Chapter 56: Narratives (I)
Dan Woo stood there for a second, just gazing at the door in front of him as he looked at it before his hand slowly went to the keypad. Finally, he pushed it open.
Immediately, when he did, warm air grazed his nose, and his memories began churning around him. He could feel his body relax at the familiar comfortability, but sensing his guard loosening, he sent it right back up.
As he slowly entered the area, he could hear the sound of humming and the sound of the TV in the background. He continued walking through the area before suddenly—
"Honey, are you back?"
The words hit him like a freight train.
That voice.
That familiar voice.
He continued walking towards the kitchen, only to find a woman dicing up onions and preparing all kinds of vegetables.
That familiar face hit him as he felt himself go through a myriad of expressions. He immediately went to the woman.
"Who are you?" he asked.
Yet the woman didn’t register the question and just brushed him aside.
"Now that you are here, you can go freshen up unless you want to help cook."
"What games are you playing now?"
But Han Soo Hee didn’t give him anything and just continued singing.
Then, suddenly, Dan Woo’s phone began to vibrate.
Dan Woo’s hand slipped to the phone when a familiar name popped up.
Dan Woo wasn’t sure what was happening when—
Notification after notification started to pop up as things started to come into focus.
The familiar setting of that buried memory.
Dan Woo started to ask himself if he was dreaming or if he was actualizing time again, but no. Nothing felt out of place. He turned to look at his screen, looked through everything, then turned back to Han Soo Hee, who was now looking at him with intrigue.
"Is there anything I should know about?"
Dan Woo was startled by the sudden attention. Before he regained his composure—
"Why are you doing this?" he turned to ask.
"Doing what?" Han Soo Hee asked, leaving the flabbergasted Dan Woo speechless.
"Hey, if you are just going to stand there, then you might as well join me in making this meal."
Dan Woo was unsure of what the situation was, so he reluctantly followed, joining her in the kitchen as she gave directions on how some stuff should be prepared.
It wasn’t like she was a good cook.
He couldn’t help but laugh as he reminisced, but he immediately washed away that feeling with a strong nudge that the person before him wasn’t Han Soo Hee, but something else.
Either Baek Hari or another anomaly.
So, he wore an apron, turned to the vegetables in front of him, washed his hands, and then began washing the vegetables.
There was quite a rhythm between him and Baek Hari as they prepared the meals.
The silence was suddenly broken as they finished, approaching the end of their preparations.
"Narrative."
"What?"
Dan Woo was confused by the words.
"You asked what I was doing. I am answering you. A narrative."
"What’s that?" Dan Woo asked as he turned to gaze towards Han Soo Hee.
"That is the whole engine of all our existence."
"So you are indeed not Han Soo Hee, but Baek Hari."
"Who is to say? Have you finally remembered?"
"Remembered what?"
Han Soo Hee suddenly turned, moving away to assemble all the ingredients she had been prepping.
"It seems not. There isn’t enough time."
"Enough time for what?"
"There is war coming."
"You have said this multiple times. What war? Can you just give me something concrete?"
"Right. You have been running around collecting Meaning without really knowing what you are doing. So where should I start?"
"From the beginning."
"From the beginning? Which beginning?"
"What do you mean?"
"It’s complicated. Let’s just begin by introducing the world we live in. The world we live in is divided into three parts: that is, the Chaos Realm, the Spirit Realm, and the Material Realm. You are familiar with those, are you not?"
"..."
"Okay, do you know about the Eerie Domain?"
"Of course."
"Yes. That is a glimpse into the shadow of the Chaos Realm, but it won’t be the true Chaos Realm. The true Chaos Realm is far too abstract and chaotic, if you will. All you need to know is we originated from there."
"What do you mean?"
"Everything comes from chaos. Everything is in chaos. Everything is chaos."
"I see."
"Yeah, don’t think too much about the Chaos Realm. Just know it’s where everything exists. What you should be more concerned with is the Spirit Realm and the Material Realm.
"For the Material Realm, I think you already know of it. It is the physical world—the world where humans exist, where cars honk, where day and night pass, and where you are, for the most part, just an ordinary human.
As for the Spirit Realm.
