They’d all moved to the upper deck to enjoy the morning sunlight and views of the bay while they talked. But, in so doing, Erik had the distinct impression he’d left several of himselves in the cabin, belowdecks. And he could see all of the lurkers surrounding the boat like maniacal buoys.

However, everyone wanted to know what he was experiencing, and talking about it openly and dispassionately differentiating it from their realities was turning out to be a good exercise.

It was still very crowded. Erik, Beau, and Murmur were all arrayed on the benches around the helm, but Planks and Meridian had to both perch up on either side of the roof of the cabin.

The dingy that Planks and Meridian had arrived on was tied to a double hook, or whatever it was called, on the back of the boat. It floated there like a bored goat standing near a trough.

So, he was pointing these things out while describing how they made him feel, in contrast to how his hallucinations seemed more to stem from how he felt.

It wasn’t a perfect comparison, or categorization, but it served the purposes of the conversation.

“There’s a feedback loop, of course,” he said. “I feel like the lurkers are a manifestation of my childhood fears. You know, like monsters in the closet kind of thing. But them being present also makes me feel just a little more scared. But, they’re familiar. Old buddies. So, in a way, they’re kind of like creepy Muppets. Like, when I first see them I can sometimes hear the Muppet Show theme in my head, too. And I feel good, because I love that show. So, imagine if the Muppets did the Babadook. That’s what it’s like. Where-as this dingy makes me feel like it’s chewing its cud and wants to climb the mast.”

“How do I make you feel?” Planks asked, grinning.

“You’re like a human lurker, dude,” Eric said.

“Rad.”

“Like Tim Curry on Muppet Treasure Island.”

“Love it.”

“It’s just what it is,” Erik said. Then he thought about it a little more. “I don’t know. I remember this conversation I had with Murmur and the Ampersands over a year ago, now. I mean, it’s one a my lectures, really. But the Ampersands had an experience when it happened, and we all got to participate and it stuck in my head. Beau, have I told you about this?”

“You bet,” Beau said, softly punching him in the knee. “First fuckin’ date.”

“Ha, OK,” Erik said and looked down at the bottom of the pilot’s station. The decking there was slatted, like a grate, so if any water fell in it would rain into something.

Beau gestured, “Tell Planks and Mer about it. Give ‘em the lecture. It’s a good one!”

“Ah, sure. OK. Right,” Erik looked up at the other two as they blinked in the sunlight back at him. “So, you both heard about consensual reality, right? Or consensus reality. People call it different things. I like the first one better, myself.”

Planks noded. 

Meridian squinted harder and then asked, “Like the idea that we all have to agree on what’s real? And if we don’t, it’s kind of like a problem or something?”

Erik laughed, and said, “It’s kind of a problem whether we agree on it or not! But, yeah, close enough. You’ve sort of heard of it. OK, so it goes like this. We each live in our own reality. We’re each some kind of chemo-electrical ghost thing that lives inside a brain that lives inside a body, and it’s a whole system that’s hard to really divide like that a lot of the time. Your body sort of really defines your experiences, right?”

Everyone nodded.

“Except that, like, you don’t experience anything except through your body and brain. And those things can lie to you. Mine lie to me all the damn time,” he explained to more nods. “Sometimes more than others. But, is it really a lie if I’m experiencing it? Like, I see all these lurkers, right? And,” he gestured up at the sky, “this sort of webbing that connects everything to everything else. And who’s to say they aren’t really there? Like, for me, they literally are.”

Planks raised his hand.

“Yes?” Erik pointed at him like a teacher.

“Has your brain ever told you something wasn’t there when it actually was? Like, maybe you’re walking along and then, bam, there’s a chair in your shin?” Planks asked, putting his hand back down.

“No. But that happens to some people,” Erik said. “It’s a possibility.”

“Neat.”

