Someone recently asked me if Doctor Fluxus was the Third Life avatar of my Second Life character. I replied that one could think of him as such, but I find it simpler to say he is a role I perform in a theatrical presentation. The Doctor is a fictional being, entirely invented sui generis of my imagination, like Athena bursting from the head of Zeus. He exists, and is a member of my household, for that is as I have written him, but you may not meet him excepting I don his costume and mask to perform. He does not exist in the same order of reality, or awareness of reality in which I exist and know to be true. For I was born, grew up, travelled, loved, and must one day cease to be, whereas he may only proceed upon the narrow rails I have laid down for him. Can a character in a novel have knowledge of the mind of its author? I propose Doctor Fluxus may have as little understanding of my mind as I have of the sublime mind of God. I also suppose he may yet surprise me (for as I have written him, his knowledge far exceeds my own); nevertheless he cannot accomplish anything without my volition and participation, for he is my creature. (He may not even be a he, as I am undecided upon that point and the clothes do not make the man.)
Philosophers may claim you and I and all the Brightness of the World to be no more than a figment in the imagination of God and the Devil. Nevertheless I know Yolande Evelyn Geoffrion is real, and Doctor Theophrastus Fluxus is fiction, and all the rest a miraculous play in which we grasp after what shreds of happiness happen to blow in our way.
2 comments:
I believe Dr Fluxus wears a mask because he is pure energy, and is able to take outward human form only by donning the various garments, which must cover him completely.
Of course I may be wrong.
That may explain the thrumming and pulsing that I hear when he sleeps: but he sleeps with his eyes open! I dare not approach close enough to discover for certain.
Post a Comment