"This is the realm in which Meaning exists. It is what you tap into when you channel your Meaning and spirituality. It is also where your soul resides, along with all the Meaning that makes you who you are—your memories, experiences, emotions, personality, and everything else that encompasses an individual."
Dan Woo was following whatever Han Soo Hee or Baek Hari was saying, but he was still apprehensive. He wanted to ask about why Baek Hari was going after the people in his life, but he found himself letting her continue with her explanation.
After all, it might be advantageous with his situation, especially now that he felt he really couldn’t remember anything about the power system he had developed for the story.
It was better to learn all he could from Baek Hari before he asked for her motives.
"You just said this is the realm where the soul resides," Dan Woo began, "then how am I here?"
"Right. Very good question. But before I answer that, do you know what Meaning or spirituality is?"
"Meaning is literally meaning. As for spirituality..."
"Well, you are not wrong, but there is more to it than that. As I said, the Chaos Realm has everything and is everything. It is chaos. This being the situation, it holds all potentials and possible states of everything at the same time. It holds nothing."
Han Soo Hee said this as she turned to look at Dan Woo’s face, trying to read it.
She turned to look for an uncut onion, then brought it in front of Dan Woo.
"What’s this?" she suddenly asked him.
"A white onion," he answered.
She then showed him a bowl of sliced onions.
"What is this?"
"Sliced onions?"
"Exactly."
"What if I put them in oil?"
"Then fried onions?"
"Exactly. They keep changing their nature according to their experience. This is the Meaning we are talking about, and this Meaning is tied to a concept. The concept could be cooking or growth if the same onion is, in fact, changed into a seed and watered.
"This Meaning is through the concept of growth. In the Chaos Realm, all of the above is true. The onion is a fried onion, a sliced onion, a growing onion, an unpeeled onion. It’s all onions at once, yet none.
"In the Spirit Realm, this onion will take shape according to the context that is responsible for the concept. For example, if the concept is growth, the onion will show growth. If it is sliced, it will be sliced. This happens all at once in the Spirit Realm.
"But in the Material Realm, only one state can exist at a time, so one of its many states would have to be experienced. If this state is experienced, then that will be its locus, and this locus is what is called spirituality."
Han Soo Hee paused for a moment before continuing.
"Going back to humans. We exist in many states, but the state that is reflected onto the Material Plane is as a result of this spirituality."
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"You asked why I was doing this. I am going to answer you now. The answer is narratives."
"Narratives? What do you mean, narratives? You haven’t answered the question."
"I am about to, but first, let’s finish making the dinner."
"Seriously?"
Han Soo Hee suddenly went quiet as she started up her fire and began making the food, occasionally burning something. Dan Woo stepped in to help her in any capacity he could despite the sudden shift in tone.
As they fell back into that synergy, everything felt almost natural again.
After everything was done, they set up their table and sat down.
"There is so much I want to tell you, but there isn’t enough time to explain it all, so I will go to my biggest thing that I wish you to know. What do you know about narratives?"
"Narratives? Like stories?"
"Yes. You can think of them that way."
"Do you mean like those weird story points?"
"Yes, exactly."
"In the Chaos Realm, there is aggregation of everything, with all concepts merging within the same thing. But with Meaning, distinctions can start popping up, though these distinctions can exist without. Narratives are a pattern of Meaning created when events, experiences, beliefs, and interpretations are repeatedly connected into a coherent story, allowing that Meaning to persist. This usually revolves around concepts."
"I still don’t understand it."
"Okay. Let’s go back to the onion. We just turned it into a meal, but before it became a meal, it first was a seed, then a plant, then grew to a bulb, which was then bought by me, peeled, sliced, fried, then mixed with other ingredients to be a meal.
"There was a trail of meanings that followed each other, and this is what we call a narrative."
"So anything can be a narrative?"
"Of course not. Everything can’t be a narrative, as there are prerequisites for something to be a narrative, and anything less is an incomplete narrative. But you get the gist.
"Narratives are important, especially for all that deal with Meaning. That’s why the Bureau of Anomaly Affairs has the Stage System in the first place."
"What?"
"Now, before we move on to the next session, let’s enjoy the fruits of our labor. Isn’t it delicious?"
"...I suppose."