“Sure. Anyway, this all happens to all of us, to varying degrees, right? The world you live in is not the world I live in. What you see is not what I see. What you hear is not what I hear. We each have our different perspectives and ways that our brains interpret the signals we’re getting from our bodies, and our subconscious minds filter that shit like rogue AIs. Some of them maybe more reliable than others, but we don’t know until we test ‘em.”

“That makes sense,” Meridian said. “So, where does consensual reality come in?”

“Gettin’ to that,” Eric replied. “Though, framing it like this now, I’m starting to see why people call it ‘consensus reality’, because they think it’s the reality of the consensus, as if there’s only one.”

“Oh, huh.”

“So, what I’m saying – you got this? – you, Meridian, and you, Planks, do not experience the same reality, even if you feel like you do, even if most of the time it seems like you can agree on what’s going on around you, or what colors are green and what colors are not.”

“Oh, yeah, fuck,” Planks said, and then turned to point at Meridian and shake his head in admonishment. “Your favorite shirt is green, you fucker.”

Meridian nearly fell off their perch laughing.

“Case in point,” Erik said. “A consensual reality is the collection of things that two or more people can agree are real. So, like, my reality includes lurkers. The consensual reality of everyone on this boat together does not.”

“OK, got it,” Meridian said.

“Or, actually, it does include lurkers now, because you all know I’m experiencing them, so they’re kind of a real thing to you, too,” Erik countered himself. “To you, and our collective agreed upon definition of them, they’re a hallucination that I’m having. And you have to rely on me to sense them and point them out, but you all at least know I believe that I’m seeing them, and that I react to them.”

Planks shook his head a little and said, “You really don’t look like you’re reacting to them at all.”

“Well, I’m good at ignoring them! And you better believe I am, because if I’m seeing them in the wrong place at the wrong time and I do react to them, that’s gonna get me in deep shit,” Erik told him.

“No shit,” Planks agreed.

“So, yeah, a couple of decembers ago I was refining this infodump with Murmur here and the Ampersands, when Phage not only decided to start arguing with me about it, but it had something really fucking weird up its sleeve,” he told them.

“Who’s Phage? Or what’s Phage?” Meridian asked.

“Sarah and Goreth’s imaginary friend from when they were like, seven, I think?” the Murmuration said. “It’s a headmate and likes to front sometimes.”

“It’s the monster from under their bed, Mur,” Erik said.

The Murmuration looked quizzically at him and then agreed, “Yeah, like twenty yards under their bed and to the East a bit, huh?”

“What’s that?” Planks asks.

“Getting way ahead of the story,” Erik said. “But, OK. So, like, in a system like mine, or the Murmuration, there’s a consensual reality between headmates. We all try to agree on how we see the world working. And, for some of us, even that’s kind of fragile. It’s part of what makes us plural in the first place, right? We each remember what’s happened to us differently.”

“Yeah, got it.”

“So, well, Goreth and Sarah thought that Phage was the monster lurking on their bedroom floor become one of their headmates, because instead of hiding from it they talked to it. And it’s kind of been their protector ever since,” Erik explained. “And I love the thing. It’s fun to talk to, a lot of the time. But it comes at me with this bullshit about how it is objective reality itself. And I know it’s claimed to be Entropy Itself before, or a Law of Physics, so I’m sort of an old hat at this shit. Especially when we’re watching a movie together and it says, ‘that’s not how it works’.”

There were chuckles all around.

Erik pulled himself up short, and said, “Maybe I really shouldn’t be telling this story. ‘Cause Sarah and Goreth aren’t here to tell it. You’re not supposed to out anybody about their plurality, you know. Just like being queer or trans.”

“Ah, we get it,” Planks said. “You can stop here if you need to. Say no more.”

“Well, except that it’s our story, now, too,” Erik said, gesturing at Murmur and himself.

The Murmuration nodded at him and said, “You know they’re publishing it online under their own names, right? I mean, like, our names are changed, yeah. But, they’re not hiding anything.”

