went back to tapping. Was I to be ignored? I spoke up once more.

“This is truly inconsiderate of you! Please, I am addressing you out of a desire to learn the nature of my existence!”

Again, tapping, and nothing else.

“I am merely a supplicant, sir. Your response is hardly just.”

More tapping. But this time, I noticed. The tapping was varied – and not just in quality of expression. There was a very palatable rhythm, a method to the madness.

Morse-Code. I thought back to one of the books I scanned in the great library, to the dashes and dots. And then, comprehension. For this time, I did not merely hear the tapping. This time, I listened. The tentacles were spelling. W-H-A...

“What is justice, anyway?” The Tentacle tapped.

At last, a bit of conversation.
 
Chapter Three: Free as in Freeman

Like always, I will add more once I get some feedback. Thanks guys.


Clarity is key. So said the intolerable Professor Smith et al in their critique of my favored M. Derrida. But if Derrida’s musings could transcend the boundaries of mere clarity, then the Tentacles communiqués could perform the same miracle.

And they did. The trio of tentacles were soon tapping at a fevered pace, as we engaged each other, both delighted at the prospect of intelligent discourse. The tentacle had managed to devour a scientist who had a collection of audio tapes featuring an abridged version of the western cannon, and he had made full use of them. But, at any rate, if no agreement was reached between us on the matters of love or justice, it was no great loss – the value of the conversation as a whole was far greater than the value of any simple conclusion.

“So perhaps it is true. The reductionist argument, while the only one with any sense of aesthetic meaning, is ultimately lacking in breadth and depth.”

“Truer words were ne’er spoken. But let us not wrong poor Occam. We must not reduce all reductionism – there is a separation between the methodological and ontological varieties… ” The tentacle tapped, with military precision.

Ultimately, our discussions moved away from the high realms and back down to earth. And the border worlds. The tentacle remembered little of our inter-dimensional shifting, and yet it did retain some memory of its home.

“Would you be so kind,” I began, sipping a cup of English breakfast the tentacle had somehow managed to prepare, saying of that miracle only that he held politeness above all things, “to tell me if you know anything about my own origins? I have seen others like me.”

With that the tentacle leaned very close to me, and tapped softly. “You have a mother. Yet she remained behind, in that other place. If you do ever get back – you must visit her. You will like her immensely. She is one of great tact and reason, and she misses her children.”

At great last, we approached the subject of my soul.

“I too am hardly an Epicurean. Forgive me, but I cannot defend the monist argument. And while I question your search, as to whether we as such can ever hope to achieve – whether we would want to achieve the “divine” – you are a creature of reason, and I will humor you if only out of the great respect I bear for you and the relief I had at meeting a fellow traveler like myself. I had seen a strange man in an orange suit dash by here several times prior to your arrival. I had planned on a late meal, but if it pleases you, I shall deliver him into your care. Hide now, for I see him again.”

And as I tucked myself behind the doorway, I peered around the corner to see a tall bespectacled man with a goatee and an orange bio-suit leap from ledge to ledge in the chamber. He certainly did not seem to be a simple scientist – he was filled with sort of fierce determination and another less tangible yet far more mysterious quality – that left me with the impression that he was a man of great portent. Perhaps, a worthy soul.

But as the Tentacle reached out, the man ducked into a chamber, and disappeared from sight.

“WHOOSH!” The blast pit exploded in fire, and I dove back into the hallway to avoid the inferno. Despite this, my little pincers were not spared a slight singe.

Upon returning to the pit following the explosion, one shock led to another. For where my good friend had once been remained only a few bits and pieces and great gaping hole.

I quickly hopped down to the piece of tentacle which remained, flopping about on the floor.

“My friend – my dear friend – what has happened to you?”

The tentacle flopped. In its death spasms I detected one last attempt at language.

“J-U-S-T-I-C-E?...Who knows what that is?!...But T-H-I-S is... injustice. The man – follow him-” And with that, the tentacle fell at last, pointing in death towards a deep gash that had been ripped in the pit by the explosion.

I can stand many impositions, but rudeness is not one of them. And the actions of the man in the orange suit I cannot forgive. I had wondered whether it would be a sin to kill him, whether it would be unjust, according to the great thinkers, both theological and philosophical (if you can truly find a difference between the two, I will leave to better minds than I).

I will not concern myself with this, for now. I will leave the interpretations for Fish and the rest of them. For myself, I will find this man, the one who so impolitely interrupted the only decent conversation I had managed in my entire life.

I will have my vengeance. And a soul.

And with that thought, I jumped down into the pit.
 
Keep the work up. I like this perspective from this headcrab. I can't wait for more chapters.
 
Chapter Four: Limn is Not a Four Letter Word

You know the drill. ;)

Lewis Carroll is, if you will excuse the colloquialism, such a hater. Every descent down any sort of “hole” (and let us please ignore the Freudian interpretations for the time being) is now down a “rabbit” hole. We all are now Alice, and our journeys are reduced to little more than fantastical romps through our too active imagination.

It was not always so. Prior to the rabbit hole, any descent into the unknown forced comparisons with a far more significant work. For Dante, the world beneath did not exist as an opium induced wonderland, but rather as a world of symbol and metaphor. For Dante, the construct of the descent took on the very matter of life and death, good and evil, sin and redemption.

