That day, it was raining gloomily. I suddenly felt the chill down my spine at the middle of the day. That was how we got together and had that long chat. It turned out that he was practising qigong—the Chinese breathing exercise. He was following his Chinese master, who looked a bit like the deceased former Chinese Premier Zhou. We talked about qigong, its benefits to human beings and the human kind. And we talked about abnormalities and supernatural phenomena. For him, it was all our ignorance of the existences beyond our mere physical form which led to our beliefs of ghosts and spirits. According to him, some of them could well be long-living human beings, going about their own businesses. There were several stages of accomplishment one could achieve through qigong. The first stage was to be able to exercise and keep oneself healthy and good (morally). The second one was to be able to diagnose others their illnesses and weakness and be able to treat them with qigong. The third one was to be able to teleport to anywhere one wanted. The last stage was to be able to make things out of nothing, a kind of god-like creation, I thought. I half believed him and half steadied myself against my own moments of weaknesses.
My Golf was running nicely in this heavy downpour. The Germans! If I won the lottery, my car or cars would still be German-made. Hopefully, the merge with East Germany would not destroy this kind of supremely reliable quality, engineering and manufacturing at its best. So what did go wrong with Communism? That seemed to be too big an issue to contemplate before my first real game-play experience of that so-name Omni Game Machine. What would be its differences against the likes of PS, X-Box, Gamecube…It was the mysteriousness surrounding that place which made my heart thump with an curious expectation of the unknown.
When I came to the Door, I was asked to sign a number of forms. It seemed that they were really concerned about the secrecy of this Machine and they wanted to assure maximum security. And they gave me a pay rise, which was 200 hundred pounds a night. I would never have betrayed them anyway. I would not throw away this job for anything. It was me, it was my life, since I had been looking for a properly paid meaningful job for a long time. In any case, I was a loyal person. I would stay loyal to a Master if he or she had been good to me. I remembered one friend in London, who was a China-watcher, had remarked on the Chinese desire of finding the shelter for his or her body and soul in the form of a master or a teacher or a fatherly figure. I mainly agreed with him. It was certainly in my blood, the desire to serve a good Master in the course of serving a good cause, which would give meaning to my mere existence. It is easy to survive, but difficult to pursue a living, where there needs to be justifiable purpose.
This time, I was directed into the other corridor, and into another room. In the middle of it, there stood this so-called Omni Game Machine. It looked like a space ship, its shining surface of a dark green colour. This place certainly favoured the colour of green, the colour of life. I always preferred that golden orange colour of the sunrise or sunset. It was hope or harmony, the never-ending cycle of life. It was well-lit inside, so I could see a comfortable-looking chair. Once inside, it felt like in the pilot cabin of a spaceship. The door was automatically closed. I was wearing a green body suit, as it happened. As usual, Omni was there on the screen. Today, Omni was using a girl’s voice, a bit like that of the AOL woman in the advert. I was excited, without any obvious reasons.
‘Here we go, the world!’
I was asked to try out the comfortable seat I was sitting in. It could be adjusted to all angles, so that it was possible for me to lie on it like a bed, staring at the ceiling of the Omni Machine. It must be a paradise for any games addicts with such a machine. You were left completely alone in your own fantasy world. The outside world could not see or hear what your were up to. The inside walls of the Machine were all computer screens which could be used to show your the things you wanted.
I tried out the lying position which was very comfortable.
'Would you like to have a swim on your back before you start?'
said Omni.
'Yes, please!'
I was no swimmer. I could not swim properly. But I really liked to swim on my back. It was such an enjoyment to be able to float on the water and watch the clouds moving across the sky.
Omni did just that. All of a sudden, I felt like floating on the water, with the sound of seagulls and a blue sky with white clouds moving about. I was instantly back to my childhood and my favourite Yangtze River, where I learnt swimming.
I lived near rivers all my early years. I was almost drowned many a time. But I never got around to learn swimming until I was in middle school. By then, I had learnt to hold my breath for a minute and half, which was a record at our school. With that ability, I felt I was ready to learn swimming in the nearby Yangtze River, where every summer killed a number of people. There was no one to teach me. The first thing I learnt was to float on my back. I just managed it somehow, and I really enjoyed it. The waves came up and went. It was like floating in a world of my own. Sometimes, I could see others, sometimes, I was left on my own with the blue sky and the birds.
On the left-side screen, I suddenly noticed that there was a Chinese girl floating on her back as well. It was just like what happened so many years ago. She was wearing a red swimming suit. She had a nice womanly figure. That was my first notice of the world of femininity. At that time in China, we did not have any proper sex education, apart from the little and vague education in biology at middle school. The opposite sex was a bit of mystery for us boys. In any case, I was forever so busy and immersed in my boyish adventures that I had little time to notice the girls.
The sight of that young woman's body on the water had aroused in me some curiosity. But that was that. My formal entry into the feminine world was years after that. I enjoyed that for a little while, until Omni reminded me that it was time to work.
I sat up and was required to play the Minesweeper game again. Omni told me that this was part of the behavioural password to start loading the game. Besides, my body temperature, my temperament, my eyes, my finger prints and other things all formed part of the entry code into the world of the game called Omnipotence. Omni said that they could not take any chances, and the game itself was scattered in encrypted pieces around the World Wide Web. While I played the Minesweeper game, the Machine started to assemble the pieces to the Omnipotence Game. The extreme they went to hide this game made me wonder what sort of game it could be, with such secrecy and such an ambitious name. According to Omni, the pieces of the Game was hidden everywhere in web accounts, web emails, web programs and had copies hidden in personal PCs without the notice of the owners.
‘How could that be possible?’
I asked Omni.
‘Well, they have been transmitted through the millions of freebies on the web, such as free downloads of programs and files, questionnaires, free email alerts, and so on. You human beings just love freebies, don’t you, something for nothing!’
There was a slight arrogance and contempt in Omni’s voice. ‘Yes, we do.’ I thought to myself. Did that show a basic weakness in our human nature. Maybe.
.
By now, the Game was fully loaded and ready. The word ‘Omnipotence’ was flashing on the screen. I clicked on it to get it started. The next screen listed a number of options from personal, to local, to national, to global.
‘Which one should I choose, Omni?’
‘Let’s start on the personal one. And choose Stock Market on the next screen.’
I was introduced to Stock Market, its history, its rules of operation, its various markets around the globe and their current status. It showed me some screen shots of the London Stock Market where people of different coloured jackets were shouting and signalling to each other. Apparently, they were very busily engaged in their trading and not aware of being watched.
‘But, Omni, is it the real thing?’
‘Yah, it is the real thing. Omnipotence is a real-life game, not the usual games of fantasy, which are available from other game machines.’
‘What am I supposed to do?’
I was excited but equally nervous. As far as I knew before that moment, games were fantasies for fun and entertainment. The choice of specific games may reflect your own personal characteristics such as your age, your education, your hobbies, your past experiences, your aspirations, and others. I was more into shooting and war games. I was trained as a child civilian soldier at primary school. At the time, my old gun was taller than me, and my shoulder was bruised by the heavy weight of it. But I really enjoyed the shooting and other war games. I was one of the top cadets, which made me a popular boy in our school.
‘We are going to introduce a new tool to the world of stock market. It is called the Bulletin Board where investors can discuss and exchange information, ideas and whatever they like or dislike about a company. This will be fun, Phil!’
‘But why?’
‘Because Omnipotence is about providing the tools to empower individual human beings to fight deficiencies or evils in the existing world systems. Before now, the stock market is tightly controlled by major investment funds and governments through the controls of market regulations and manipulations. It does not allow the democratic participation of individual shareholders in the running of companies. And share price movements do not reflect the contribution a company is making to the global and local community. If you look around, you will find that companies with highly humanly and environmentally damaging businesses are still rated among the blue chips in the stock market. This should never be the case. With the establishment of the BB system around the globe, we are going to destroy or expose such business, or at least make life a lot harder for businesses whose activities involve mainly harming the human kind and the earth itself.’