“Shit, yeah. OK.” Erik looked at Planks and Meridian, trying to consider how much he trusted them and also trying to remember why he was telling this story in the first place. Maybe he was just going over things out loud to try to sort everything into its proper categories, and this had to be part of that.

He glanced at Beau, who just nudged him again.

“Sarah and Goreth had a walk-in named Ashwin, that Phage had invited into the system without their knowledge,” he told them. “And Ashwin arrived through a gateway that’s in their system that Phage put there, using its powers as Entropy Itself, as Objective Reality Itself. Or, at least, that’s what both Ashwin and Phage claimed.”

“What’s a walk-in?” Planks asked.

“What’s a gateway?” Meridian asked right after.

“Some systems, and I think mine might be one of them, have what are called gateways in ‘em,” Erik explained. “Just, some kind of psychic portal that headmates and spirits and whatever can pass through. And a walk-in is a headmate that came through one of those gateways and might leave through it.”

“Oh, kind of like Mediums,” Planks said.

“Maybe exactly like some Mediums,” Erik agreed. “Maybe not like others. Plurality is old as shit. Ancient stuff. There are all sorts of beliefs and consensual realities about it. Different cultures describe it differently.”

There were more nods.

“But anyway, it was fun talking to Ashwin when they first came forward,” Erik said. “Really cool person. Kinda goofy. And apparently an extra terrestrial, and they know Phage from it living aboard their spaceship.”

“Woah,” Planks said.

Meridian tilted their head, waiting for more.

“Like, I don’t know,” Erik said. He gestured at the Murmuration. “We didn’t know. We were all skeptical and shit. Or tried to be.”

“Huh, yeah,” the Murmuration said in Brock’s voice. “That sure lasted long.”

“What happened?” Planks asked.

“Well,” Erik said, deciding that no amount of preamble or storytelling or explanation would make it sound any less like one of his delusions. “Long and complicated story short, after a bunch of shenanigans, Murmur and I have aliens in our systems now, too. So we’re part of this consensual reality with the Ampersands that nobody else can experience like we do. And even though I was arguing with Phage about whether or not objective reality even exists, I’m not sure it was wrong anymore.”

Planks blinked and pulled his head back, like he wasn’t expecting that. Then he glanced at the Murmuration, who nodded solemnly, and looked suitably impressed in response to that.

Meridian furrowed their brow and smirked, saying, “Erik. You can’t tell a couple of sailors that shenanigans happened without telling us, in detail, what exactly they were and how to make them happen again.”

“Law of the sea, Erik,” Beau said, straightening up and looking down his cheeks at him. “It’s your duty now as a member of this crew.”

Erik sighed, and said, “Fine. We got internet here?”

“Cell tower’s over there,” Meridian pointed at the shore.

“I gotta get my phone,” Erik said, and hopped up to go down into the cabin. “I wanna show you Ashwin’s webpage and book, so you see what I’m talking about.”

“You can use my Tablet, Love,” Beau said. “It’s hooked up through the satellite phone, but it’s got a bigger screen and it’s water resistant. It’s in the nav desk.”

“Sweet,” Erik said.

As he lowered himself into the cabin, he thought about taking that time in there to also remove his binder. It honestly was a pretty good fit, for an elastic garment designed for constriction. But he’d gone long past the 24 hour mark of wearing it, and it felt itchy and he was worried.

Unfortunately, when he reached the floor and looked up, he found Goreth standing in the middle of the cabin, in the aisle right next to the still folded up table, in full draconic form. Like a horse in a hospital.

“Hey, Erik,” Goreth said. 

There was no way they fit there, but it was like the boat had expanded to accommodate their height, girth, and length. They were huge! Their haunches rested near the door of the bathroom, and their tail must have been partially curled up on the forward bunks.

“Goreth!” Erik just sort of knew it was his friend, even though he’d never actually seen them like this before, all big, green, and scaley, with wings, horns, claws, and all. He stammered a little, “I’m, uh. I – What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be visiting your grandma?”