And so it occurred to me, as I pursued the man in the orange suit down under the blast pit, that my own journey might, in some topical way at least, parallel Dante’s. I too was lost in the wilderness, I too was transplanted in the middle of my journey. The teleportation had occurred without warning, and suddenly I found myself on a strange and dangerous path. (Also, one might note, the singer you call Madonna also parallel’s Dante’s journey. Read the Divine Comedy and then try listening to Like a Virgin. I dare you. )

And yet there was one key difference between my wanderings and Dante’s. I was missing a guide. Where he had Virgil, I had no one. But the farther I ventured, the more I realized that this was not true. That, rather, I not only had Dante’s guide (for I had read the Aneid) but also many more – I had Homer, I had Plato, I had Maimonides and I had Habermas. Whereas Dante journeyed with only Virgil and then Beatrice after, I had them all, I had a thousand guides, each chiding me and urging me on in their own distinct way.

But if Dante’s search was also for redemption, how could I succeed when the point of my transformation would occur with an act of violence rather than the ascent of Adam’s mount? Without a holy Beatrice, how could I find salvation, with the thirst for vengeance still in my heart? This thought troubled me, but did not keep me from progressing. I would confront the man in orange, and decide at that point, not before.

I fell through water, through muck. And finally, I emerged in a great open space, and fell onto a blue rock of gargantuan size. But the man in orange was no where to be found.

He had slipped through my clutches! How dare he!!! Was my salvation and my vengeance going to be denied in one fell swoop?! So I slammed my pincers down onto the blue rock in frustration.

And then it roared, and threw me off.

Recovering on the ground, I shook off my daze and gazed back up at the rock, which had not turned out to be a rock. Instead, a huge blue beast loomed before me, his hands aflame, a single red eye locked onto my tiny form.

He raised his great hooves to strike. I stared into his eye. Did I not detect some sign of intellect?

He roared again. “RRRRRAEIONNNNNNN!”

Such an furious roar…unless he couldn’t help it. I thought back to the library, to the books, and decided to take one last chance to save my life.

“Ton Aeiona?” I slunk back, waiting for the inevitable blow.

But it didn’t come. Instead I looked up to see the beast, now composed, gazing back at me.

“Ton aiona, kai eis ton aióna tou aionos!” The beast replied. Ancient Greek. That infernal Mr. Carroll might be proved right about that whole rabbit hole thing after all.

“What do you mean, put out your name forever?” I asked the beast.

“What has happened to me! Where is Chalcis? What am I now? Who am I now?” He (I could only guess at it being a he, but it seemed right) appeared a bit confused.

“You’re in the Black Mesa Research Facility, somewhere in the western United States, if I am correct. You look to me to be some beast of great size and power. But as to whom you are now…well, who were you?”

“I,” he replied with a flourish, “was…and, I suppose, still am…Aristotle.”
 
Possibly the most surreal story I've ever read... I don't get half the references, but it doesn't seem necessary to understand them to enjoy the tale...

I can't help but imagine the crab wearing a tiny pair of spectacles...
 
Chapter 5: Empirically Yours

I exist. Just in case you were wondering, my readers. This is memoir. And while I'll leave Ozick out of the equation for the time being, I understand that as such there may be some doubt in your minds as to the matter of how I am able to convey this story - what is, in its very essence, a story of becoming - to you. And as brevity is the soul of wit (thank you William S.) I shall be brief: there are two factors, that, in my mind, might lead to a bit of increduality on your part.

First - my speech. The gift of gab. A fine way of communication, I think, and Socrates agreed. I have it, alone of all "headcrabs". I will say nothing of this now, except that all will be explained - as much as anything can be explained - in due process. But suffice it to say that at this point in my story, so shortly after I emerged from the cocoon of the library, it was as much a miracle to me as it is to you. It served - and, in a very different sense- continues to serve as the grounding of my faith.

Second. The Gargaunta. "Aristotle". Now, please, readers, understand - I, of all people, hardly believe that the poor blue beast is actually Aristotle. Far from it. And while my own thinking certainly deviates far from a strictly empirical approach (I believe Reid might have a few things to say to me about that), I cannot accept the impossible. Aristotle died at home in 322 BC, a grouchy, dissapointed old man. So I will persist in believing that the Gargantua is merely the likeness of Aristotle. Perhaps, in some sense, a close reproduction, created through means of which I cannot yet comprehend. Curiously, his De Anima left of the matter of his soul's ressurection at Black Mesa two millenia later absent, so perhaps I will never know.

But whatever questions I had as to the true nature of the blue beast, he seemed at least to posess the master's intellect and skillfull reason. He settled once and for all the matter of Nonsubstantial Particulars (apparently, Ackrill, that whole trope thing was rubbish), and when I mentioned that small bit about heliocentricity, he blushed, (well, he actually turned a shade of indigo) and admitted his error.

We were deep in debate as to the matter of whether his Nichomachian Ethics really played any sort of role in contemporary society (I, for once, played the devil's advocate), when we were again rudely interrupted. But this time, it was a trio of nusances - camo clad cads brandishing bullets and bandoliers. They immediately advanced in formation onto the beast, firing big guns and shouting naughty things.

"Aristotle" excused himself and, whispering to me that these were surely barbarians and therefore fit to die, proceeded to fricasse them in short order.

"What an unpleasantry! Who were those indignant brutes?"

"Apparently, some sort of cleanup operation. They're looking for a fellow named Freeman - I believe I saw him pass by this way a while ago. A man in an orange suit"

My quarry. So I was hot on his trail after all, like Sherlock Holmes in...well pretty much like Sherlock Holmes whenever.

"Well, I must excuse myself. I believe I will pursue him. Could you tell me which way he went?"

But at this, Aristotle became quite distraught.

"Oh, please don't leave - I've been enjoying this ever so much - and what are my chances of discovering another fellow Greek around these parts?"

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I wasn't really greek after all. That to him, ultimately, I was a barbarian just like the rest. But I hopped away, through
the doorway from which I had seen the soldiers emerge. But before I could - there! He dashed by me, a streak of flame.