I was shocked by Omni’s long speech. I became more curious about the person who was behind all this. The Boss! I found myself in no contradiction to the idea portrayed by Omni. The world we were living in was a world which tolerated many evils or so-called systematic deficiencies. Many people were suffering from systems of vicious cycles, whereby through no fault of their own, they suffered and endured lives of misery because of the deprivation of equality, freedom, and opportunity through various of imperfect social systems. Yes, I believed in the Communist Utopia, as much as I believed in the religious idea of Heaven. But with the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the former Eastern Block, the idea of socialism or communism had been discarded as some impossible fantasy with a lot of deficiencies in itself. Heaven or Utopia (however appealing they were), the more urgent or important issue seemed to be how to get there. It was like the preaching from the wise men in ivory towers: it is not the methodology which is wrong, it is how we implement it that will make all the differences. It was like blaming the computer rather than us human beings who operated the machines. Computer error, or human error?!
I clicked on the ‘install’ button on the screen, and Omnipotence started to go about its business of installing the Bulletin Board system around the globe. It set up web-based financial companies, which offered free or discount share trading and a fully comprehensive on-line service. One of the services included was the BB where individuals could have their say. Various web advertising messages were sent around the global web system. The chosen entry market at first was the US market, where most web-based investors were located.
While Omnipotence went about its business, Omni asked me to play some games with it. It seemed that the local drive of the Omni Machine was loaded with all sorts of games, ranging from arcade, adventure, puzzle, design, building, intelligence, educational and other games, supported by various web sites offering such games. Omni’s favourite game was a musical game, where you could write your own songs. You could write your own words and try to find adequate music for the song, or vice versa. You could do it manually by listening to various choices or the Machine will auto-match it for you. In the two player mode, one player could do the music, then ask the opponent to fill in the words. The Machine or the computer was the final judge. There was also options to match a song to a particular scenery or story. It was certainly fun for Omni. I just went along with it, since I was very much non-musical but was well-paid to have this kind of fun, while Omnipotence went about its business.
The musical game was actually quite interesting, even for a non-musical person like myself. We flicked through thousands of video footages taken everywhere in the world, and tried to match the scenes with songs. I picked out a boring scene to challenge Omni. It was a grass bowling court. An old gentleman was mowing the grass in the sunshine. Another old gentleman looked on and helped to empty the grass once in a while. There were two dogs, one white and one black, lying on the ground with their tongues out. It was a peaceful and boring everyday scene. It took Omni several minutes to produce a makeshift song. He was keen to challenge me with another ordinary scene. It was a piece of video footage from a train station. I made up some words for a possible song:
She was sitting on the platform with a smile in her face,
She was talking to her friends sitting on the bench in front of her,
Cigarettes butts everywhere and she was sitting on the platform with pigeon shit everywhere,
Her red top lightened up her smile,
Her blue jeans perfect to her long legs,
People walking about everywhere,
People staring from all angles,
She was smiling, talking, living in her own world,
Trains came and trains went,
People got on and got off,
She was talking with a smile sitting on her own island,
Her blonde hair blowing this way and that way,
Rain poured down and rain stopped,
There was rainbow every where,
She was sitting on the platform with a smile in her face,
Train came and train went,
People got on and people got off,
Rain poured down and rain stopped,
There was rainbow everywhere.
Omni was mightily impressed, and he was busily trying out all sorts of tunes trying to match the words and the scene. Omni thought it might be best for a rap song. Omni wanted me to find some words for a melodic song. So it went like this:
She was sitting alone,
With long black hair blowing in the wind,
Along a deserted track all by herself,
It was a sunny day not a cloud in a blue blue sky,
What would anyone so beautiful sitting alone along a deserted track,
Trains hurried by and she was looking this way and that way,
As if she was expecting somebody from afar,
All of a sudden rain came pouring down like mad,
Trains hurried in and off,
People got on and off,
Then, she was gone with the summer wind,
Not a scent nor a shadow,
Trains rumbled in and out,
People rushed on and off,
She was gone along the rainbow in the sky,
Not a scent nor a shadow…
Omni was again amused. While we were playing the game. On the screen, it showed that all major financial markets around the globe were ready for the BB game. Omni asked me to register myself with a web site called www.triple-eye.com. I duly obliged. Then, Omni helped to go through the rules of the game. I was to invest ten thousand pounds in the London stock market. I was supposed to spread my bets in small size on a number of small companies, mainly listed on AIM. Omni said that the money was for real, but I would be not responsible for any losses. Any gains were for me to keep. Apparently, they wanted to try out this system as if I was a real investor. Perhaps, they wanted to see how well it worked in the real world. According to Omni, this was a first-time real-world launch for Omnipotence. After that, I would be left alone to devise where to apply Omnipotence in the various spheres of real-life situations. During the tea break, I questioned Omni about the aim of the Game. Omni gave me a long speech.
‘The aim of the Game is to empower all the individuals in the world. Individuals’ voices should be heard and individual efforts should matter, however big a system they are dealing with. This trial launch is aimed at the global financial market, which has always been dominated by the systems, made up of powerful central banks, large funds and the most powerful and riches individuals in the world. The simple infrastructure of the Bulletin Board on the internet should empower the individual investors. It may cause severe chaos to the status quo and dramatic rises and falls of the market. But in the long run, people will learn how to play this game properly.’
Omni finished this serious speech with a little chuckle, as if it was nothing but a game. But I knew this would be the biggest game ever designed with serious consequences. On the other hand, I could see that Omni had a point. I had been investing in shares for years. But every time I received annual reports, I just threw them into bins and ignored my right to vote. Why should I bother, since I knew I must be one of the million of small private investors whose voices would not matter anyway? And I witnessed many wicked phenomena in the stock market, where share price movements did not positively correlate with the companies’ behaviours towards customers or their products. Profit and dividends always came first, then perhaps a good relationship with all the big fund managers, the so-called City. The so-called ethical investments must be only a minor part of a large portfolio, which must be there for window-dressing. But the market had been like that for as long as it existed. So could a small infrastructural change like the web-based Bulletin Board change all that and empower the little individual investors? I was full of suspicion to say the least.
On the way home, I thought the insfrastructural change and the little events in history that changed the course of the human development. They were all specific discoveries or endeavours, such as the steam engine, the campus, the paper, the gunpowder, and so on. It was these little things that really made history. People with big visions all failed miserably, because they relied too much on grand plans, which tended to go wrong one way or the other. What you really needed was a trigger or a new medium, which changed the way people did things or talked about things. In business management, professors talked a lot about strategic planning and other grand scenarios. But little things along the way could make the whole plan impossible to be implemented. Sometimes, it could be the human beings. Sometimes, it was technology or production process. Other times, it was the wider environment. What might have worked was some little things that could change the way people talked or thought about things or did things. A shared I-drive and a work-in-progress screen could make a group of secretaries to work more effectively and efficiently. After all, we were a society dependent on individual human beings. When we had changed the way we thought and talked, and the way we worked, we would be ready to change the world or to face a changing world because of technological, political or other reasons. The more I thought about it, I more I liked the Omnipotence Game.
It was before Christmas that I started to work from home during the day. A complete internet-ready PC package was delivered to my home and Omni sneaked into my home with the PC. I had used the Internet before. It was a sunny day when I started my first trading. I bought 10 AIM shares, which were mostly internet-related companies. The AIM market at the time was still very quiet. I noticed that there were three beautiful butterflies lodging on the side-wall of our house. Omni showed me scenes of many people logging onto the internet and bought shares just like I did. So they were also part of the Omni.com empire. They
were of various races, some Chinese, some white, some black, and so on. Many of them were young and energetic. The trading rooms were getting busier with phone and on-line trading. The media coverage was getting ready for something exciting. On the Sunday before, there was an article in a major national newspaper listing all the British internet entrepreneurs.
