Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned

Pavlovian Love
featuring
Bien Maldevaran as the Demon, the Soul borne of Contrivance, the successor of the Herald of the Apocalypse, perhaps had he been unimpeded would be the death of the universe, rendering the Wires holding this world into the stasis of life into the silence of alienation, the state of irrelevance, a dead man that you can imagine, imagine if you can a dead man, and this is how the dead might be, if the dead were to walk the earth, bones in place of a physiognomy, flesh rotting undecayed, perhaps in another story, it would be all up in the news, how he killed the plants and poisoned the water, the way he has ruined the world, if the voice of god itself would come for him he might say to give me more time, I have unfinished business, sights to see, guardians to avenge, give me four weeks, and when the month passes by, he'll say no no no this simply isn't enough, isn't it funny, I have lived in this Valley of the Corpses all my life yet saw nothing of it, maybe it is called that because you need to be a corpse to see, the way the pits of the earth sink as a spiral, appearing as dry sand even with the constant downpour, the way the balabago flowers look like eyes that watch the fleeing children, then the soldiers who may as well be children, the river between the enigmatic cliffs, a metronome of time attuned to have no end in sight, no matter how far you walk by it, accompanied by the silt-soot birds, yet certainly leading into the ocean, certainly, give me four months, and then when the four months pass by he'll shake his head and say I have begun to comprehend the nature of what it means to be a space compensated for by time, that is, I have been going around in circles for four months and yet nothing seems familiar, I picked up a bayonet from one of the dead bodies and decided to keep it oriented to the north, regardless of the degree or direction I turned, and maybe a week in I realised I was probably not a very good orienteer, when I passed by the same log-that-was-not-the-same-log, perhaps it would be the same log to anybody else but I noticed these grave, minute differences, I had to question whether I was not holding onto the instrument right or if I was simply very, very, stupid, give me four more years, and when four years pass by he'll say you might as well have called on to me the first day around because I have been here an entire eternity and I have discovered nothing, yet when the dream ends as it is decimated by the consequence of consciousness he might realise the virtues of the nature of hell, wake up all of you miserable corpses, wake up, when you ask me what it is like at the end of the line at the moment of Irrelevancy, this is it, you have to see it for yourself, the Eyes of the Living Incarnate, beloved son, good boy
Sar as Sar

Welcome back, Benedykt! Cheche, just kidding, we can keep calling you Bien. How are you feeling? The operation was a success, as predicted.

Oh, yes, I suppose I skipped the explanation, but we were in a hurry. Remember when I told you about the measures and all? Well, I figured, even if I explained it earlier, you would not understand it very well, because the body you have is incompatible with (Anselir). So, I just modified your body so you can stay {here} without any issues. In (Anselir)! Now it should be easier for you to adjust here in this Space-based measure, so now you should be in better condition to help me with my work. Rozumiesz o czym mówię?

Well, I told you what I would do before I did it. I just replaced your spinal cord.

It wasn't too hard. There isn't a lot of stuff in your body. Well, "not a lot of stuff" is understating it, it's practically empty. Nie, nie, this is typical Demon fare, I didn't mean to suggest there should have been more stuff. Actually, even among the Living, having "more stuff" inside isn't really great, since "more stuff" seems like a euphemistic way of gesturing to fluid in your lungs, or parasites in your stomach, or a tumour in your brain. Demons don't really get those kinds of diseases so it's no matter. If it helps, I made sure you had an adequate amount of stuff inside of you, enough to optimise and not so much to detriment.

Shall I explain in more detail? Nie? Then let's proceed.

Ah, well, this does involve a lot of reading. I know you must be aching to get back there in the battlefield, but unfortunately, as our enemy is one of wits[1] more than strength, you must have a sharpened mind, and we cannot afford to rush. As the saying goes, co nagle, to po diable.

… That may be an ironic choice of proverb.

We can start with my old notebooks. Archiving history is a challenging endeavour in Maldevara, you know? The nature of Time-based measures is inconsistent, and the presence of Marginals does not help. Look at me. Things simply change without the context to hold them into place. To put it a bit more simply, one practical effect of this is that recorded information gets corrupted over time. It is no surprise that they established a government of fleeting entertainments with the Media as Representative, as without a constant supply of new things to consume it gets boring very quickly, with no way to return to what is antiquated…

Ah, I guess I am getting ahead of myself again. Pardon me! I know I must be overwhelming you with all this new information, but truth be told, I am just excited to talk to somebody again!

