It had been oh so simple back then. Dave was, well, just Dave. He knew who he was if not where he was going, that was Dave, living for the moment. It turned out that wasn't how it was at all. But in at least a corner of The Chooser's "mind" that reality remained, now long inaccessible, behind a the equivalent of a thick glass case. There was now only the longing to be that person once more.
Looking at all the "ordinary people" The Chooser envied them, in a way most of them would probably envy what Dave actually turned out to be. But now there was a realisation, a simple blindingly obvious realisation that moutains are at their most majestic when viewed from the valley floor. Here in the heights, everything was just small.
In the same way youth was wasted on the young, so the sheer joy of being ordinary was wasted on the ordinary - they were so immensely ignorant of the immense priviledge they were enjoying. A slight ironic amusement arose at the thought of some of those ordinary ones struggling to know the truth about their True Selves, who on discovering it, of being above the game, would only wish too late to rejoin it.
Keira would disagree. But Keira was having a really bad dream, as it turned out deliberately so, so that there would be an irresistable compulsion to awaken. No regrets for Keira, but it wasn't like that for Dave. Dave was perfectly content being nobody, at peace with himself, until revelation, duty and destiny crashed in unlooked for.
Destiny was set long before Dave ever knew it. It began with a communication between two beings far beyond human understanding in a dimension undreamed of by even the cleverest of human minds. As such this interaction, utterly indescribable, can only be understood symbolically:
Consider a road, a vast wide but empty highway that comes from infinity and leads to infinity. On this road, what can be thought of as male and female Ancient Greek Gods meet. They simply manifest either side of the road and walk towards each other gracefully, meeting in the middle of the wide highway. There is neither affection nor dislike, only nods of acknowledgement. The God seems to have a higher rank than the Goddess, as she appears to be reporting to him.
"
The Chooser has been found" said the one we shall call Diana in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Where?" enquires one we shall call Shan. Simply by willing it, a vast three-dimensional graph manifests at Diana's desire.
"
There" she points to a seemingly innocuous point in the diagram. That, they both knew was precisely the point. It was
supposed to be innocuous so to be undetectable, not only to themselves but also to the Opposites. However it was destined that The Guardians would be gifted with the fortune of stumbling across the location first. With their case cast-iron, and with the opportunity to present their case first, the Opposites were as good as crushed already. But then, they would of course think that way, because of who they were.
"
There is a problem" Diana added.
"A problem?" No problem had been foreseen, least of all to Shan.
"He does not know who he is. He perceives himself as one amongst who he lives with"
"Yes, these beings are aware of only three dimensions and accept the existence of only four. We would literally blow their minds"
"But The Chooser is not one of them, only unaware."
"Well it seems that he IS one of them"
"I agree, but we are confronted with an anomaly. It shouldn't be but it clearly is. Simply revealing ourselves would induce madness and death as with any other lower being."
"Your observations must be wrong."
"Yes they must, but if we proceed disregarding them and The Chooser dies, all is lost. It would seem wiser to proceed in a - well, a process"
"That would alert the Opposites to his presence!"
"I agree, but the choice is between an even risk or a very high one"
"Can a being so low be awakened at all?"
"I believe so."
"Very well, it is decided. Who will perform the awakening?"
"I will do it myself" said Diana. Shan simply nodded, Diana nodded, they turned round and began to walk to opposite sides of the Highway, but both faded from view before they got there. All that remained was the highway, vast empty, just simply there.
.... Dave remembered well the day it all came to an end, the day he stopped being Dave, although it was a long while after that before Dave realised that's what happened. It was a Tuesday in March, particularly bright and sunny outside. Not that it was particularly sunny inside as the curatains were drawn. Regardless, the sun streamed mercilessly through the curtain, but it wasn't the light but Clapton meowing and licking his face that roused Dave into full consciousness, which in turn awakened him to powerful nerve impulses from a full-to-bursting bladder that an immediate visit to the toilet was required.