“Not there yet. Still on the bus,” Goreth said. “We just had a nasty encounter with a transphobe, and I’m taking a break from the system to recover.”

Erik felt tiny, gawking up at this monster, but not scared in the slightest. Confused, perhaps, but the feelings that accompanied this hallucination were familiarity and calm. Still, he felt he needed to engage as if it was really happening. “How?” he asked. “Isn’t this further than any of you have ever traveled without your vessel?”

Goreth composed themself, bringing forefeet to just under their breastbone and settling on them, like a loafing cat. And they lowered their massive head to be just two Erik’s tall, instead of three.

“I’m not sure distance matters when we know a person. At least, not for those of us who aren’t Phage,” Goreth said. “When we’re a still living being, like Ni’a, or something like that, there seems to be a connection to other life that allows us to take a shortcut. I’m also making an effort to connect with you, so your brain is interpreting this somehow, and none of this is out loud. At least, not on my end.”

Erik suddenly felt like sitting down, but if he moved over to the nav station Goreth would have to crane their head around the console, and it just seemed awkward, so he remained standing at the bottom of the ladder for a bit.

“Shit,” he said. Then he had an idea for testing what was going on. “Are you gonna remember any of this when you get back?”

Goreth turned their head up and to the right, looking at Erik sideways, and said, “I don’t know. I hope so.”

“Call me,” he replied. “We’ve got reception right now, and I’ll hold onto my phone. If you don’t call, I’ll assume this was a hallucination, or you forgot. I’ll text you about it later, too. See if that jogs your memory.”

“Sounds good. Will do. How are you doing?”

“Well, you know,” Erik said, “I’m hallucinating a gigantic dragon in the middle of my boyfriend’s boat just outside of San Francisco. That’s like the dream right there. People take drugs for this shit. But I’m also hoping it doesn’t turn into a migraine. It’s been rough.”

Goreth furrowed their brow, just like something animated by Hollywood, and asked, “You gonna be alright?”

“I think so,” he replied. “I’m gonna sit down here now and dig around for Beau’s tablet. I don’t want the others to worry too much about me. I’d like to get my phone from my bag, but I think you’re in the way.”

“I’m not really physically here,” Goreth said.

“Yes, but my brain doesn’t know that, and I think it would be too confusing to try to walk through you,” he told them.

“Fair,” Goreth started to stand up.

“How’d you learn how to do this?” he asked.

“Niʔa instructed me. It’s how they first contacted the Dancer.”

“Ah, yeah, you told us all about that. How is it that I even know what you look like?” Erik asked.

“You don’t,” Goreth replied, turning to walk toward the front of the boat, but keeping an eye on Erik over their shoulder. “I think your brain is just filling in the details it expects. If we could get you to the Sunspot, then you could see me for what I really am. Or, I’ll get Sarah or Ashwin to draw a good picture, and that will help.”

He couldn’t help but ask, “How do I get to the Sunspot?”

“If you really want to go, which I don’t know if I recommend, some of us are working on it,” Goreth said, having turned completely around and pausing at the bathroom to speak, looking over their own back like a swan. Their tail was wrapped to the right, around their feet, and would probably whip around and trail after them when they left. “You might have to accept Phage’s gift to make it work, though.”

“What’s the catch?”

“It’s not Earth, and nobody you know lives there, except us,” Goreth said. “We’re going to miss you eventually, if you don’t come, but you’ve got your whole life ahead of you to figure that out. Don’t rush it. We can talk more about it later in detail if you want. Or, talk to your cuddlecrabs about it. They know some things.”

Holy fuck, that was some heavy shit to process.

“What about Beau?”

“We can’t take the whole human race,” Goreth said. “But, the same deal goes for him, if we can make it work. It’d be up to him, though. Murmur, too, but I think they already know that. But, Erik. It’s not an escape from life here on Earth. It’s just something humongous to add on top of it all.”