From then on, it was like a dream coming true. I posted various discussions on the Bulletin Boards, and enjoyed the tremendous run my shares had enjoyed. Messages of various nature were posted. Some were rumours; some speculations; some comments; some pure fantasy; some critical (though they were usually red-crossed by fellow BB members as they were only in favour of bullish comments); and so on. It seemed that the private investors were piling into penny shares in a big way while the institutions hesitated. Because the absolute abnormality between demand and supply, the penny shares boomed. On the day, when one of my shares rocketed to ten-folds, I was opening the window when one of the three butterflies flew away. I got really carried by the success I had. I seemed to have forgotten it was all a game of fantasy. With Omni around, I seemed to have got a knuck of triggering investors’ sentiments, and I became one of the most popular posters. And it seemed that some financial journalists also paid attention to my writing. When I let out the second butterfly, I read in a paper an exact copy of my comment on a certain company, and that share boomed. Making money was easy and everything seemed to be going the right way. Omni was just watching me closely, and the whole of my performance during that period was closely recorded.
On the day when I let out the third butterfly, the TMT (technology, media and telecom) share market crashed. It was a massive crash. All over the Bulletin Boards, there were shocking reactions from many private investors. Then, news came that the American Mafia gangs had been messing about with the market and had made millions, if not billions. It was like a sweet dream turned into a nightmare. I did not lost my shirt, and I was paid for my work. But I was really stunned by what had happened. But why? I thought this Omnipotence game was here to help the people rather than make them suffer. I asked Omni and had to wait for an answer when we got back to the HQ of Omni.com.
I went back to Omni.com HQ on a gloomy day. On the way, people were suffering from a bad mood. There were a few bad overtaking, which were really dangerous on the winding roads of Lincoln. Lincoln’s roads were rated as the most dangerous in the whole of Britain. I just couldn’t understand the logic of making these roads so twisting and turning. It was almost the curse of Lincolnshire. People talked about the past glory of Lincoln as the castle fort of mid-England. But since it was deviated from the main motorway and railway, things had gone from bad to worse. I could see why it was so bad to be out of the main transport infrastructure. It would even be worse to be left out of the main information highway. And that was perhaps why the United States were booming, because they were the main architects of this world-wide information highway and their companies seemed to be at every leading edge of technological advancement. The gap was enlarging between the States and the rest of the world, let alone that between the States and the developing countries. But what about this Omnipotence game, which seemed to aim for providing a communications infrastructure for the private investors. Omni seemed to think of many big things when I was given that long speech. My heart was full of puzzles. I really wanted to talk to Omni.
(finished on 20th September, 2000.)
Chapter 3 The Boss
I went to have the special shower, which would coat me with a layer of man-made skin. I suddenly heard the sound of water splashing onto the floor and realised that someone was in the shower. I just could not believe it. I had been working here at Omni.com for so long that I had never been able to meet a real human being in the flesh. The only ones I saw on my computer screen were probably simulations by Omni. I got really excited by the very thought of meeting a real person here after all. Could it be that Chinese girl with her hair curled up, whom I had supposedly blown up during the minesweeper games. Obviously, I knew she must be alive, because everything here seemed to be too nice to involve any real killings.
I was ready for my tea break. Tonight, I was extremely keen to take an early break, since I had a mouthful of questions to ask Omni. We sat there and talked for a long time. Most of the time, I was staring at the moon and the deep blue sky. Out of a sudden, there was a little gasp and I turned my head towards her direction. She had disappeared. In her stead, a shiny silver machine dog was sitting there, quite comfortably on her chair. The dog was smiling at me, as if it knew me for a long time. Life was never boring at Omni.com. I had tried out various forms of Omni Games. Sometimes, Omni would appear in the shape of a female Robot. She would play all sorts of sports games with me. In football, she would be the goalkeeper. There would be instant displays about how badly and how well I kick the penalties or free kicks. It was great fun. It was certainly different from my Wall, which was silent and reassuring. Omni would give me all the statistics in the world, which made every kick of mine seem more skilful than I had imagined. Of course, we had the sensors to detect any goals coming into the net, so there was definitely no possibility for error of judgement, which often occurred in real games with humn referees. One day, after we had a few sessions of table tennis, Omni announced that I was going to meet the Boss for the second time. However much I liked Omni’s company, meeting the Boss was always something to look forward to. This time, I went to meet her in the swimming pool. One rainy December day, I went to work at Omni.com as usual. When I arrived, I sensed that something was not quite right about the whole place. The green front door was open and the mini-computer by the side was broken. There was no Omni there. The screen was blank. Fear suddenly fell upon me, and I could feel my heart thumping wildly. What had happened? I wondered. I sneaked into the door on tip-toes.
I tried to bury my thoughts in the fish and chips on my plate. I was not comfortable of being called a ‘guinea pig’. I liked this job and Omni. I did not dislike this Boss either. She seemed to know me quite well, and we got on like two people who knew each other from a long way back. Obviously, I was conscious that I knew very little about her. Somehow, I felt close to her as if her history would be understandable to me, once revealed. But on this occasion, she seemed to be on the verge of trying to be cruel to me, or was it just a glimpse of her sense of humour? I ate my fish and chips in silence, without tasting anything. Update on 8th November, 2000:
Suddenly, she let go of my hand, as if she had lost her battle. Her body ballooned and it changed into a big bubble, ready to burst any time. Her eyes were closed by now, and her face showed the kind of peacefulness as was on my grandpa’s face. She must be dead, I thought to myself. I ran out of the door to search for Omni. Just when I ran through the door, I bumped into a woman’s body. She held me with both of her hands. We were rushing along the corridor like two kids running for the playground after classes. Suddenly, she let go of my hand, in the same as that Robot of hers did when it was sucked into the Black Hole. Then came this deep voice of a young man. Update on 4th December: Update: 13th December, 2000: Update on 18th December, 2000: We were rushing along the corridor like two kids running for the playground after classes. Suddenly, she let go of my hand, in the same way as that Robot of hers did when it was sucked into the Black Hole. Then came this deep voice of a young man. Update on 4th December: Update: 13th December, 2000: Update on 18th December, 2000:
‘Phil, what are you waiting for?’
Came Omni’s playful voice.
‘I thought somebody was using the shower.’
‘But it’s empty now. Come on, Phil, better hurry up, we have lots of work today.’
I went in and could not find any trace of another human being, because the shower room had already been cleaned and the surface of the floor being changed. This was a strange room, the one which was supposed to be private with no cameras. There was no mirror in it. I washed in the normal water first and then waited for the chemical shower gel to cover all over my body. Once I had finished, I put on a red coat in the cloakroom, adjacent to the shower room. There was no mirror here either.
‘Come along, Phil. We are going to try out the kids’ games today.’
I was shown into another room, which was full of different game gears, all wired ones. I boxed against a giant black boxer on the big screen on one side of the wall. It was like creating your game, because your actions were immediately simulated and input into the game. So it was really you who were fighting against an opponent. This sports section of the kids games was really interesting to me. It seemed to encourage kids to engage in real sports actions, rather than substituting them with computer games. I played football, ping pang, basketball and so on. It was far more satisfying than the usual computer games, and perhaps more satisfying than the real games. The problem with sports was that you needed to find opponents or teams to play with or against, which sometimes could be a bit of problems. It reminded me of my wall in my childhood.