As usual, while Dave stumbled out into the corridor and turned right towards the smallest room, Clapton risked serious injury excitedly criss-crossing Dave's path as if this would result in getting fed faster. Having miraculously survived this risky endeavour, Clapton began walking tight figure-eights round Dave's ankles, purring for all he was worth, unconcerned by the odd drop of urine-contaminated water that landed on his black glossy fur as Dave was temporarily lost in the ecstacy of relief of relieving himself, the sheer force of which was causing droplets to shoot right out of the bowl. Both Dave and Clapton were blissfully ignorant of this phnomenon that would cause house-proud person to howl in disgust.
With bladder emptied and the ecstacy of relief already a fading memory, Dave was finally aware of Clapton meowing loundly round his ankles, though not adequately awake to give it much thought. He simply finished up (Dave to his credit, was one of the minority men who washed rather than just walked after the event, albeit by instinct rather than virtue) then stumbled into the kitchen where Clapton's bowl was cleaned and recharged with a fresh sachet of brown gloop that was what Clapton had to make do with for food.
Clapton didn't even belong to Dave, but was officially the pet of the landlady downstairs, but as cats do, Clapton had ignored this meaningless title and adopted Dave, who offered more affection, warmth, company when wanted and most importantly a regular supply of food (even if it was brown gloop). Upstairs, while fully self-contained, nevertheless had no independent exit and shared the same exit as the downstairs where Sandra lived. Dave liked to call Sandra "The Last of the Bohemians". She had an exotic promiscuous bisexual lifestyle that Dave had no part of, because that's how Sandra liked it - the lodger was too close to be a partaker.
The arrangement suited them both. Dave was quiet, knew his place, never wandered downstairs beyond the stairs themselves, paid the rent on time and Sandra just let him be. Both knew that they were unlikely to find a lodger/landlady relationship so smooth as theirs, and everyone, particularly Clapton did well out of it - he was the only cat in the street with an upstairs AND downstairs litter tray, though the downstairs one got changed more often because it was gathering dust rather than because Clapton had paid it a visit. In fact Clapton wasn't even his official name, which was "Bobby", but Sandra rarely even thought of Clapton any more, and when she did, she referred to it as "The Cat".
Clapton had been adopted as a kitten as a "good idea at the time" but Sandra's mercurial nature soon tired of the commitment, and it was as a rarely-fed scraggy and neglected youngster that Dave first saw him and took pity on him. Now well-nourished and cherished, Clapton was as happy as a cat could be. Sadly for Clapton, this day which had started so normally was the beginning of the end.
Dave spent the rest of the morning doing the ordinary getting up sort of things before donning the somewhat garish uniform of SunnySide Supermarkets for another busy day of shelf stacking. It wouldn't be right to say Dave loved his job, but neither did he loathe it. He just kinda did it. He wasn't looking to go anywhere else, do anything else, be anyone else. Dave was, well, just Dave.
Many a Zen Monk would have praised his attitude. His colleagues thought little of him other than "that's Dave" and girls who encountered him, often initially attracted by a boyish courteous charm, did if they got involved with him found him frustratingly unambitious and exasperating in the cool way in which he would calmly say OK when he was threatened with being left. Invariably they did and Dave would annoyingly simply shrug and has parting words were usually "OK, bye".
Dave was not averse to an "encounter" or even a relationship, but it became rapidly clear to those he attracted that he had no intention of making any sort of life-changing commitment. Dave liked, but never loved. To be fair no girl ever fell in love with him either, he just didn't do enough to foster anything greater than the initial attraction. On the other hand there was never any bitterness either. Two "exes" still worked where he did and they got on just fine. Not a passionate lover, he still made a good colleague.
On this day that symbolised the end of Dave as Dave understood himself, he was single as single could be, and perfectly content with that status as he strolled down the small but steep hill to where the local branch of Sunnyside Supermarkets was conveniently located only a quarter of a mile away. Dave worked 12-9 Tuesday-Saturday. His refusal to do as much as half-an-hour's overtime often irritated the ever-changing series of managers who run the place, but his reliability and timekeeping made him invaluable.
This day, an event happened that mildly shocked every colleague in the store. For the first time anyone could remember, Dave was going to be late.
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