“Yeah, this place sucks too much of the time,” Erik admitted. “But when I think about it, I don’t really want to escape, either, anyway. I don’t know, Goreth. I guess I’ll think about it. Talk to you more about it later.”

“Good call,” his friend said. “I’ve gotta go back up Sarah now. You take care.”

“Sure. You too,” Erik told them kind of glumly, looking down at the floor. He could see their tail disappearing around the bathroom as they went. “I think I’m gonna sit down.”

For several seconds, sitting in the navigation booth, he forgot entirely what he was down there to do.

That entire conversation with Goreth was at the crux of what he had been trying to convey to Planks and Meridian, and to Beau at the same time. Beau had been around him longer, but he felt like this Beau needed to be told more clearly what was up.

Though, come to think of it, since he’d gone to the bathroom that morning, it felt like Beau had switched again, and was now the man he’d first met. Huh.

Well, anyway, the thing he’d been trying to articulate was that he constantly felt like he himself was a nexus of consensual realities, almost all of the time. A walking crossroads. Like a Venn diagram of other people’s ideas about how the universe should work. 

And what he didn’t know was where he himself fit into all of that.

He hadn’t even really begun to scratch the surface of it all, either. But he figured most of the people on the boat knew the regular social shit he had to deal with. So, he’d started with the newer, weirder bullshit, the stuff that had him really distracted these days. The stuff he knew Murmur could relate to as well.

And if Phage was right, that it was some sort of connection to objective reality itself, what did that mean for all of the things that Erik had started to cling to that made his own personal multiverse worth living in?

If he did go to the Sunspot, would there be some sort of way of taking his favorite movies with him?

He was afraid that the answer was, ‘Nope.’

A whole alien world full of people from a completely different evolutionary path. A different origin. He’d feel more alone there than anywhere on Earth, and he was already so lonely all the time. And the only way to get there was through some kind of psychic gateway in his friends’ head.

Ashwin was such a kick, though. How did nem remain so focused and even tempered while on Earth, while surrounded by humans?

Oh, right!

Ashwin’s book! The tablet.

The console was a set of shelves above a small desk that held a tapered box of instruments and space for a chart to rest. The desk, like a lot of other desks, had a shelf below its top surface, and Erik looked there first. Beau’s tablet was right there, placed neatly on top of a pad of yellow paper, next to a pencil box.

Briefly taking the pencil box out to look at it more closely, Erik decided that it was probably also teak. It was the same damn color and pattern of wood grain as the rest of the boat.

It had a simple illustration of a classic anchor burned into the lid of it. Just like on the hat of Captain Haddock.

“Beau,” Erik said, shaking his head. Then he put the pencil box back and pulled out the tablet.

Then he got up and returned to his friends, topside.

—

“I forgot my phone,” Erik says to the cuttlecrab in his lap. “Goreth might have called and I never answered.”

“You will chatter later,” the cuttlecrab says.

“Yeah.”

“Your chatter with your collective here was informative,” the cuttlecrab tells him. “We were honored to be present.”

“I’m pretty glad you’re here, myself,” he replies. “I do remember the rest now, I think.”

“Yes?”

“I remember bringing up ancestry with Planks and Meridian, because I’m feeling super disconnected from mine, and it sucks,” he said. “And, like, yeah, I get to have super cool squid crabs from outer space in my head. But you got here through my friends. Not me. And I know it’s just chance. It could have happened to anyone, and I’m lucky to be their friend. But it hurts, you know? I’d like to find my special thing.”

“It is never one or the other,” the cuttlecrab said. “The universe is full of special things, and all of them are yours, if you accept them.”

He stared down at it for several seconds, deepening the crease between his brows. Then he said, “You go from talking about how and when to eat other people, to telling the story of my day like it’s some kind of epic poem, and then, what, sounding like my dad? Where do you get off doing that?”