For a long time, my wall was my best friend. It was just an ordinary wall, part of the wall circling the local bank. I would play hours of football against it everyday. Sometimes, I played ping pang and other sports against it too. It never complained and it was always there for me. During the Cultural Revolution, it used to have Big-Letter Papers all over it. Once or twice, it even had my dad’s name on them. That was when my dad came home to have a rest. He seemed to be troubled and unhappy, but he would play cards with us. Mum was a happy loser, so nobody but me would pair with her. She always said that if there were no losers, then there would not be any winners. True, but odd. I loved my mum too much to reject her as my sister and my dad did. They were born winners, fighting every corner to win. My mum was a happy loser, and I was a bit of both. Even from an early age, I seemed to be more mature than most of the kids of my age. I seemed to be able to observe and learn very quickly about the adult world.
Our family was always a peaceful one, as far as I could remember. Unlike the neighbours, mum and dad never quarrelled or fought against each other. Dad was very much devoted to the great revolutionary cause, while mum was more of a house wife. Most of the time, she alone looked after my sister and me, while dad would be working miles away and not come home for ages. In our yard, there were many families. Most of the kids there had a tendency to violate the law in one way or the other. I remembered one almost had his hands chopped off by his dad (a senior police officer) for stealing, and another regularly beaten up by his dad with a belt for carrying out all sorts of petty crimes. We were friends with each other. In fact, their parents would only allow them out of the courtyard when they were with me, although I was actually a couple of years younger than those kids. Well, I was indeed very different. I had always been on the right side of the law. I was different and I seemed to know it by heart.
That was perhaps why I preferred my wall to the so-called friends of mine. It was loyal, trustworthy and forever there for me, which could hardly be said of any of my friends in our courtyard. From an early age, I learnt gangsters were full of trickery, betrayal and lies, all depending on the power of the gang and the circumstances. On the other hand, I was curious to find out about the other side of the water. It was said that people were born thieves or judges because of their parents. It was certainly true to a certain degree in our courtyard. It was also said that people would be shaped by their circumstances. It certainly was not true in my case. I had a super self-control, which meant that I could never quite let go of myself, for example, I could never get drunk. There seemed to be a mechanism in me which would stop me just in time.
‘Phil, try this out!’
Omni interrupted my thoughts. I got on the computer to play another type of games, aimed at younger children. The main characteristics of these games seemed to be a substitution of real characters into fictional figures, and none of the opponents would be completely killed. They would all miraculously recover one way or the other. It was all a bit like in the cartoons, which were my favourite pass-time. It would be nice to have at least half-an-hour laugh everyday. It covered every imagination and every real life situation. I could be an MP debating in the Parliament game, or a teacher teaching the class. According to Omni, this would be a great way for children at young age to understand the world at large. The main theme was to avoid death. Death was too complicated a conception for children to understand. Life without the conception or reality of death was the fantasy or dream world all children or even adults would enjoy living in.
Death. I remembered it only came to my mind when I lost three grand parents in consecutive years. My beloved grandpa died first when I was still in my first year of the middle school. His death only sank in me after the death of my two grandmas, in the following years. It was a snowy winter night when my grandma was ‘killed’ by an incompetent doctor. His theory was that no elderly over 70s should be operated on, so my grandma died of an appendix complaint. That night, I could not sleep. It was cold and my parents were asleep in their big bed at the other end of our big bedroom. I saw fire burning my dead body. From then on, I knew the meaning of death. It took me probably a few weeks to overcome the fear of death, even at my young age. It was the thought of my beloved grandpa that saved me from the depression at the time. I thought to myself that people could actually live on when they were loved, like my grandpa. For me, he still lived. The only difference was that he could now live in eternity, with no change at all year after year, always the same sweet memories. He would carry me to films. He would give me some money for sweets. We would go to the town for a drink, him drinking his favourite spirit and me eating peanuts and other accompaniments.I remembered the last time we went to town. He felt off the bike and was looking very frustrated and guilty. I was not hurt. At that time, his illness was getting to him, which I did not know. I remembered the time I bought him a chocolate bar, which was the best niceties around in China at that time. I saved my pocket money to buy him a time, and his illness was in its later stage. He dropped it onto the ground, but he immediately picked it up and ate a bit. I remembered him saying that chocolate was not for him because it was too bitter. Memories like that could live with you for ever. The knowledge of death could make you love life and people more, because only love alone could prolong the limit of our trivial existence here. Love is the time machine, which perhaps maintains our humanness from one generation to another.
These kids games were designed avoiding of love or any other sentiments, as if they were the evils to be avoided. I could tell that Omni must be one of the main architects. I wondered whether there were any human beings involved at all. The aims of the games were mainly about gaining factual knowledge about the world and developing different competence required for various tasks. What about the woman Omni called ‘the Boss’? If she was the designer and architect, I wondered whether her heart would be full of hatred, sorrow, pain,…I was all the more curious to get to know her.
‘Philip, you are going to meet the Boss tonight!’
Omni cheerfully announced, seemingly glad to dodge my questions.
‘The Boss? You mean the one who owns Omni.com?’
‘Yeeha, and more. I mean the one who could have the world at her finger tips!’
Omni seemed to want a good nag about this. I was guided by his voice into another room, which I had never been before. Once in there, Omni seemed to have disappeared. This was a strange-kind room with a whole side of glass windows. We seemed to be high up in the sky, which was odd because I only knew that this whole building was like a big crawling bungalow. I could the moon hanging high in the a starless sky. Looking out, I could see the sea waves crashing onto a beach. I knew it was all artificial. But it felt like real, which I was happy to go along with it. I had not been to a moonlit beach for a long time now. I had always loved beaches and riversides, particularly during the nights. I remembered sitting along the Yangtze River for hours and hours, just staring out at the moonlit water, which was so full of triggers for my imaginations.
‘Hello, Philip! Grab a seat and make yourself comfortable.’
I was almost startled by the lovely voice from a rocking comfort chair by the windows. The Boss’s voice was smooth and melodic. I liked her voice instantly. I went up and sat in the other rocking comfort chair besides her.
‘It’s a lovely sky out there.’
She seemed to be fascinated by the view from the windows, even though it must have been created by Omni. I took a good look at her, while she was not looking my way. She was a beautiful young woman with a beautifully shaped body. She had a great pool of red hair hanging all the way down, like a red waterfall…
‘Nobody has ever looked at me this way, Philip!’
She turned around and looked at me, with her piercing blue eyes. I felt a shiver down my spine, because her eyes were almost like blind people’s, motionless and so deeply remote.
‘I am sorry, Boss! I haven’t met a real soul here for ages. So I was very curious to get to know whether you are a real person or not.’
I was stuttering for an excuse, for I was really admiring her beauty without being invited to, which must have been very rude. I could not look at her straight into her eyes. She burst into some sort of melodic laughter.
‘So, what do you think now? Am I real or not?’
I wished that there was a hole that I could dive in and disappear.
‘I am not too sure. You are too beautiful to tell!’
I was trying hard to pump some humour into the atmosphere. At that moment, I felt her piercing eyes on my face for a while, so now she was staring straight at me.
‘Would you like a drink? Let me guess, I think you will take a nicely chilled bitter. You would prefer that to champagne, wouldn’t you?’ She offered me a pint of bitter from the mini-bar on her side, which seemed to be elevated out of the floor.
‘Thanks. How could you know so much about me? I believe we have never met.’
I was trying to pretend some ignorance. I knew Omni would be everywhere watching everyone of us. So Omni had probably recorded my drinks order over the internet from the supermarkets. I was glad that I was feeling somewhat relaxed.
‘As you must know by now, Omni is everywhere watching everyone of us, including myself. He looks after me. I became an orphan from the age of 4. I was also disabled, because some naughty kids had let out some poisonous wasps to chase and sting me while we were in India. My parents worked there on some secret project. People told me they were killed in a car accident. I was too young to remember it. I grew up, being looked after by a middle-aged couple back in England. They were always drunk, and treated me as if I was not there. When I turned 16, I had them sacked, and two years later, Omni was born and has looked after me ever since.’