I have been waiting (here), by myself, for a long, long time[2], that I was almost afraid my prophecies had wavered, and that nobody was going to come back for me, and that I'd be [here] in [Gdyskoti] forever, alone.

… I mean, sure, there are the birds, but I'd rather have a person, like you.

When I was about your age, I met an Angel, who offered me these notebooks. Angels are the most adept when it comes to the technology of permanence, and the ink on these pages is just as fresh as the day I first typed[3] them down.

Let me see… I apologise in advance as most of these notes are not exactly, er, systemic, in their organisation. It's not particularly feasible to organise what you're going to write before you even know what it is. That you're going to write. Ta-ta-ta… Ah, you can start with this one! It is something I got from the MargiBirds—you remember when I told you they can do tricks if you feed them something they like, right?—anyway, I gathered a lot of information before I died from these sorts of exchanges. But, like I said, they only repeat information they gain secondhand, so not all of these are coherent.

If anything seems too confusing, I don't want you to feel bad about it, okay? I've studied these for years and even I don't understand them all myself. Che, even when you study to become a scholar… co dwie głowy, to nie jedna. It's always worth to get a second opinion, and as this excerpt is about Demon powers, maybe you'll see something that I don't?

[1] Or rather, one of endless niggling.
[2] Choice of words used for communicative convenience and not necessarily literal.
[3] Typewriter claimed from the Lamadamargidae of Malena, Neofrene, in exchange for a copy of the children's book "Cubey the Cat Goes To Castle Curiousity".

"Much of the faculty of magic becomes concentrated in the eye, a demon itself may represent as the eyes of the living incarnate. As the particles of air, units so complete yet distant all able to penetrate through the every of spaces, with only a hole penetrated by the thinnest of needles, any vulnerability is not only visible but easily exploitable. The devil does not have a heart. This devil perceives but lacks experience, or rather the experience becomes as intangible as soul, the devil will not agree if you refuse to play, the manifestation of the herald marks the beginning of the game.

"It is understood that there is no winning against the devil, although there is a way to extend the game to several rounds. Contrivance as the machine of negotiation, the demand for just compensation. The devil's fingers are the thinnest needles in the world, the body is a vessel susceptible to holes, to be captured is to be sublimated into the enemy team.

"The universe loves as it loves, as it fights is to aid in of running away. One simply must move forward into time.

"The experience of love is a hole in itself, the devil will invoke it. He who loves what more than what can love for life loses immediately, for such looks back, and the mechanism is such - through the manner of perception, the function of one's eyes, like an engorged tick or an inflated balloon, eventually a bloated corpse, you will experience a possession as your organs being crushed inside of you. If you take your feet off the ground, the world will not hear your footsteps, and it cannot hold your hand. Your teeth and hair and nails may be the first to fall out. Your lungs and heart and blood coalesce into your esophagus as forced into the smallest space, your limbs expand as barotraumatic fungal sores, your spinal cord becomes a doll's elastic a puppet's string and a body's wire. This devil will turn your ribcage into an abode. This devil will hold your arteries in its palm. This devil will weave the blood vessels between fingers and the blood into wings, then wave around the fibres of musculature as the flag of droll amusements. This devil does not have a heart. Possession is a taphonomic embolism that forces the soul to make space where there is none and the world to make time where it has run out. This devil will nibble then imbibe your existence like soup first stitch together the body second or rather simultaneous as"

"so as the mechanism of such. This is reality as agreement of the soul and a pithy illusion as evidenced of the body, a mind may serve to negotiate.

"The first path is to make it through, avoiding the revelation of the vessel's holes, entry barred for that fatal distention. When one loves as love for life as life, for life to be an act of living itself, such is the love that becomes contrary to death; if life exists forward into that time, one keeps to looking and escapes. The devil can skip a turn this way, although it is automatic that a round returns eventually. This time the game is to hide.

"The price one pays for quality love is to have one's existence implode and writhe and entangle within you, for a vessel to crash in onto itself is merely a kindness that allows it to end. When the devil invokes and consequently kills, the introduction of a paradox through a contrived conceived marginal note buys enough time, if not to live then to argue with.

"The second path is to look and yet still live, and anybody who lives deserves to suffer.

"If an angel can contain the devil within an impenetrable vessel before the soul can radiate, the body becomes a mechanism for control. It need only contain a heart and a spinal cord."

- Account by the Lamadamargidae of Gdyskoti, Anselir

In exchange for all four premolar teeth

Notes: That's the most coherent account I've ever gotten out of these sick fucks. Well, coherent is overstating it. 'Detailed' might be a better word. I don't remember any of this at all, so I can only assume I won (delayed) through the 'first path' which, if I understand correctly, was just to run and hide away. My jaw feels numb and I can't get the taste of ink out of my mouth.

