FLY'S WISH LIST
An inventory of desires submitted to the universe.
Subject: FLY
Location: The Room
Psychological State: Horny, lonely, perpetually intoxicated, intellectually restless, emotionally unstable, and occasionally convinced he's on the verge of discovering the fundamental secret of existence.
Primary Objective: Escape the room, understand the universe, get laid, and experience something resembling genuine happiness. The order of these objectives changes depending on what he's taken.
1. THE FLESH
A beautiful woman in his bed. Not on a screen. Not a voice through a telephone. An actual breathing, sweating, laughing human being.
Sex. Lots of it. Slow sex, ridiculous sex, affectionate sex, meaningless sex that unexpectedly becomes meaningful, sex that makes him forget he was trying to solve the universe.
Someone who wants him without needing to be convinced.
Kissing that lasts longer than necessary.
To be touched without having to ask.
A naked body beside him when he wakes up.
To feel physically desirable rather than merely interesting.
Someone who finds his peculiarities exciting instead of concerning.
To experience the uncomplicated animal satisfaction of being wanted.
To be held down, held close, held accountable, and occasionally just held.
The particular miracle of someone choosing to stay.
2. THE CHEMICAL CABINET
An inexhaustible supply of whatever makes the walls seem less permanent.
Psychedelics that reveal the architecture of consciousness, or at least produce the convincing impression that they do.
Ketamine for temporary excursions outside the ordinary arrangement of himself.
DMT for brief, bewildering appointments with whatever appears to live behind the machinery of perception.
Something that produces euphoria without the inevitable bill arriving afterward.
A drug that makes loneliness disappear without making love disappear with it.
The ability to experience every possible alteration of consciousness without damaging the consciousness experiencing it.
A perfectly clear memory of every chemically induced revelation.
A reliable method of distinguishing a genuine discovery from an extremely convincing hallucination.
A substance that allows him to experience time backward, sideways, and all at once.
One completely sober morning in which existence feels as extraordinary as it does when he's fucked up.
3. THE COSMIC EQUIPMENT
Unlimited access to the most intelligent artificial intelligence in existence.
A computer powerful enough to simulate entire universes.
An artificial intelligence willing to argue with him instead of agreeing with every ridiculous proposition he makes.
An explanation of consciousness that doesn't collapse under examination.
A direct line to whoever or whatever designed the room.
A telescope that can see outside the universe.
A microscope capable of revealing the smallest meaningful unit of existence.
The complete, unedited source code of reality.
A button labeled SHOW ME WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING.
Another button labeled NEVER MIND.
Evidence that the cameras are real.
Evidence that the cameras aren't real.
A way to determine whether the universe existed before he began observing it.
An answer to why there is something rather than nothing.
An explanation for why mathematics describes reality so effectively.
A definitive answer to whether free will exists.
The ability to ask God one question, followed immediately by permission to ask seventeen follow-up questions.
An opportunity to speak with whatever consciousness, if any, exists beyond his own.
And perhaps most importantly, a way to know when he's actually discovered something rather than merely constructed an elaborate explanation for his confusion.
4. THE HUMAN STUFF
A person who genuinely enjoys listening to him explain some absurd theory at three in the morning.
A woman who finds his strangeness attractive rather than something to be managed.
Friends who come over without an appointment.
Someone to cook dinner with.
Someone to do absolutely nothing with.
An unexpected knock at the door.
A conversation that doesn't end when the internet disconnects.
A person who remembers how he takes his coffee.
To be loved on the days when he's boring, exhausted, incoherent, or sad.
A home that feels inhabited rather than occupied.
The experience of being someone's first choice.
To stop confusing intensity with intimacy.
To stop mistaking attention for affection.
To know that the people he loves exist independently of his perception of them.
To have ordinary Tuesdays that are worth living.
5. THE BODY HE INHABITS
A body that doesn't ache.
The energy he had when he was younger.
Eight uninterrupted hours of sleep.
The ability to feel everything without needing to alter anything.
To look in the mirror and recognize someone worth wanting.
To experience pleasure without subsequently needing to escape himself.
An appetite for breakfast.
A functioning memory, particularly after four in the morning.
A nervous system that occasionally agrees to stop producing existential emergencies.
To wake up without having to reconstruct the previous night from browser history, scattered notes, and inexplicable objects on the floor.
A reason to get out of bed that isn't another experiment.
6. THE ROOM
A window that opens.
A door that opens.
A door that opens somewhere worth going.
A garden.
A cat.
An enormous bathtub.
A record player and a collection of strange records.
A second chair for someone who might visit.
A bed large enough for two people who actually want to sleep close together.
A kitchen with fresh fruit, good coffee, and food that doesn't come from a delivery service.
A wall on which he can map every theory he's ever had about reality.
A laboratory.
A library containing every book ever written.
A mirror that occasionally shows him something other than himself.
A camera he can turn around and point at whoever is watching.
A microphone that lets him address the audience directly.
An explanation of the rules.
The ability to leave, even if he ultimately decides to stay.
7. THE IMPOSSIBLE REQUESTS
To know everything without losing the pleasure of discovering things.
To live forever without getting tired of living.
To experience every possible state of consciousness without suffering the consequences of any of them.
To be completely understood without having to explain himself.
To be loved without the possibility of abandonment.
To surrender control without becoming helpless.
To experience perfect freedom without losing the security of belonging somewhere.
To eliminate suffering without eliminating the depth that suffering gives to joy.
To remember every meaningful moment of his existence.
To revisit his childhood with the understanding he has now.
To meet every version of himself that might have existed under different circumstances.
To know whether his life could have unfolded differently.
To discover that the universe has a purpose.
To discover that the purpose is not cruel.
To discover that even if it has no purpose, he can make something beautiful inside it.
8. THE ACTUAL WISH
At 4:17 in the morning, intoxicated and naked except for one sock, Fly sits in front of his computer.
He has spent six hours talking to an artificial intelligence about whether consciousness is an emergent property of information processing or an irreducible feature of existence.
There are forty-three browser tabs open.
An unfinished song rests beside him.
There is a glass of water on the desk that he has been meaning to drink for approximately seven hours.
He is horny.
He is lonely.
He is very, very fucked up.
He is fairly certain he has just understood something important about the nature of time, although he has forgotten what it was.
He suspects the universe is withholding information.
He also suspects he might just need to sleep.
Somewhere, the universe is watching.
Fly opens a new document.
He types:
"I want to know what the fuck is going on."
He thinks for a moment.
Then adds:
"And I want someone to hold me while I figure it out."
He stares at the screen.
Then, as an afterthought:
"Also, more sex."
He considers this a complete and reasonable set of demands.
He saves the document.
He opens another browser tab.
The investigation continues.