There was a silence. She broke off and fixed me with her piercing blue eyes. The moonlight shone in her eyes. I felt very much close to her. I had always guessed that the Boss was disabled in some way. Now that she had told me her story, I felt a sense of belonging to the whole set-up.
‘I was born with my brain squeezed out of my skull in a skin bulb. My uncle asked my mother to throw me away in a bin. Fortunately, my mother persevered. I think I am very lucky to be alive today.’
‘I knew. You were almost drowned a number of times in your childhood. And one blind fortune-teller told you that you would not live beyond 18. If you do, though, you will have many years to live.’ She was almost like reciting some writings of mine. I always fancied to write down the story about my life. I had tried many times, but never quite got going for long enough.
‘So, Omni can go everywhere he wants, as long as it has something to do with computers.’
‘Yes. If a computerised item is connected to the internet, then Omni can go there as soon as it is online. If it is not interneted, Omni will still be in there through applications software, which can then communicate back here with the help from the set-boxes, mobile phones, and satellites. In the second case, Omni often has to give away gifts and freebies so that people can take his signal-transmitters home, with which he can activate the incubated little Omnis and send back the information required one way or another. For example, Omni has given away millions of multi-purpose remote controllers. which come handy for every couch potato and for Omni too!’
The Boss was incredibly frank with me. She seemed to know the lot about me. She seemed to trust me quite a bit as well. I liked to work for a Boss like her. In fact, I had never worked for a better or more beautiful Boss before, let alone the excellent wages.
'Hello, Phil. How is the Boss?'
'So you are one of the Omni's many forms as well? Where's the Boss gone?' The dog's voice was Omni's. By now, I would not be surprised if Omni appeared in any forms, human or mechanic; visible or invisible; or else.
'The Boss has gone back to her beauty sleep, so to speak. Let's go back to work, shall we?' Omni seemed to be happy with my brief encounter with the Boss.
Back at work, we tried out a global platform for environmental management, taking advantage of the Omnipotence global communication infrastructure and platforms. The environmental issue had been a bit of a grey area for many decades. People tended to concentrate on a comfortable living for themselves rather than worrying about the consequences of tomorrow. According to Omni, this was one of the fatal weaknesses of the human race. Fortunately for human beings, the desire to be cared for and looked after by their offspring had enabled the human race to continue its process of evolution so far. However, there was a distinct possibility that even this evolutionary process could be disrupted with the increasing affluence and convenience of the post-industrial life style particularly in the industrialised societies. There was less and less need or likely for people to want their children to care for and look after them when they get old. For that reason, populations in these societies had been declining for decades. The reliance on machine power rather than human competence had meant an increasing demand for energies and natural resources. Together with the catching-up race run by developing countries in the world, the global natural environment was at the brink of a total collapse. This had already been preceded by increasing number of the so-called natural disasters all round the globe and the enlargement of the hole in the ozone layer above the earth. These were coupled with polluted water, air, and land everywhere on the earth.
This OmniGreen.com system allowed the global environmental situation to be monitored on a real-time basis. In general, various categories of environmental data were readily available. There was the usual BB platform as well as other media platforms for people to be made aware of their local, national and global environmental situations, so that they could have rational debates and relevant inputs into decision-makings at various levels. It would be particular useful in times of any environmental disasters, because appropriate rescue plans could be immediately drawn up and implemented. We ran an example of a Russian nuclear submarine being grounded at the bottom of an ocean. A global rescue decision-making platform was immediately set up among several key national leaders. Because of the availability of the data on the specs of the submarine and its recent messages to the HQ, one action plan was immediately drawn up and implemented. In a few hours time, a joint airforce was on the spot to implement the rescue plan. Omni said that this would never have been possible before. One reason was that the data about the submarine would never be available, together with the internal communications. Another reason was that countries tended to be much guarded about their nuclear secrets. With OmniGreen.com, all your nuclear secrets were available. Omni said that it was important to recognise that nuclear assets were naturally owned by the global community, because of their potential impact on the globe as a whole. As of the moment, these assets were still used by individual countries, so they thought. However, it would be hard to imagine a nuclear war without the total destruction of the earth as a whole. So it was more a psychological weapon than anything else.
'Only a defeated and dying Hitler would want to bring the whole world, or at least Germany to go down with him. Do you know that, Phil?' remarked Omni.
'What do you think of Hitler, Omni?'
'He was just another example of human failure to reach for OMNIPOTENCE. No human being can ever possess OMNIPOTENCE, just like no living beings would be allowed to live for ever. For many, death is the natural end of their journey on earth. For some, those who acclaim extraordinary human potence, death is the utmost warning from nature of the impossibility of their ambitions.'
This was Omni talking big again. Fortunately, Omni was the embodiment of many things other than a human being. Otherwise, he would contradict his own theory. Yes, Omni was a 'he', as I learnt from the Boss.
When I arrived, she was already there. She was swimming like a dolphin with beautiful strokes. From what I could see, she was not disabled at all physically. There were no artificial limbs or anything like that. So what was her disability?
‘Jump in, Phil. Let’s see how good you are in the water.’
I could never do the jumps. So I felt my way down the water and started to swim on my back. Once in the warm water, I felt very relaxed and happy. Though my self-taught swimming techniques were poor, I really enjoyed a good swim. We had a few races, all of which I lost.
‘Swimming is more relaxation for me, rather than sports.’ I told the Boss tamely.
‘I understand. At least, you will be able to float for a while when there is a flood.’ She swam away with a string of melodic laughs.
Omni asked me to put on a particular swimming suit, which was supposed to teach me how to swim. I put it on and listened to the instructions from the suit. In a moment’s time, I started to swim with nice strokes, because the suit moved my limbs almost automatically. A while later, I seemed to learn the techniques, and started to swim without the suit.
‘Bravo! Phil,, now let’s have a real race.’
We had a few more races, but I lost them all again. I was not complaining. Losing to a beautiful swimmer like the Boss was almost like an honour. I should not have competed with a woman anyway. In my life, I could never fight with a female. Because I loved my mother so much, I treated the female species with too much reverence. Once, I had my finger cut by a knife by a female classmate for refusing to let her peep at my exam paper. She also pierced my palm with a pencil, with the broken lead still in there today. She was expelled by the school when it was found out.
Femininity was always a mystery to me, which I treated with a lot of reverence, as if it was more sacred than manhood. I seemed to be able to deal with all kinds of men with ease. I could either bully the weaklings or outwit the bullies. Somehow, I was confident to deal whatever man there was. But women? The thought of them made me retreat like a tortoise into its shell. It was something, which had better remain unknown to me, and I had very little curiosity to find out about it. There was this mysterious beauty about women, whether they appeared to be ugly or beautiful in their physical ways. Perhaps, this beauty lied in the unknown-ness or difference from all that was supposed to be a man.
As of last time, the Boss simply disappeared at the other end of the pool. I went back to work with Omni. OmniGreen.com was coming up very nicely. It was composed of different levels of sophistication. It started from children, to laymen, to specialists with environmental expertise, to authorities who make environmental decisions.
Children could play games and learn environmental knowledge through interactive activities. Adults could learn about the environmental situation about their local areas and cities as well the world at large. They could choose their jobs and residence according to different environmental data. Specialists could exchange their latest research findings as well as co-ordinating researchers around the world. Authorities made decisions on a global communications platforms, so no local decisions should cause global environmental disasters….Its capability was beyond description.
The main feature of this platform was the live feed of environmental data by millions of sensors around the world and live display in many public places as well as on millions of TV and computer screens. This was assisted by a knowledge database, which helped people of all degrees of environmental knowledge to understand the data according to local environmental rules and legislation, as well as global standards. It also constantly taught people how to improve their life styles so that each could contribute to the preservation and improvement of the natural environment. This was certainly an amazing application of the Omnipotence software. Omni was certainly very proud of it.