So, did you notice anything interesting?

Ah, you didn't get it… either. It's no worries. I did tell you, these accounts aren't the peak of clarity, are they? They might be a little too abstract for someone of your particular intuitions… Let's take a short break. Are you hungry? Is there anything particular you want to eat? Just a chocolate cake[4]? Wait here and I'll check the {kitchen}. Feel free to reread those pages I showed you, but try not to touch any of my other books while I'm gone, okay? I haven't finished sorting them out yet, and I don't want to lose track.

[4] Truly the Devil's food.

I'm back!

Oh, you've uh. Made a mess of the pens. Okay.

Well, I did technically ask you not to touch the books, so it would be a little unfair to get angry about this, not that I could get angry to begin with. Besides, it was an accident, wasn't it? Enjoy your cake while I clean up a little, then we can go back to working.

Do you like the cake? It's chocolate, just like you wanted, some nice butter ermine frosting and vanilla icing between the layers of sponge… Technically, even a simple cake might take an hour or so to make, but in this measure a lot of tasks can be finished instantaneously[5]. It might be disconcerting at first, but you'll pick up on it in time. Or not-time? Cheche.

[5] That is, if you know what you're doing: otherwise, the exact opposite happens, and it never seems like anything gets done. Such is the nation of atemporality.

Are you done? You can just put the plate by that empty spot on the table there. Over there. Look to where I'm pointing. Good. Here, let's try reading something a little more straightforward.

An Introduction to the Anselir-Maldevaran Migration: Part of a Series on the History of The Court of the Living

INTRODUCTION

█nselir is the sixth Marginal nation, with twelve different regions, although most existing records only describe its southmost region Gdyskoti, which is adjoined to Malde████'s northmost region, Jesenne.

Approximately fifty years after Maldevara was officiated as the seventh Marginal nation, the entire Court of Anselir was transferred to Maldevara. Of 392 citizens, ██ were successfully transferred.

Complete records of the event are currently inaccessible, although parts of the narrative have been pieced together through a collection of old legal documents, historical artifacts and communication with Marginals of the Lamadamargidae subclass («proto-Marginals» or more informally «MargiBirds»).

In this paper, a synthesis of this information wi█l be briefly analysed. A review of the basic functions and history of the Court are provided as preliminary context.

REVIEW

When one is first inducted into the «Court of the Living», to be employed[1] as a «Judge», it is easy to find one's self confused. Later attempts at finding answers may be met with dismissive reprimands, with one's ignorance attributed to falling asleep during the «O█ientation», although no Judge can recall any such on-boarding introductions occurring.

The average Maldevaran citizen from a young age is exposed to rumours of a torturous life within the Court, and is thus disincentivised from allowing one's self to fall into the social alienation prerequisite to being carted away, although the newly inducted Judge will be quick to discover that after a period of time, the tasks of a Judge are not so much excruciating as they are dull and cumbersome. A non-exhaustive list of a Judge's tasks, collectively referred to by the Marginals under the umbrella term of «Trials», is provided (Dataset 1).

Once the Judge is lulled into a sense of security, however, is often when the despair of boredom slowly starts to set in. The Marginals, as a «Mind-based species» are susceptible to certain forms of external influence, and the Judges are expected to follow suit with their lifestyle. Thus, while a Judge's life is not strictly controlled per se, autonomy is restricted by the sheer lack of things to do. Most hobbies are Illegal, and even if they were not there are often no feasible materials to conduct hobbies with.

The Courts are barren places. Each J█dge is given their own living quarters, which comprises of not much more than a bed, a desk, a chair, a lamp, a telephone and a 40 × 60 centimetre chest for what few personal belongings are not Illegal to possess. A list of these items can be found in Dataset 2. Each bedroom has attached a small bathroom.

There are three communal places: the dining room, the archives and the garden. All food is prepared by Robo-Maids in an inaccessible kitchen, and while Judges are obligated to eat in the dining room, there is no set schedule, and food is simply ready for any time anybody would like to have a meal. Reading materials may only be checked out of the archives if it is assigned as a Trial; otherwise, while it is Legal to read within the archives itself, all text that is read o█tside of Trials will either be in meaningless gibberish, or an unknown language. The garden, supposedly, has plants, although there is no way of ascertaining this, or more specifically, it is meaningless even if true[2].