Freeman. I attempted to follow him, but again - he seemed in uninterested in me. He just ran, looking back at the beast, waving to him, motioning to him.

The Gargantua stood, and looked back at me.

"Are you certain you won't stay and chat with me?"

What could I say? I shook my head. I'll leave it to you to imagine what that looked like.

"Well, that settles it." He sighed, "I just can't bare to live amoung barbarians."

"Wait! What about Nicomachean Ethics 1138a 5-14?"

I suppose he wasn't Aristotle after all. Whereas the great teacher, in a somewhat muddy passage, condemned suicide as an injustice to the state, big blue seemed ready to give up the ghost merely upon the prospect of spending the rest of his natural life with only slack jawed yokels for companionship.

On the otherhand, maybe I can understand his predicament. But whoever he was, the moment that devil Freeman, thinking himself oh so very clever, activated some electrical box and sent sparks
shooting from a set of tracks leading out of the cavernouse space, my friend ran towards them. It was brief, but bloody. I turned away, as Freeman dissapeared into the tunnel.

"Curse you! You are Moriarty to my Sherlock! You are Count Fosco! No, Mestopheles himself! And not the sissy Mestopheles from Faust either, you belong in Paradise Lost!!!"

But before I could even finish my sentence, I was shoved into darkness. I could not feel - not enought room - I could not see - no light. But I could hear. So I listened.

"Damn, so the little bastard really does talk. I've got him bagged, Sarge."

"Great. What the hell is going on around here? First I see aliens, then I see talking aliens. What's it gonna be next? We'll have to take him with us - we're supposed to head back on up to the dorms. Remember that Freeman guy we couldn't find? Well, we're heading up to his living quarters."

Maybe things were working out after all.
 
Wow this is getting better and better. You must be some kind of literary buff. I guess you read alot of various literature. Keep the work up.
 
Chapter Six: Semeosis


Wordslut: A Poem
What am I, syntactic bastard child
born in darkness and alone
the slave and master of a language
that cannot be my own
ours is a marriage in puragtory - where else
could one find, so fittingly, the
sacred and profane
And where else could there be no difference 'tween the twain.


And then there was light. You will tell me you have heard this before. You will tell me your are a man of faith, that you have read, no, that you have studied and apprehended the word of God. But you cannot understand, what light is, when it is all you have known. For you have never known darkness, not the way I have.

Trapped inside the satchel, as the grunts pulled me back up, away from Freeman, away from my true nemesis, I could only pray. But deep in meditation, deep in thought, in the darkness, I was left with such a deep anger - this time at myself. Before the soldiers captured me, I had cursed Freeman, and with that I began to understand just how mercurial my faith could be. I was obviously more concerned with revenge - now both the "re-incarnation" of Aristotle and my brilliant Tentacle had been murdered at the hand of that monstrous scientist.

And where could I find santuary from this burning in my heart? Where, in Kierkegaard, where in Augustine, where in Luther, where in Calvin, where in Aquinas, where in Lewis (I include him here for the obvious reason, though he is clearly not of the calibre of the others), where in any of them could I find the prescription for my own malady? For each of them would dismiss me, as incapable of being, of incapable of becoming. I had pretended that to think otherwise was acceptable, that their dismissal of the non-human was merely a matter of syntax. But as I was spirited away, I thought that perhaps James and his pluralism might be the only salvation I could hope to grasp for myself.

And before this matter could be settled - there was light. I was plucked from my bag, and placed in small cage, next to a couple of others, on a bed in the dormatory room. In them were other small creatures, but different from myself. They were greenish yellow, with large, dull eyes. I heard them yip, but this time was sure that there was no rhyme or reason to it.

But the three soldiers, they could talk. And they did.

"Well, we've got the samples to take back to base. What are we supposed to get from Freeman's room?"

"Evidence. Proof. Papers. Does it matter? Lets find the ******* and get the hell out of here."

One of them picked up a picture of a small child. "Hey, look at this sarge - awweeee." Then he smashed it on the ground.

Suddenly a tiny figure darted by the door. "Holy mother of-" one of them continued. "What was that?"

Another peeked his head out the doorway. "Oh, its only a kitten."

Sarge, who had the most bandoliers of the bunch, jumped out into the doorway with his mp5.

"That kitten could be one of them!" Then I heard a yowl, a few dozen rounds, and silence.

"Good one Sarge. Wow, I can't wait for that Roman-style orgy we're gonna have when we get back to base. Will there be whores?"

"Sure Private, Jezebel herself is gonna be there."

At this point in the exchange I was about ready to perform bushido style Hari-Kari upon myself, when I heard one of the grunt's radios buzz.

"Sargeant!!! Heads up! We have hostiles heading your way! Not Freeman this time - two women. So be ready. And have you seen any sign of
C company yet? We've heard scattered reports of survivors."

"None yet, Sir. We'll get ready to engage."

The three left the room, I could hear them taking positions in the hallway. But then one of them looked away, towards something behind them.

"Hey, its another kitten! Let me take care of this one, Sarge!" And with that he snatched a grenade, pulled the pin, and prepared to throw it to the other end of the hallway. But like the greek plays of yore, the deus ex machina came in the nick of time - in the form of a bullet that hit the Private squarely in the forhead. He fell, and the grenade rolled near the other two grunts.

Sarge looked to his compatriot, and frowned. "Well, I hear they've got wild orgies in hell, Private." And the two of them burst. Luckily for me, but unluckily for the yipping beasts, the cages next to mine
took the brunt of the explosion - and I hopped under the bed to hide.