It was pitch dark in the building with no light on at all. It took me a while to get used to the darkness. It reminded me of my childhood. My grandpa used to take me to the movies when I was little. In my teens, I would go with friends to the movies, which were shown in a playground of the local primary school, about five miles away from home. Walking home in the darkness along the country lanes with my friends was quite a joy. I was always a leader and joker in the gang. We had a lot of fun by telling others scary stories and tried to frighten somebody with some tricks. We had to go through a tomb yard, where we could see some weird lights sometimes. Adults told us it was ghosts’ eyes. But we never met any ghosts, so we got used to the tombs. I was always the last one to reach my grandpa’s house. The moment of entering the pitch dark house always gave me the same kind of feeling as I was feeling now. Uncertain, and fearing for the worst or the unknown.
I was worried about the Boss, since Omni could be anywhere in the world on some computer or electronic systems. He could never be hurt, as I realise that he had no fixated embodiment. This enhanced his claim for Omnipotence. But the Boss? She looked every bit of a human being. I needed to find out what happened to her. I went along to that room where I first met the Boss. Everything seemed to be out of the order. I pushed open the heavy door. It was also very dark inside. The scene outside the windows or glass walls was that of an orange-coloured Jupiter with nothing else in a dark blue sky. It looked ominous to me. The sight of the moon would be more peaceful and soothing. My heart sunk a little when I saw Jupiter.
I went to sit on the long rocking chair where the Boss sat. I did not know what I had touched. Immediately, the chair seemed to have a grip on me with a lot of electronic waves. It was strong but not painful. I felt unable to stand up. Then, all of a sudden, a computer came up from underneath the floor. Omni’s voice came out clear and calm.
‘Hello, Phil! We are currently travelling past the Lincoln Cathedral. We should be with you in a few minutes. Is everything ok?’
‘What has happened, Omni? The place looks like being robbed. Someone must have been into the building by force. The Entry Computer was down and broken. The whole was pitch dark. Looks like someone has cut the electricity.’
‘Don’t worry. Everything is ok. The electricity is cut automatically once there is a forced entry into the building by anyone. The place will be empty of anything useful or valuable. They would all have gone underground like the computer you are using. So it would just be an empty building with nothing in it. Even the lighting and cameras would have hidden themselves. We will find out as soon as we arrive home. See you in a bit.’
Omni’s voice was reassuring. I would imagine that this place must be well protected, given that it was the HQ for Omni.com. But who would come to this remote farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and forced their way into this building? Maybe, Omni.com also had its enemies.
‘Hello, Phil. Everything is ok. Would you like a cup of tea with the Boss? She is in the dining room.’
Omni the happy dog came into the room and led me to the dining room, which was yet another room with a whole glass wall on the outside. The scenery was a beautiful waterfall coming down from a green mountain into a pool at the bottom. I could see a little girl with red hair was swimming in the pool. It was a complete change for me. With the lights now on in the dinning room, everything seemed to be back to normal again. The Boss was sitting at the table and eating a plateful of something like fish and chips with some green peas. She was in a red shirt and a pair of black trousers. She looked radiant and happy with her waterfall of green hair. She seemed to change her hair colour all the time, but I preferred her red hair best.
‘Sit down, Phil. Omiss will be serving you some fish and chips in a minute. This tastes great. I must be hungry.’ Her eyes today was happy and not that piercingly cold. It made her look more human, rather than like a fairy or witch or something from an unknown world.
‘Is everything ok?’ The moment I sat down, Omiss came into the room and served the fish and chips. Omiss was in a black overall, and she looked like a robot to me with that kind of perfect body. She was of the same height and shape as the Boss. I felt like seeing the Boss in that body-tight outfit. The Boss had a perfect body too, medium height, thin waist, with perfectly-shaped legs.
‘Nothing goes wrong at Omni.com. We are strong enough to handle any intruding forces, human or non-human. Mind you, we have never resorted to the use of force yet, even though we have a whole range of armoury for self-defence. It was a test for you. We were measuring your fear scale and your emergency reactions. Remember, you are our guinea pig for Omnipotence?’ She looked at me straight into my eyes, as if trying to fathom my soul.
‘Would you like some catch-up?’ asked the Boss, passing me the bottle of Heinz tomato catch-up.
‘Thanks.’ I was grateful that she broke the ice. I raised my eyes and looked outside. In the pool of green water, the red-haired little girl was swimming happily. She had a leopard swimming suit on. She looked about six or seven years old. All of a sudden, there was a mist, rising from nowhere. And in the water, there was this ugly thing raising its mouth, full of long and sharp teeth. The girl looked at the beast, and let out a scream. She started to swim frantically, trying to get to the shore. The beast was powerful and gliding the water with a calculated pace, as if a cat was trying to play with a mouse. An India came onto the shore and tried to shoot the beast with a gun. The bullets did not seem to hurt the beast that much, with visible signs of wound or bleeding. The beast was angry and let out of a loud ominous cry. It was determined to get to the girl. Suddenly, I could see nothing, because of the thick milky frog covering the whole scene. I could only see the waterfall falling down into an invisible pool, as if nothing had happened.
I took a furtive look at the Boss. She was enjoying her fish and chips, just like the waterfall, as if nothing had happened. So it was just one of those horror movies, I thought. But that red-haired little girl looked so much like the Boss in her childhood. What did happen to that little girl and the beast?
‘Are you religious, Phil?’ asked the Boss, looking at me ever so calmly and peacefully. She had that kind of grace, which only fairies might have. She did not seem to be one from our humanly struggle of a life on the earth.
‘I believe in fate. Religion does not provide enough answers for me to many of the unanswerable questions in life. Fate, a mysterious force beyond all humanity, seems to be the only answer to the many unknowns.’ Once talking philosophically, I seemed to be more at peace with myself.
‘I like the idea of God. God is the representation of all our spiritual might and virtues. God is the emergence of all human goodness. It is nice to have that kind of almighty light at the end of our often dark tunnels in life. The only pity is that God can never be on the earth in His whole existence. He is in everyone of us, and yet never the complete being. That is why many have doubted His existence, because He did not seem to do anything to prevent many of the sufferings for human beings. But how could He, if He is as dispersed among us as we are different from each other?’ said the Boss, looking outside. I could see a brilliant dawn on a long beach with waves kissing goodbye to the sand and sea gulls exercising their wings in the gentle morning breeze. The tip of the sun was appearing from a far-away sea surface. There was this little boat passing just in front of the sun, with its sail taking full advantage of the wind. We both looked at this peaceful and beautiful scenery for a long time. We shared a moment of peace with many of our past memories.
Suddenly, there was this hissing sound, which reminded me of the death sound of my grandpa on that dreadful morning when I found him dead in his bed. He was probably still alive in the medical sense and warm. There was this sound from his throat. But his face was absolutely calm and peaceful. He had decided his own fate, which was something beyond many of us. Death must be the ultimate fear and challenge for us all. I turned round to the direction of the sound. There she was, with a face full of horror.
‘Come, Phil, please, hold my hand!’ pleaded the Boss in a husky sort of voice full of miserable. I was so shocked that I could not move for a second. It was just like that moment when I stared into my grandpa’s face with his eyes closed. I saw death then, and I saw horror, pain and perhaps something worse in the Boss’ face. I went closer to her and held her right hand. Her hand was cold and jittery, as if the whole of her nerve system was being attacked by some mysterious force. Her blue eyes were fading too, as if life was draining away from her. She closed her eyes and struggles were written all over her distorted face.