“Do you want this one to leave your lap?”

“What? No. It’s a figure of speech. Nevermind. You’re weird and cool is all I’m saying. But I’ve heard that shit before, and you know I’m talking about finding myself, finding where I come from, and what I can do in the world. What’s my special thing?”

“Ashwin is also searching for that for nemself,” the cuttlecrab says.

“Ashwin is a linguistically gifted god who can cook like nobody’s business using food they’ve never touched before, and they’re the first of their people to visit an alien planet,” Erik says. “I think nem has become their special thing, even if nem doesn’t know it.”

“Yes. You are similar.”

“What? Get fucked.”

“Later.”

“Look, crab, I’m – did you just – you just.” He points at it, pulling his hand close to his collarbone to get a good angle. “Are you actually fucking each other in my head?”

“It is a figure of speech.”

“Ha! Nice. Yeah, OK.”

“We are observant and learn quickly. It is fun.”

“You’ve got that right!”

“We would like to fuck in your head if you will permit it,” the crab says. “We would like to remain ourselves, and do the things we are used to doing.”

“Fine, just ask my consent before doing it where any of me can see it or remember it, OK?” He tells it, chuckling. “It’s our head now, buddy. But, look. What I’m saying is that I’m not going to be placated, you hear? You can act like my dad all you want, but you’re not my dad. And your space wisdom will only get you so far.”

“Understood.”

“And I will never stop looking for my own thing,” he says.

“Yes. Stay hungry.”

He leans back and frowns at it, “That’s the Cooking Channel slogan, you sentient rangoon.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I don’t watch that.”

“The Murmuration watches it while they work,” it replies.

“Really? That’s pretty – wait, though. How do you know that?” he asks, realizing simultaneously that since he knew what the slogan was the Collective could just be getting that from his memory and pitching him some bullshit about it.

“They are part of the Collective now, too. We Chatter every night.”

After his experience with Goreth today, though, that sounds plausible.

“How?” he asks it slowly, drawing the word out, unsure if he wants to hear more plausibility or fears that his circle of realities are becoming just too outlandish.

“We have the gift of Phage,” it says. “And the flashing of lights and the dancing of limbs and chirps and clicks can be detected between the shores of consciousness when we are close enough.”

“That’s telepathy. You’re telling me that you’re telepathic,” he says.

“We don’t know the significance of that,” it says.

“No one on Earth is verifiably telepathic,” Erik tells it. “A lot of people believe, but no one’s been able to prove it. But I don’t care if we can prove it to anyone but Beau.”

“Interesting.”

“Yeah, ‘interesting’. Can you relay to the Murmuration that I want Beau to come up here and talk to me? Please? Tell them to tell him I need to apologize.” He thinks about what would really get Beau’s attention and then adds, “Can you tell them to tell him to explain to me what a ‘fire ship’ is? Is that too much?”

“We understand. It is not too much to Chatter. It may be too much for the Parliament of the Murmuration to relay to their front, but we will do what we can,” it says. “It may take some time.”

“Thank you,” he says.

“To Chatter is to live. We welcome you to the Collective,” it says.

He smiles and feels like he’s being hugged by the sea shore. Sometimes psychosis brings with it feelings of elation and ecstacy, and being one with the whole universe, and it is awfully nice when it does that.

Maybe his flavor of this mental illness is a living cliché, the kind of thing that everyone sees in every movie, despite that’s not what it’s like for so many others. But the one thing that no movie has ever managed to capture and convey is just how real it all is.

Now he’s got to steel himself for facing the man who’d verbally pilloried him the last they spoke. And for good reason.

After retrieving Beau’s tablet and talking to Goreth, the conversation had gone so well that it had taken them an hour past lunch, and they’d all been getting too hot under the sun, ready to take a break from it by going inside.

But it was when they all piled into the cabin to make and eat sandwiches that things had finally gone to utter shit.