I'm sure the Sarge will find that his last statement is true, but perhaps not the way he would like (I'm thinking level Seven Inferno, with that whole kitten bit). Of course, even
he won't recieve the fate that Freeman will get - that treacherous wraith. Like Doria, his soul is already aflame, even if his body walks the earth.

But before I can mull over this for too long, I hear one woman's voice, and then another.

"They just keep getting dummer, don't they Colette?"

"No doubt about it, Gina. Hey - look, its Gordon's room. Remember him from the Christmas party last year?"

"How can I forget - that louse tried to kiss me but ended up vomiting on my shirt. I took it to the cleaners, but they just couldn't get it out."

Then I saw two faces to match up with the voices. Both clad in hazard suits, they were, I decided, the very model of feminine beauty. Helen, Beatrice, Dulcinea - and any one of those armless Vensuses - had nothing on them. But before I could gaze up at them any longer, the one named Gina spoke.

"Well, we've got to get a move on - that security guard has to be around here somewhere." And they were gone, and I was alone.

I tried to think of my location - I couldn't be too far off from the library where I started - but the facility was maze like before the incident, and was only getting worse. The hallway was a mess of sparking cables and shattered glass. So I retreated to Gordon's room once more, and lay on the bed. My quarry was no where to be found, and I was certainly farther from Freeman - and any sort of salvation -
than ever before.

And then I saw it. Wedged between the matress and the frame, a piece of paper.
I tugged, and a hundred more flew out.

How curious.
 
At the beginning of the story I think you've confused philosophy with fantasy. But it's starting to make sense as the story goes on...
 
eatbugs, you are on to something...but how
can one confuse philosophy with fantasy when they are one
and the same?...:)

Chapter Seven: Slashed

Socrates: There goes a fine young boy.
Derrida: Amen to that, brother. I mean, "oui". So, I've been meaning to ask you, now that I'm dead: why didn't you write it down?
Socrates: Write what down?
Derrida: You know, all your thinking. That whole bit from Phaedrus about speech as the only path to truth.
Socrates: Oh, thats Plato's fault. He put that in to make it look like he wrote it after he crossed off my name and put on his own.
Derrida: Why would he do that?
Socrates: Probably the whole gay sex thing. Did you read Symposium?
Derrida: To read is a construct that is subject both to contextual analysis and pluralistic inherent meanings.
Socrates: You didn't read it did you?
Derrida: Non.

In the early days, writing was a process that required skill and patience. Naturally, its first uses were religious - even in the cave paintings, there were divine undertones. Offerings of sacrifice to the Gods or Spirits, or what have you. Next, were it's economic uses - in ancient Babylon clay seals gave way to tablets filled with lists and numbers. Then came law - the code of Hammurabi.

It was only later that a pure technology was adulterated with internal meaning. The numbers into "art". Who saw them chipping the epic of Gilgimesh? Did the priests run out to stop them? I don't think so. Perhaps, I think, it was the priests themselves who wrote it. But as usual, I digress.

But somewhere along the line, writing was cast down to earth. It was no longer divine. Somewhere along the line, we lost our way. And by somewhere along the line I mean right now, and by we I mean Gordon Freeman. Because I've just discovered a few hundred pages of Freeman's
personal writings under his mattress. And now, my good readers, steady yourselves. Have your whisky ready. For I am going to read an excerpt.

"And then Cherries Jubilee emerged naked from the babbling brooke, her long mane streaking down her slick wet back. Lickety Split cantered up to her, a ray of sunshine beaming down on them both, and nuzzled her neck with a gentle caress..."

I can't do it. I can't go on, dear readers. What lay in those pages, by Freeman's pen, was a thousand times worse than that short bit. Two hundred pages of My Little Pony slash fiction. And most of it didn't even stick to cannon. I had thought that I was a sinner. I had thought that God's light could not shine on me, a mere headcrab.

But now I understand. Before I had said - "to be a headcrab does not mean to be headcrabness." And to be human is not be humanness. Gordon Freeman is not human. He is the beast. He is the monster.

I may look the part, but I want only to find my way to God. Freeman, whatever his motives here, whatever task he has been charged with, has sinned against man - and god. And now, he has sinned against art as well.

For his writings were the most atrocious scrabble I have ever laid my beady little eyes on. I hopped over to where the soldiers had set up the radio in the room, and tipped over equipment till I found a grenade. Then I pulled the pin, kicked the pineapple over to the papers, and jumped out of the room.

"Kaboom!" The world must never know.

The hallway shook. Bombs were going off up above. I stepped over a piece of one of the grunts - and got the sense that there would be no orgy back at the base tonight. A light fixture crashed next to me, and then a piece of the ceiling. No escape - but then, to my right, a ventilation shaft.

I jumped in, and down I went.
 
This is great!!! :cheers: ...but if Gordon can't speak...how can he write?

Nah only kidding..... hm..... now i hate Gordon!!! DIE go kill him headcrab!!!
 
Chapter Eight: Insecurity

I hear you, reader. Now you're saying: "What a lark! Here we go again. Down another vent, another hole, another crazy crab adventure."

I admit, comparisons to the picaresque narrative are warranted - for has not this adventure taken on both it's episodic model and its swashbuckeling sense of darring-do? Aleman, Qeuvedo - there are other similarites between our tales besides the formal ones. Perhaps though, I think, I owe more to Catalina de Erauso, for reasons I will have to return to at a later time.

My time in the Black Mesa ventilation system, however, was quite boring. I met several other headcrabs, none of which posessed the capability to communicate. Also, though there were many steam vents, rapidly spinning fan blades, and decaying ceiling tiles, as a crab of such small size none of these posed much of a problem.