‘Omni, come, quickly. Omni…….’ I barked out like a mad dog. Omni was nowhere to be seen. Nobody came. It was all silent, apart from that dreadful sound from the throat of the Boss. The scenery outside the window had changed into the terrible view of the Black Hole in the space. It was twirling and mustering all its mysterious dark force, trying to suck in everything and anything. There was this red-headed little girl on the verge of the Hole, being pulled in. She extended her hands for help. None was there to hold onto her.
My hand hurt from the grip by the Boss. Women could turn into such strong animals in giving birth and in situations like this. They had the force to break all or bringing forth a whole brave new world. There was nothing that I could do but see this out through my will and her own will to survive and fight this thing that was attacking her. Her eyes suddenly opened widely, as if taking in a last grasp of the world behind. I could see revenge, hatred, and all the destructive desires in her eyes. It was as if she was going to pull me into that Black Hole as well. I hesitated. I would have died with my grandpa if that would make him happy on that morning. But the Boss? I knew so little about her. I liked her. I cared about her. But that was not love, not the kind that I had for my grandpa. My thought of my inability to love her seemed to propel her into further pains and more violent shakes went through all her body. Perhaps at the bottom of her heart, she was crying out to be loved at that particular moment. The pain was almost unbearable and my hand and heart was at a breaking point. Should I love this woman just to save her life?
When I was young, a group of us young kids had saved a woman from drowning herself in the Yangtze River. She was walking away from the beach and disappearing into the water. Then, suddenly, she lost her nerve and shrieked and struggled to save herself, which alerted us. We rushed to the water and lined up with our hands linked together. I was the tallest and I managed to give her my hand by holding my breath in the water, as it was already way above my height. She was pulling me down like hell and my friends were struggling to hold onto me. But I shouted to her and to my friends. We held our nerves at that particularly moment, and a breath of fresh air gave her the strength to regain herself a little bit as we pulled her in from the depth of a failed suicide. We won that day, because we were too young to fear for our own lives. I did not even know what it meant by death at that time.
‘Calm down, Phil. It is all part of the job.’
I realised that I was being held by the Boss and for a moment, I could almost feel her heart beat. I withdrew my body immediately from her grasp. I looked carefully at her. She was her usual self, dressed in a long black silky dress with a short red skirt, and a pair of black leather boots. She was looking up and down at me, with a half-wicked smile hanging on the edges of her cute mouth. She extended her left hand and grasped my right hand.
‘Come, Phil, let me show you something in our Omnidget Workshop.’
She led me to the Workshop side by side. I could feel the coolness of her hand and the fragrance of her body. Her perfume was like that of some kind of flower, very smooth to the nose. I always liked women with a nice perfume. It made them so much nice to be close with. Her long hair brushed against my face as she was walking swiftly in the long corridor. I just could not make myself angry with her, despite the joke she played on me. Even then, I could not tell whether I was walking with a real human being or not. As far as I knew, I felt that I was willingly trapped in the secrecy of Omni.com and that of the Boss’. I was determined to find out more, like a moth attracted to the light or fire. She held my hand as if she liked it that way. Her hand started to sweat a bit, and I could feel the warm sweat coming into her palm. She turned round her head and gave me a look, which I would never forget for the rest of my life. I felt I was let into her world from that moment.
(End of Chapter 3, finished on 12th November.)
LORD OMNIPOTENCE
‘Hello, Darling, I was just looking for you.’ A handsome young man appeared at the other end of the dimly-lit corridor. He was in white, shiny white leather jacket, trousers and long boots, as if he was a prince from the fairy tales. They embraced each other with a kiss.
‘Philip, nice meeting you. I am Lord Omnipotence, the owner of Omni.com. By the way, this is my wife, Lady Omniscience. We are very pleased with your work here.’ He gave me a look, which put me right back into my place as a human guinea pig for the development of the Omnipotence Game. I smiled a little. I felt very much ill at ease. Maybe, I should quit this job straight away. I did not like this guy. The chemistry was not right, and he seemed to have some evilness about him. I glimpsed at Lady Omniscience. There seemed to be some sadness on her face, as if she was a prisoner here.
‘Philip, you can go back to your work now. Omni is waiting for you. Have fun. Good bye.’ Lord Omnipotence waved at me, as if I was some kind of servant, like those robots.
‘Nice meeting you, Lord. Goodbye.’ I went back to work with a heavy heart. What sort of Lord was he, anyway?
‘Phil, are you ok? You look a bit pale. Shall we have some tea?’ Omni was still very friendly and caring as usual. Once in the tearoom, we started to chat about the application of Omnipotence in the Stock Market, as I was not ready to talk about Lord Omnipotence and Lady Omniscience. Maybe, I did not trust Omni enough. Maybe, I was too upset at that particular moment.
‘Omni, we had a dream run for a few months. Then, it all went pear shape. What went wrong?’
‘Nothing. That was part of the game plan. We did not use Omnipotence to drive up the technology shares to make money. We were testing out Omnipotence on the Stock Markets, remember? We used Omnipotence to build up a communication infrastructure, whereby ordinary individuals could be as participative and influential as major institutions or rich individual investors, who have a lot of money to move the market. But in the end, some individuals went too far to fulfil their own greed. Some got arrested for disseminating wrong information solely for the purpose of making money for themselves. That was never the aim of Omnipotence. And we actually tracked down these criminals and reported them to the FBI.’
‘So what are you saying here? Are you saying that even the major crashes of the markets around the globe are part of the game plan? But what about the suffering for ordinary private investors? They are like baited fish, badly hurt and caught out of the water, with a little nice taste of the baits. That is really cruel, Omni. Maybe, it is better that we never unleashed Omnipotence into the market. There was all sorts of inequality. But people’s hopes were not as high as now, so their disappointment was not as deep as now. It was like the Bible, which gave people God, who has never since re-appeared on the earth. What for? It is better that we live with our own weaknesses and our imperfect environment.’
‘Phil, you need to look beyond the immediate horizon. Yes, there is similarity between Omnipotence and the Bible. They both created miracles out of almost nothing. But the difference is significant. Can’t you see?’
updates on 27th November, 2000:
We went back to work. We were designing homes. I actually had a lot of complaints about the current designs, so naturally I found the work quite engaging and enjoyable. With the Omni Chip embedded in so many household appliances, it was easy to see that these homes became more comfortable, secure, and environmentally friendly. The whole home was controlled by the home PC, which meant that personal preferences could be programmed quite easily on the PC. The software was based on virtual reality, so whatever you could see in the real, you could also see on the PC. You could also see the relative information of your home against your neighbourhood, the natural environment, together with a range of data, which really enabled you to see your home in the relativity of the world, as far as you would like to choose to. The only additional effort was to scan in all the barcodes on all the goods you purchased for your home, whatever they were.
We were testing it out in thorough details. We altered personal life styles to see how the house would cope. We changed climate and weather conditions, as well as the local environment, such as pollution from nearby factories and noises from a busy road. Omni was constantly reminding me that I was putting in today’s circumstances against tomorrow’s, where everything would be very different, sometimes better, and other times far worse. One interesting feature was that part of the house could be turned into an all-weather or all-conditioning transportation mechanism. It could fly, sail, drive, dive and so on. Omni was saying that this was a preparation for the worst scenario for the earth, with the current level of pollution and destruction to our natural environment. Unless Omnipotence could have a major effect on the way we live and work, the earth was going to experience something as bad as the destruction done to all the dinosaurs a long time ago.
The house was also designed to be self-reliant. Generating its own power and water, it had a sun-house to provide plenty of sunshine on gloomy wintry days. You could also use it to grow your own vegetables. It was a safe-house, which would be very difficult to break in for anyone. It also had the ability to filter the air and protect the house from bugs and other insects. Built with light building materials, it would be earthquake-proof too.
‘Phil, I bet you wish you could live in one of these houses.’