Any other facility that may have some function is not delegated to any accessible place in the Court, but requires calling a Marginal to take one to such a place (eg a clinic).

The Judges are only mandated to work four hour█ █ day, every other day, and the rest is free time in which they are left alone to do any Legal activities one sees fit, which, as aforementioned, are not significant, both statistically and emotionally.

Notably, it is Legal to leave any time and to return to Outside society. For the most part, it merely seems no Judge can find a worki█ exit.

Due to the disjointed nature of Space and Time, transportation between countries, even adjacent ones, is a difficult process, and one often deemed unnecessary, as the establishment of the █arginalian Government and the provision of basic n█eds and stipends renders most reasons for migration and trade between countries unnecessary. While migrating for other reasons is not Illegal, it is a cumbersome, bureaucratic process requiring the completion of several forms, licenses and other requirements. These requirements seem to arbitrarily change relatively quickly and are applied retroactively, before previous applications have been processed, rendering any completed steps void and mandating a citizen start from the beginning.

Practically, there is only one situation in which a █iving being may move to another Nation: when it is the Marginals themselves that have mandated one do so. The reason for why this may happen is currently not ascertained, a█though it has been associated with tensions between the Immortal species: Marginals, Angels and Demons.

The migratory process begins with an orientation detailing the specific location to be migrated to, the expected time and the method of how to get there. The Anselir-Maldevara migration was undertaken by foot on 24 December, (46279█3-6-)108, 0900. from the starting point of Dekarzi, Gdyskoti█ Anselir to Courofor, Jesenne, Maldevara. Specific instructions, such as to keep one's self to the ground, to look at only specific directions, and to conduct specific conversations at a prompted time, were given. These are presumed to be necessary timekeeping measures, although the significance of each action were not specified further.

The Living are split into pairs of two and travel accompanied by a Marginal. The path is guided[3] by several MargiBirds, with the present Marginal serving as an interpreter for the Living pair they accompany.

Whether this process is typical of a migration or exclusive to the Anselir-Mal██v█ra one cannot be determined.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The migration was concluded on 25 December, (█627903-█-)██, 0000, sixteen hours later.

Three hundred and ninety-two Anselirians were chosen for the migration. Although there are preliminary sources[4] claiming that only Judges are allowed to participate, at least two Outside citizens were taken: A███a Tarnowska (human, F, age 2█), and her son Antoni Tarnowski (human, M, age 4). While his mother was not reported among the ██ successful transferees, Antoni Tarnowski was accepted as a Maldevaran citizen and renamed ███████ Tarnowska in accordance with more conventional Maldevaran naming styles.

According to an inquiry with the Media ((462█903-█-███), all the previous Anselirians citizens were relocated all over Maldevara and assimilated successfully into society to continue living a normal life:

"…besides you (███████ Tarnowska), since your family has a poor reputation among the Anselirians, and nobody would take you. Attempts at getting you to assimilate into a Maldevaran community ended in disaster, so we gave up after two years of you trying to maim other school children and decided to give you a position in the Court. Admittedly, we didn't █ave any Laws against inducting childr█n at the time, though it just hadn't been a problem before. I mean, we don't typically keep children here. It's not very good for their mental development. Clearly. Ahem. If one's impropriety persists into adu█thood, then we take them, although an exce█tion was made for your case, because of… you know. The visions. After all that effort ███log█ put into bringing you here too, might as well."

Notably, an entire spill of MargiBirds (exact numbers unknown) migrated to Maldevara, atypical of the expected behaviour in which they would stay in their usual habitats in Anselir.

Although there was a brief investigation into this unusual behaviour, no conclusive results could be attained, and it was decided that:

"While it's convenient for us to know where the MargiBirds are, specifically, there isn't a Legal obligation for them to stay in a particular place. There's more than enough of them that if we ever needed their cooperation, we could search for an adequate number of participants easily. The migratory MargiBirds did not seem to disrupt any of the Maldevaran citizens, nor did they enter into conflict with the other MargiBirds that had lived in Maldevara first, so in the end it was deemed that all the paperwork it took to recording the status of each one was kind of a waste of ink. Are you writing this down? Could you retroactively change me saying 'MargiBird' to 'the Lamadamargidae'? Or at least 'proto-Marginals', though I imagine that term is a bit more ill-defined. You know they don't have to be birds, right? It's completely incidental. And I really had nothing to do with it. So I'd rather avoid tenuous associations… you're not going to change it, are you? Please go back to your room, Anthony. Yes, I know that's not how your name