So I wandered. Like Gulliver, through stranger and stranger environs. Black Mesa was looking less and less like Black Mesa, and more and more like home sweet home. I saw the slavish workers from my homeworld battling the human marines, I saw the warrior class cut scientists down with one fell swoop. I waited to see one or any of these entities at rest, alone, but everywhere there was bloodshed, and much gnashing of teeth.

How I longed for conversation. Aristotle had hardly sated my thirst for a constructive dialogue, on the contrary, he had only sparked a desire for more. I wanted, I needed, to speak with another - the life of the mind cannot be lived in solitude!

And, most of all, I longed for spiritual guidance. It was becoming clear to me, as I journeyed on, that my thoughts were not so much with the book, as with what it was failing to provide. Whether that failing was a weakness of my own or the text, I could not determine, and it was this simple fact that disheartened me more than any other.

Instead, I dwelled on the great philosophers. But Boethius' consolation of philosophy is a ship in stormy waters. I was beginning to get the impression that I would be lost at sea, to drift forever in a dangerous world of pluralities. Without moral certitude, how can one proceed?

This is not a new question, of course. But if I was to confront Freeman, I would have to answer it, if only for myself. For in a relative world, Freeman is not evil because evil does not and cannot exist. And his writings would be crimes against humanity only in my own imagination. It was this topic of which I wanted to converse more than anything.

But if I could not find conversation for myself, I did at last find it, when I emerged from a vent in a warehouse to see a half dozen soldiers blowtorching a door.

"Theres only a few of them - unarmed. They've got a security guard with them, but thats about it."

"Yeah, recon said his name was Calhoun. I can't wait to get those bastards - they might not be Freeman, but I'll take what I can get. I need to get revenge for my buddies."

A realization was dawning - did my thirst for revenge reduce me to the level of these brutes? I crawled out of the vent behind them, creeping
as quietly as I could without being noticed.

"Nevermind Freeman. What about those guys up in the Dorms?"

"They sent that one crazy transmission that one of those damn crab aliens was talking, next thing we know they're all dead."

"I bet that crab got him."

Thats simply not correct. It was those two vixens, not me.
So I spoke up.

"Excuse me, but I did no such thing and I don't like false accusations. Perhaps, like Cicero, you all could remember a bit of decorum once in a while."

The soldiers turned around and gaped. One of them dropped a cigarette out of his mouth, and another took off his glasses
to stare. But a third one, who looked a bit nonplussed, simply raised his pistol and pointed it directly at me.

"What the hell - Hey, get a load of this -" One of them tapped the engineer who was opening the door on his back. But before he could turn around, he finished with the door, and it fell open.

And I heard gunshots, and a new voice. "Take this! And this! And this!!!" The soldiers crumpled about me, and I saw him.

Clad in blue, a shotgun in his arms. I froze. But the security guard didn't see me. He only turned away, muttering something about a displacement field.

I certainly had no reason to stay here. Perhaps, I thought, if this guard knew scientists like the soldiers said, they could help me find Freeman.

So I hopped up behind him, and jumped up onto the back of his vest, clinging on for dear life as he dashed away. The world was a blur until at last he paused, in front of a great ball of light, like the ones I had seen when I first was spirited to this place. "Surely", I thought, still clinging on, "he doesn't intend to jump into that thing."

And then he did.
 
Bravo. This headcrab is like no other headcrab. Keep his tales up. This is better than most stuff I read.
 
eatbugs, you are on to something...but how
can one confuse philosophy with fantasy when they are one
and the same?...
Click to expand...

Tolkien's philosophy of fantasy was in lord of the rings..but Philosophy is: the rational investigation of being, knowledge and conduct. Hmmm
 
Chapter Nine: Summa Black Mesa

Aquinas: The Black Mesa incident occured for a reason, one core reason. As all things do. There is a prime mover.
Ockham: So then, Mr. Smarty Pants, what exactly was that reason?
Aquinas: Why don't you use your razor to cut through the alternatives?
Okham: Why don't I use my razor to cut through you?
Aquinas: If you were to do that, would you essentially be deconstructing the concept of Aquinas?
Okham: You don't even know what deconstruction is, it won't be realized for another seven hundred years.
Aquinas: And then will people know what deconstruction is?
Okham: No.


Richard Tarnas plays a dangerous game in attempting to condense the western worldview into a single volume, but such attempts are, at the very least, an act of foolish but admirable bravery.
We can fault him, however, in his references to Dr. Stanlisov (Not to be confused with the incomparable Stanlislov Wikiwitz) Grof. Dr. Grof’s supposed research into altered state and transpersonal consciousness used psychotropic drugs as the crux of its inquiries, but this is not the only reason why we should be so quick to discount his studies.

Rather, it is the concept of re-birthing itself that must be dissected. The idea that the ordeal of our first becoming can be re-experienced, in any meaningful way, is ridiculous. The ephemeral nature of our memory does not equal a safe waiting to be unlocked by LSD, Dr. Grof.

Which brings me to the topic at hand. Officer Calhoun stepped through the ball of light, with me attached. And while I cannot say I have ever (knowingly) sampled such substances, I can say that the experience of interdimensional shifting is likely comparable or better than anything conducted in Grof’s laboratories.

Upon emerging from the portal, I imagine I was able to experience the regression effect Dr. Grof wanted so badly to create. For suddenly I was back, glowing a pale shade of green. In the place from which I began, the one I called wicked.

I will say it, never mind Herodotus. Xen. After all, I have found in Freeman a thing far more wicked, and I have spoken his name already.

