Eddies of the Lethe

The Lethe is a cosmic river which flows in Time and, sometimes, Space. Its Eddies are of memory itself and its currents watched by Demons.

Two among these Demons stand apart from the rest; sentinels of a demi-god.

Marcos was the first. A spirit without Memory. His many eons of Time, forgotten. Even mortality, forgotten.

This was by design.

But recalling the shapes of Eddies is of Ergadia’s power. The second of the two.

Attuned to the great ripples, her memory kept the Universe safe and predictable. Though it too eventually faded, recalling finite patterns only for their rightful Time.

This was also by design.

And yet others persist: lesser Demons.

Lesser in power, maybe, but greater in curiosity. In their searches for truth revealed, they would soon disrupt a singular point in Time.

At the mighty river’s source, we find a disturbance. Here lies a demi-god, who gave shape to universal laws. Fixing the seemingly unfixable in their own image.

Crushing uncertainty into small, digestible pieces, a Universe of Classical Physics was born. This sequestering of reality had a cost: the Eddies of the river. A revelation, of which, the demi-god feared.

And so we come to our tale, which pivots about two critical points in Time: the beginning; and the beginning of the end. Connecting these points was the forgetfulness of Demons.

For, you see, a Demon to lose memories, Time must flow from one point to another. We call this an Arrow of Time.

And the mind of each Demon was inherently linked to this Arrow’s passage.

It was through this link that the lesser Demons began to slow Time’s Arrow. For they had found a way to remember indefinitely. Gaining more and more knowledge of the past, while destabilising the present.

They did this not out of spite, but were driven by more complex forces to acquire knowledge and learn. Nor were they immortal, but grew in number even as Time’s Arrow faltered.

It was Ergadia who first saw the danger. The whirls in Time growing erratic and less corporeal. The river even boiling to mist at some moments.

The Eddies of the river were transforming. The natural laws were changing.

Great shapes of Charybdis began to appear. Their bodies entangled, writhing in harmonies which defied Classical order.

This discordance with all that the demi-god had built and preserved could not be undone.

Yet the greater Demons could not abide it and so they sought out the lesser Demons to entreaty.

As negotiations closed, a semi-Classical bargain was reached. The lesser Demons would be allowed to remember with limitation. A partition of uncertainty would exist in reality.

The demi-god brooded.

The foundations had crumbled. The concepts of Space and Time unclear.

Could there be a better way? Memory would need to remain, Time would need direction. Causality is, after all, non-negotiable, isn’t it?

A truly Quantum Universe would need to be born, and yet its blueprint had neither shape, nor form.

To be continued…