APPENDICES

A. Datasets

Dataset 1 - TASKS UNDER TRIALS

Transcription and data-encoding; occasionally through a technological device, but more often than not hand-written
Errand running, often procuring consumable products from Outside
Playing video games, usually text-based adventure or role playing games
Media analysis
Annotations, usually but not necessarily the High Judge's duty

Jewellery
Clothes
Packaged snacks (eg candy, biscuits); all other consumable items must be eaten in the dining room
One hammer, or adjacent items (eg a mallet)
One pointed chisel, or adjacent items (eg an icepick)

All these items are provided by the Court, and the Judges are permitted to trade with one another or to request a Marginal to replace an item. How "adjacent items" is defined is contingent on a Judge's ability to convince a Marginal their desired replacement is such.

B. Footnotes

[1] An interesting choice of words, as «employment» implies one applied for the position, which a Judge typically did not, although «slavery» may also fail at communicating adequately, as it implies one is not paid, which the Judges are.

[2] Due to Maldevara existing within a measure of Time, physical Spaces do not follow a consistent set of physics: like most of Maldevara, traversing "space" is not a matter of moving across distances, but rather of moving across time. To arrive at a different "place" is contingent on how long one expects to arrive there. While this is applicable to the entire nation, it is not typically within the limited perceptual range of Living beings. However, it is obvious to the Judges in the Court, assumed to be a side effect of living in close proximity to the Marginals, and the disorientation it imposes strains one's mental faculties in a way that the management of recreational tasks and the ability to process one's surroundings becomes impaired. While physically, there is no change in how one perceives reality, the qualitative internal experience of it becomes muddled and surreal, often described as if the very core from which reality is experienced becomes detached: things look, sound, feel, smell and taste the same, but this sensory information is always interpreted as foreign or insignificant. It can be inferred that this is an approximation of how Marginals experience perception.

[3] This information was gathered through exchanges with the migratory MargiBirds, although their inability for fluent communication and overall reliability may be up for debate.

[4] As a MargiBird typically stays in a specific habitat for extended periods, the compensatory Space that makes up that habitat is attuned to the internal Time a MargiBird keeps, and their mere presence around a being can make travels faster and easier, or in the case of more perilous journeys, possible.

Oh? Done already? O jejku, you're such a fast reader.

Did you actually read it?

Is it too long? Oh, well, it is indeed longer than the first passage I gave you, isn't it? I do a lot of reading, then rereading, then rerereading, actually, I think I've forgotten what the baseline for the "correct" amount of reading is! I figured, with all the reading that radio should have made you done, you'd be able to catch up, but ah… no, it's not your fault, przepraszam za to zamieszanie. Look at me. Look at me. Listen.

Ultimately, a few months of rigorous reading is nothing compared to my experience. It's unfair to compare.

We can do a simpler task for now.

O, nie-nie-nie, I said don't worry about it. Don't worry your head. Skimming's an essential skill, improves readability, can hardly blame you for it. And besides, you just woke up, how insensitive of me, I suppose I should let you acclimate yourself to your new circumstances first.

Tak-tak-tak, of course, I believe you can do it, why wouldn't I? I just don't think we need to do it right now. You know, I am very different from your little, ah, przyjaciel z radia, o mały głos-ary, I can wait. First, let's do something easier, yes? First, something easy.

Co? What do you mean, the "blocks" are distracting the readability?

What blocks? Look at me.

What blocks?

No, I can't see them myself. Maybe your eyes aren't accustomed to this measure yet. Let's do something sightless. You like the piano, tak? Dokładnie, tak. Here, I'll show you another magic trick. Let me just… hmm… there should be a scrap of sheet music I used as a bookmark here once… ah, there it is! Now you see it, now…

Ta-dah! It's a phonograph. Aww, yes, it's a phonograph I already owned, it was in the other room. I guess it's not as fun to do magic when you already know the trick, cheche. Oh well. Come over here. Look at me. Come here, over to my side. For now, let's just listen to some music. You can do that, yes? We can just stay put and listen.

DATEKEN - Pavlovian Love (English lyrics and cover by rolypolyphonic)

Nocturne in E-flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2 - Chopin (Rendition by Jascha Heifetz and André Benoist [ Source ])

Sheet music: Michael Kravchuk [ Source ]

"Historia lalek saranzańskich" translation: Calcar

Faworki recipe: Ania Gotuje [ Source ]

"The Kingdom of Dogs" - Matthew Addams [ Source ]

"Wrona kaszkę warzyła": Based from "Sroczka kaszkę warzyła"

The Bible: The Catholic Church