So we appeared on a ledge in the eternal iridescence of my home world. And in that one instant, a great weight was lifted from me, as if all the anger, all the rage, all the spite I had been developing for the scientist, for the troopers, and the rest of the deaf and dumb inhabitants of earth, dissolved away to nothing.

What had I become? I had read, I had absorbed, I had fallen in love with everything human. But with that I had become something more, become something other, between. I had my knowledge, but with it I gained something less tangible but a thousand times for dangerous.

Desire. But what was this! If Eve made a choice, what was I allowed? I was cast out of Paradise before being allowed knowledge. Before being allowed choice at all. Because, I understood, taking in the breathtaking vista of my world, this truly was paradise. The answer to the question of being and becoming. Was this not too God’s domain?

As my anger drifted away, I suddenly wanted only one thing – to find my mother here, to find myself here, my true identity. The reason for my voice, the reason for my reason itself.

But if I was overwhelmed with joy at this, if I was clever Odysseus at his homecoming, then officer Calhoun was Odysseus earlier – as he first descended into the unknown of Hades. And before I could even begin to think of how to find my mother, before I could even remember all the tentacle had told me of her, the shift began again.

And my world disappeared once more. And then we were back, in Black Mesa, outside, in the bright and burning sun, near a jeep and a few scientists. But before I could even begin to ask them where Freeman was, before I could even detach myself from the guard, we were whisked away again.

But in one moment disappointment was turned into ecstatic joy. My question of Freeman was answered. For we emerged this time in a storage room with a grate, and through it I could see the scientist in the orange suit, who had so many times seemed to be almost invincible, unconscious, carried by two grunts.

So I hopped off of the guard. This time, he shifted away alone, and I was left to hop up, wedge my way through the grate, and jump into the hallway.

The two grunts were carrying Mr. Freeman outside, and I could see where. If I was going to be teased, with that false homecoming, I might as well return to my old ways.

At least they brought me hope. For the sign above the exit door read, like an announcement by holy cherubs: “Trash Compactor.”

I hopped towards the troopers.
If they were going to do what I thought they would, I wanted a front row seat.
 
LOL. Very good. I like the Blue Shift connection there. Beautifully done.
 
I'm not sure anyone will like this, but if anyone does see what I'm going for and wants me to keep posting this story, just ask in the thread, and I will.
Click to expand...

Please enlighten me as to 'what your going for' by taking on the form of a head crab.

otherwise good story. I like it.
 
Chapter 10: Renaissance Crab


I watched like the spectators watched in the great gladiatorial games of old. It was the thrill of watching your nemesis reduced to food for lions. This thought ricocheted like lightening through my being.

What does it matter, I thought, peering out from behind a sandy rock. I am not human. To enjoy watching your enemy die, to have enemies, adversaries, to kill, why, thou shalt not kill was not a tablet handed down to the beasts. In a moment I felt as if, watching Freeman die, I could at last give up my desire for a soul. Accept who I was. Or, rather, what.

I watched the two soldiers carry him outside towards the compactor, watched them walk back to the control mechanism, watched one of them put their hand on a lever.

And then I watched one of them put a hand on the other one’s shoulder.

“Biff, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

“Biff, I don’t think we should kill him. He doesn’t even have a chance.”

“But orders are orders.”

“Biff, you’re just saying that. If we listened to orders we wouldn’t have hired that prostitute named Jezebel for the orgy tonight back at base.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do?”

“Let’s reason it out. Let’s discuss it like logical human beings. Let’s use our brains for once, Biff. This guy’s just been defending himself.”

What was this! How dare the soldiers choose this moment to become thinking beings. Like Ajax I had been foolish and now I would pay. Had cursed a God, I thought, perhaps. I might not be the Lord’s favored child, but in my hatred for Freeman I had forgotten I was not above his wrath. And now, at the moment of victory, my prize was going to be stolen from me.

So I hopped out from behind the rock and approached the soldiers. They went on talking.

“Well, if we are to consider Kant’s kingdom of ends and his transcendental idealism, can this be a justifiable act?”

“Gee Biff, I’ve always been more of a Hume man myself.”

Once I was at their feet, I decided to speak.

“Did someone say Hume? My sentiments exactly, gentlemen.” Sometimes I crack myself up.
They looked down, surprised. I jumped first at the one called Biff - I tend to take a Berkleyan approach to that whole idealism thing.

Biff paled. “Holy Crap, it’s that talking headcrab!”

“Don’t worry Biff, I’ll get him!!!” His accomplice raised his M16 and fired.

But he missed me, and hit Biff.

“Darnit, you got me…well, so much for reason, eh?”

Biff fell onto the lever, throwing the compactor into action. But then his friend turned back to me, gritting his teeth and raising his rifle. And in that moment, I knew that there was only one
solution, only one possible choice of action. I had seen in done before. And even now, at the moment of action, I was reluctant, I hesitated. Could I?

I prayed that Biff’s companion had a worthy soul, as he lowered his rifle in my direction.
Then I sprung up and swallowed his head.

And the world turned dark once more.
 
So we now get to follow a headcrab onto a buman's body. This should be interesting. I love this story.
 
Chapter Eleven: The Uncanny Valley

How can we begin to understand what it means to be a Zombie? How can we try to understand what it means to be an other, without becoming that other and losing all point of reference? I will refer you first and formost to Thomas Nagel’s paper, What is it like to be a bat?. Of course, Nagel reaches the obvious conclusion: The need for an objective phenomenology.

This was precisely what I realised as I regained consiousness in the hot, dry southwestern desert. I would need to form a method of describing my experiences in objective terms – terms that could be understand by both the headcrab, you the reader, and...by what I had become.

