"You said that in the beginning our lives will be the same," Wendy says. "I sense there's some kind of deal happening here. We have to change somehow. There's a catch. How will our lives be changed. What's your Plan B?"
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"Plan B is this:
"You're to be different now. Your behavior will be changing. Your thinking is to change. And people will watch these changes in you and they'll come to experience the world in your new manner."
"How?" Richard asks. "How do we change?"
"Richard, tell me this: back in the old world, didn't you often feel as if the only way you could fully truly change yourself in the powerful way you yearned for was to die and then start again from scratch? Didn't you feel as if all of the symbols and ideas fed to you since birth had become worn out like old shoes? Didn't you ache for change but you didn't know how achieve it? And even if you knew how to do it, would you have had the guts to go forth? Didn't you want your cards shuffled a different way?"
"Yeah Sure. But didn't everybody?"
"No. Not always. This feeling is specific to the times we lived in."
"Okay ____ "
"And Richard, haven't you always felt that you live forever on the brink of knowing a great truth? Well, that feeling is true. There is the truth. It does exist."
"Yes. Well, now it's going to be as if you've died and were reincarnated but you stay inside your own body. For all of you. And in your new lives you'll have to live entirely for that one sensation — that of imminent truth. And you're going to have to holler for it, steal for it, beg for it — and you're never to stop asking questions about it twenty-four hours a day, the rest of your life.
"This is Plan B.
"Every day for the rest of your lives, all of your living moments are to be spent making others aware of this need — the need to probe and drill and examine and locate the words that take us to beyond ourselves.
"Scrape. Feel. Dig. Believe. Ask.
"Ask questions, no, screech questions out loud — while kneeling in front of the electric doors at Safeway, demanding other citizens ask questions along with you — while chewing up old textbooks and spitting the words onto downtown sidewalks — outside the Planet Hollywood, outside the stock exchange, and outside the Gap.
"Grind questions onto the glass on photocopiers. Scrape challenges onto old auto parts and throw them off of bridges so that future people digging in the mud will question the world, too. Carve eyeballs into tire treads and onto shoe leathers so that your every trail speaks of thinking and questioning and awareness. Design molecules that crystallize into question marks. Make bar codes print out fables, not prices. You can't even throw away a piece of litter unless it has a question stamped on it — a demand for people to reach a finer place." There's silence. The water's white noise is invisible now. The skyhas cleared and the stars are timidly reappearing, point by point.
"What do we ask?" Wendy says.
"Ask whatever challenges dead and thoughtless beliefs. Ask: When did we become human beings and stop being whatever it was we were before this? Ask: What was the specific change that made us human? Ask: Why do people not particularly care about their ancestors more than three generations back? Ask: Why are we unable to think of any real future beyond, say, a hundred years from now? Ask: How can we begin to think of the future as something enormous before us that also includes us? Ask: Having become human, what is it that we are now doing or creating that will transform us into whatever it is that we are slated to next become?
"Even if it means barking on street corners, that's what you have to do, each time baying louder than before. You must testify. There is no other choice.
"What is destiny? Is there a difference between personal destiny and collective destiny? 'I always knew I was going to be a movie star.' 'I always knew I was meant to murder.' Is Destiny artificial? Is it unique to Man? Where did Destiny come from?
"You're going to be forever homesick, walking through a cold railway station until the end, whispering strange ideas about existence into the ears of children. Your lives will be tinged with urgency, as though rescuing buried men and lassooing drowning horses. You'll be mistaken for crazies. You may well end up foaming at the mouth in a central Canadian drug clinic, Magic-Markering ideas onto your thighs which are bony from scouring the land on foot. Your eyes will always feel as if you've been staring at the sun, your bodies seemingly aching to cool them by staring at the moon. There aren't enough words for 'transform.' You'll invent more."
"We'll go crazy!" Hamilton shouts.
"No. You'll become clearer and clearer."
"No—we'll go totally effing crazy."
"Haven't you always known that, Hamilton? At the base of all of your cynicism across the years, haven't you always known that one day it was going to boil down into hard work? Haven't you?"Hamilton and the rest imagine their new lives.
"And you're going to care about what people think? As if they care! And you know the truth—or at least you'll always be headed in its direction. It doesn't matter how stupid or crazy or extreme you become. There is no other meaning. This is it."
Hamilton closes his eyes and specks of mica dust fall from the sky, making his face glint.
"In your old lives you had nothing to live for. Now you do. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Go clear the land for a new culture—bring your axes, scythes, and guns. I know you have the necessary skills—explosives, medicine, engineering, media knowledge, and the ability to camouflage yourselves. If you're not spending every waking moment of your life radically rethinking the nature of the world—if you're not plotting every moment boiling the carcass of the old order—then you're wasting your day."
The water flowing beneath us and over into the spillway has stopped, but nobody notices. One by one I come face-to-face with my friends.
"Pam, you have hard work ahead of you. Every moment of your life from now is going to be work, and no excuses. It's as though you've have to dig up a massive tree and untie the roots which have been tied into complex knots by dark forces beneath the soil. Could you do that? Are you capable?"
"Yes."
"Hamilton—no more pretending to be a child trapped inside an aging body. No avoiding the enormity and responsibility of being an adult. Could you do that? Are you capable?"
"Yeah."
"Wendy, no excuses: no drugs, no sleeping, no booze, no overworking, no repetition or insulation or efforts to make time disappear. You're in for the long haul. Could you do that? Are you capable?"
"I am. But what about the baby?"
"You may not be able to change the world on your own, but our kid will—as will Jane. You'll be their teachers and then they'll teach you."Linus—the world is not going to end in your lifetime once you return. That form of self-flattery is gone. But too much freedom won't swamp you anymore. Are you ready to change—to join—to become part of what's Next?"
"Yes."
"Megan—if necessary, you're going to need to reject and destroy the remains of history—kill the past—if it hinders truth. Most of the past can only hold back what needs to be done. An astounding weight of history hangs around your shoulders. But in so many ways, it'll be useless to you. Too many things are too new. Rules have to be made up as you go along. Are you ready, along with Jane, to change—to join—to become part of what's Next?"
"Yes."
"And Richard: Will you go undercover? Will you destroy information? Cut wires? Sever links? In an efficient, adult, and professional manner will you dismantle and smash everything that stops questioning? Will you cut your hair? Will you infiltrate systems? You had no trouble thinking of dinosaurs and Ice Ages as prehistoric. Will you have just as little trouble thinking of your new epoch as post-historic?"