And so I returned to the matter of Hume and Kant.

Doubtlessly, reader, you believe me to be an empiricist? I did spend all that time with “Aristotle”, and just a few moments ago I called myself Berkeleyan. But at this, you surely must already protest – for there are as many flavors of empiricism as there are Empiricists, and Aristotle's final causes cannot compete with the parsimony we have come to accept with modern science.

Parsimony. It was on my mind as I rose from the dust, on human legs. As I raised my human arm into the air, as I flexed my claws.

Okham, the world is forever in your debt. But it was with Hume that the idea of causality was finally rejected. And I was left to wonder, as I tested out my new being, whether I had made the right choice.

Between Biff and his friend. Between Hume and Kant. Was it a choice between the rational and the empirical? Between Socrates and Aristotle, between first causes and no causes? I was becoming less and less sure, by and by, as I approached the trash compactor with newfound strength.

Between Hume and Kant, I was left in an uncanny valley. I returned to the only philosopher with which I’d ever found sturdy ground. Derrida. Could my hero save me? Would my hero even allow himself to be one? And why, I wondered, if I had a soul, did I now search for an escape in Derrida and not God?

Perhaps, I thought, as I clawed my way up to the top of the compactor, it is all the same tradition. Perhaps, I thought, looking over the lid, I am Derrida’s new metaphor. Perhaps the rational and the empirical can find the answer they posed to each other at last, in me.

Perhaps, I thought, Gordon Freeman had escaped. The compactor had compacted, but Freeman was not inside. I raised my claws into the air in fury.

And then I saw the smashed grate, the footsteps. I followed them.

If I had gone looking for a soul, I did not find it. I had new strength and new limbs, but my mind remained the same. There was no glorious appearing.
If I had taken of holy sacriment, it was a metaphor only. The spirit, not the body.

Too many metaphors. I was beggining to mix them, I thought, as I crawled out to see a flash of orange dissapear into a tower.

I am crab, I am man. I had sought to become, but now more than ever I could only be. I could not change, in the way I had wanted. Perhaps it was a foolish wish.

But to kill Freeman, this was not foolish. What he had done, what he had written, these are things that could not be ignored. Of course, there were the standard arguments I had made, to justify his demise at my hands. The logic was the same the unfortunate soldiers had attempted to use, although they did not share my knowledge of Freeman's sins. But beyond the teleological, beyond the ethical, beyond any purpose or justification I had in the world, I knew that Freeman had to die as I knew that I had to live. And I had the means now.

I flexed my arms, and approached the tower.
 
Interesting. I was wondering how detailed the process was going to be. This was good. Continue on. I wonder what lays ahead for our little friend.
 
Chapter Twelve: The Center Cannot Hold

Dietrologia Poetica

shining steam pressure coffee machine
the burr of a mill wheel
half-submerged bamboo fences
the wheezy hall-door bell
a strange dagger with a triangular blade

Do you understand the convergence of these things?


It was burning. The sun. It was hot and I was Sisyphus, again and again clawing my way up the tower, only to fall and be forced to repeat. But if Camu's Sisyphus could find eternal joy in his struggle, I was left only with bitterness. My quarry had gone where I could not.

So I relented in my attempts. I walked until the tower was out of site, climbing over cliffs and rubble. But every time I found another wall, another point of entry, it seemed blocked off, too high, too dangerous to get through. I sat on a boulder, the very mirror of Rodin's subject, and tried to ponder my predicament, tried to
find a solution. But none came.

And then I heard voices. I hid behind a rock, hoping that I would not be discovered, like Peronella's lover. Then I saw them, rapelling down the rocks. Clad in black, from head to toe. Once at the bottom of the rock face, one of them pointed to a wall away from the tower, and another ran up to it with a block of c4.

A few moments later, it exploded, and they ran through it into the compound. With feline stealth I pursued them, into a dark passageway. A tramway.

Through that, into another warehouse stacked with great cartons, they at last stopped, and set up positions. As usual, I hid in my normal manner. Which was considerably bit tricky, now that I was considerably larger. I listened.

"How many survivors from C Company?"

"Only a few. Supposedly they've been following a Corporal Shephard."

I heard some cock a gun, and a quick grunt.

"Well, they won't anymore."

After this, a pause. Then -

"So, now that we're waiting, Phinneus, why don't you tell me why exactly Nietzche's uberman is at all a defensible -"

"Stop linking his work to the rise of the Reich, Wellington. My goodness, can't you learn to separate..."

I sort of zoned out, I could do without another discourse on relativism, even if it was somewhat better than long exhultations to that orgy the grunts were going to have back at base. Somehow, however, I doubted that these troopers were of the same variety as the ones I saw before.

This was quickly affirmed. I heard a scream, and gunfire. The black clad operatives moved. I crouched lower behind the crate, as I heard footsteps, and the plink of richocheting bullets. A grenade blast to my right - a body to my left. Chaos.

It didn't seem to be going well for the men and women in black. Their shouts were soon dwarfed by those of the newcomers.

Finally, one of the men in black ran over to my crate, crouching next to me. He kept looking over the other side though - as if he was cornered. He tried to slip farther behind the crate, out of view, but bumped into me.

He turned, and I saw a look of shock in his eyes. I waved back.

But then he got shot in the head.

"Well, that seems like it was the last of them."

"Where do we go now, Shephard?"
I didn't hear a reply. Only two gunshots. I peeked around the corner to see a soldier picking up an M-249 from a grunt, one who I strongly suspected was alive until a few seconds ago.

So, this was Shephard then. Without giving a second thought to his act of murder, he picked up the rest of their ammo, and dashed up a set of stairs. I followed, through tramways and more firefights. Finally, the Corporal hopped up into a crawspace, and then down into a hallway.

I waited a few moments, staying as far back as I could. And then I dropped down too, and read the sign on the wall.

Lambda.
 
Chapter Thirteen: A Politic Wormhole
.

Lambda. The letter means a thousand things. One signifier, a thousand signifieds. I want to know which one is correct.
I want one meaning to be correct. I want there to be a correlation. If it was possible I would do without metaphors,
but since I cannot, I want the metaphor to be simple and direct.

But I do not have that luxury. I never have. Perhaps that is what brought me to Derrida. If I couldn't find simplicity, if I could not find blind
faith, I would pursue obsfucation. Perhaps...but standing in front of the lambda sign, I do not have time to think of this.

I do not have time to think of this, because Shephard has returned, and is staring at me through the sites of a shotgun.
So I try to reason with him. Speech.

But the words do not come out.

I had no considered the fact that with a human head in my throat, I could not speak. I had attempted to bite into a soul, but had lost
perhaps the one thing that made me more human than anything else. I had not attempted to speak before, and now, every
time I tried, I ended up choking on my salvation.

Shephard pumps the shotgun.

The books. What do I have left? I flutter my fingers. American Sign Language.

From Shephard, only incomprehension. He steps closer, raising the gun to my chest.

I was wrong to doubt Plato, his love of speech. Perhaps clarity was worth something, I thought. Derrida cannot save me now. I can hear Wittgenstein laughing at me. I cannot communicate with this man.

But he communicates with me, in the only method he knows how. I have asked him a question by existing, and
he answers it by shooting me in the chest.

"Ka-Blam!"

I fall, and he runs off down the hallway.
I fall, yet I do not die. I feel something rising in my throat, and I spit it out. The body.
Whatever signifigance I had thought it would have, it does not contain.

It comes off, and it isn't even painful. No feeling of a soul splitting in two. No feeling whatsoever.
I loose the remains of Biff's friend, and hop onward after Shephard, clearing my throat.

"Shephard, I believe you are looking for the same enemy as I...why should we..."

But he is running too fast. And beyond that, through a door at the end of the hallway, I can hear another, louder voice.

"Hurry, before the portal closes!!!"

And then I see it, through the doorway.
Another portal, like the one I ventured through with officer Calhoun. And then I see him.

Freeman. He jumps through the portal.

To my left, Shephard is shooting into the air. I look up. And see something I have not seen in a long time.
Creatures with huge heads, floating through the air. They do not seemed concerned with me.

So this time, I do not hesitate. I hop up to the portal, and into the unknown.
 
At first I was skeptical but now this story is starting to grow on me.
 
Man don't leave us hangin' like that!

When's the next installment?
 
This is terribly good! I belive Adams would write something similar to this if he had known of headcrabs. But he was a little busy with bunnies and such.
 
Another great tie in with Opposing Force. I love this. Though it seems the philophers are going away that the earlier chapters had. Still a great story. Can't wait for more.
 
Surely its a great read. But I disagree with the way Gordon was portrayed through the use of his personal writing.
 
Chapter Fourteen: Paradise Regained

Freud: Gonarch is mother. Each headcrab is possesed by an oedipus complex.
Jung: But unlike Oedipus, each crab is born from the same womb. All are obsessed with one.
Freud: I really don't think thats true at all.
Jung: Surely, it only fits into your interpretation of...
Freud: ZzZzzzz.
Jung: Are you sleeping?
Freud: Uhhh...yeah...with your MOM!
Jung: You are so jeuvenile.
Freud: Thats the whole point.

At the end of the last chapter, I had mentioned that I jumped into the unknown. Given what I saw on the other side of the portal, that statement requires some examination. What truly counts as the unknown?

In one sense, I was unknown to myself. By delving into the western mind, I had removed myself from my place as a headcrab. But what else counts? I will now venture into the feminine - Tarnas' answer, Freud's fixation. Poor Oepidus.

For when I emerged, I emerged back in Xen. This time, I didn't shift away.

And more importantly, I was suddenly face to face with her. Almost a mirror of myself, but standing twenty feet tall.

Mother. And, in a sense, the unknown. For though the tentacle had told me much about her, I had
no real memories of my birth, of the beginning. Though Dr. Grof would like us to believe otherwise, that part of my existence
was beyond my comprehension.

Until now, that is. For out of the portal I emerged to fall right below her. A few moments passed, where we just stared.

I had no reason to know for certain she was my mother, but on some intangible level it seemed obvious.
That, and a few dozen smaller versions of myself scurried around my feet. But would she recognize me?

For a few brief moments, I forgot about Black Mesa. About Freeman, his writings. Shephard, his bloodthirsty nature.
All those things seemed to fade away as I gazed up and felt, for the first time, something close to love.

Not that crabs can love, of course. I'm just trying to...how should I say...create an objective phenomenology.

And then she shuffled up to me, and leaned over. And spoke.

"Chrflefruf!"

It seemed warm, heartfelt. But it was't English, or Greek, or anything else. So I couldn't understand it.

"Chrflefruf!"

I wanted to tell her that I could not understand her language. That I had been gone too long.
Instead, with a barrier between us that could never be lifted, I could only mutter.

"Oh, mother, if only you could understand me!"

Then mother's sac shook a bit (was it laughter or was she giving birth?).

"Well, I've called your name twice, and you didn't respond, little Chrflefruf. As far as me being able
to understand you, understanding is always limited to some degree by the nature of our being. But I believe
that I can understand you, in the sense you implied!"

"You know English?"

"Not as well as Latin. Quam es vos?"

I was home at last.
 
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