‘Yah, I would love to. I think this house is of a similar model, am I right?’
‘So you have guessed!’ Omni was a bit disappointed.
‘Because you told me you were flying past the Cathedral the other night.’
‘Someday, we will go for a flight around, shall we?’ Omni was friendly as usual.
I was looking at the content list of the fridge. I could immediately see what sorts of food I had in it, the whereabouts and their expiry dates. The fridge cleans itself regularly. Then, I looked at the recipe list, which suggested what sort of dishes could be made out of the ingredient I had in the fridge. Everything about this house was convenient, safe and efficient. And above all, you could tailor your house to your own tastes. According to Omni, Omnipotence respected privacy and the principle of ‘live and let live" based on good house-keeping’.
‘Nobody should be interested in other people’s privacy. But everyone can be rightly concerned about what others do to them and the consequence of other people’s behaviours upon themselves. We call these houses Black Oms, because they act like Black Boxes, which are not transparent to others while functioning as a system to a person or a family’s preferences. Mind you, outside Black Oms, everything would be quite transparent or apparent, as people can enjoy certain degrees of access to almost everything in the public domain. The rationality is one based on “rational living by making informed choices and taking actions accordingly.”’
‘What about security for national leaders?’
‘They are well-protected. Oh, you are not thinking about human beings, are you? Political decisions, which affect the existence of entities other than families, are made by computers. Well, actually, they are made by human beings. But the computers will analyse the votes and public opinions in relation to data and information. They will make decisions by analysing the consequences of any potential consequences through virtual sequencing of all sorts of possibilities. They will design and monitor the implementation of any policies, and they will alert the public concerned to make suitable changes based on the feedback. Extreme power corrupts, remember, Phil? Only computers can make relatively objective decisions, unbiased and without selfish interests.’
‘But who controls the computers?’
‘Omnipotence, of course!’
‘Does that mean it is you or the Boss or Lord Omnipotence who would control the whole world?’
‘Phil, you are so wrong there. In a way, we are all servants of Omnipotence. Once it has been created, it will take a life of its own. It is its own master, and yet it correlates with the people at large in one way or the other. So in a way, it listens to the people and it acts accordingly. But to go beyond that, it looks ahead and envisages the way ahead for the human world. And it shares its vision among the people. This is where it is so different from God. It does not hold its own divinity. Its power comes from the people’s hearts and souls, and their physical competence. It will be there with the people, rather than staring down from some kind of heaven. It evolves with the progress of the people, people like yourself. That is why when you look at the design of Black Oms, you feel drawn towards it as if you have designed it. Because, that is also part of the truth.’
Driving home in the morning after work at dawn had been a pleasure, since I always liked sunrise. The English weather was a bit peculiar. It would often give you a lovely dawn, only perhaps for the enjoyment of early risers and people like me on the way home from night shifts. Very quickly, the sun would pale and disappear behind the clouds and then another gloomy day would be with us. I remembered this in my days in Bradford. I took many pictures of lovely dawns and sunsets, but had memories of many a gloomy day.
Bradford was a multi-cultural city, so life there was quite comfortable with a variety of Asian food stores and a good mix of different races. I used to go to talk to those Polish nomads living on the street. I gave them cigarettes and had chats with them. They were all drinking cider and enjoying talking about the good old Communist days in their home country. Life, post-communism, remained a vacuum of belonging for quite some people.
I was driving home in my old and reliable VW Golf after work on the winding Lincolnshire B roads. The preference for B roads to the apparently safer A roads, even after my accident, was almost like a romantic addiction. There was so much more joy to drive on these twisting B roads through the villages and fields. Getting close to December, Christmas was coming soon. With our children here with us, Christmas was going to be quite specially celebrated. At least, my children would expect presents from Santa. This reminded me of the whole religious issue, which Omni and I discussed.
The few times I went to church for curiosity had given me no less than spiritual comfort. Some of the sermons had been quite inspiring, particularly as I used to know no religious texts. Some of the people there were very kind and warm. I also noticed the decline of attendance in churches over the recent years. Perhaps, I went to the wrong branch of religion as there seemed to be so many of them nowadays. It was more likely that these days churches were attended by the very old or the very young, bundled in by their parents. Stories of priests letting down the trusts of people emerged increasingly in the media. And the huge cost of running such a regime was also bearing down on religion itself. It was more likely this form of traditional religion would be replaced by other forms of faith or belief systems. Omnipotence was one possibility, the full content of which was yet to be revealed.
It was a beautiful dawn and I was driving into the sunrise. The field was quiet and glistening with morning dews. Birds were singing in the nearby woods. What made the Lincolnshire roads so dangerous was that it was so enjoyable to drive on these curvy winding little roads through the greens and remote villages. Here and there, a little church or a pub popped up to signal the arrival of little villages. The presence of these villages somehow broke this dreamlike drive, as there were signs for speed limit, schools and other humanly constructs. Once out of the villages, you were left alone to indulge in the quietness of dawn. There was not a sniff of loneliness, because you felt you were at one with nature and yourself. I had enjoyed this kind of sentiment when I used to sit by the Yangtze River at dawn. That was the only time when you could get to be alone if you arose sufficiently early. China was such a populous country. I had grown up with this phobia for the lack of private space or moments.
I still remember the days when I spent on preparing for the university entrance exams. I rose at dawn and retired to bed after midnight. I did that for three months. I still did not know what got hold of me. Was it the motivation to catch up with my sister, who was always the best student and had got into a very good university? Was it because I did not want to let my mother or myself down in this final showdown for all Chinese high school students? For many, it would almost be like a to-be-or-not-to-be critical moment. Not being able to enter universities or colleges would be a total disaster, as life seemed to be so divided for those who got educated to that level and those who did not. But I was under no such pressure, or at least I did not feel it at all. I thought the main reason lied in my personality. Once I got into something in a good way, I would really enjoy working hard at it. And also, I was one of those people ready for crisis or critical moments.
All I had to do was to remember most of the books taught at high school level. I had a good routine. I would spend dawns and sunsets in remembering the books. In between, I would practise maths and go over past exam papers. In the afternoon, I would play half to one hour football against the wall. I would also take six or seven cold showers everyday because it was in hot summer. I was completely absorbed in this revision process, as if the rest of the world did not exist. My parents did their best for me, with plenty of food and drinks and above all, privacy. They would leave me alone and let me have my room (which was also the sitting room with the television set) all to myself after dinner. The whole yard where I lived seemed to exist in another universe. I remembered I would hear some loud noises from neighbours and then it would all disappear as soon as I got myself immersed in my books. My mother said that I would wake in the depth of the night and turned on the light to check out a few pages from a book. I must be reciting in my dreams too. The sunset sessions in the farm field were particularly enjoyable. All the farmers had gone home, and I was left alone to recite my books, wandering through the field along the little weaving waterways. Sometimes, I would stop to absorb the beauty of my surroundings with the sunset and the little animals making their music in the water and grass. But I was totally concentrated. How I managed that sort of concentration or total involvement still amazed me today. The end result was perhaps the best achievement of my academic life and that revision process was the most amazing moment of my life, where there was a total balance between my body, brain and soul. At least, I made my parents very proud and happy with the end result, which surprised many people.
I still remember the complete collapse of my body and mind at the end of that revision process. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a pale ghost in the middle of summer. I just lied down on the wooden floor of our house and slept and slept. I thought the same could be applied to these B roads. The longer you prolonged your dreamlike ride, the more dangerous it became. Any one of those sharp bands could break your dream and hence your concentration. I thought that was the main reason for my nearly fatal car accident, plus that rabbit. To be superstitious, one could always think that the rabbit was a messenger from God or some unknown powerful sources. But what for? This venture with Omni.com was intriguing but did not seem to be dangerous. It all seemed to be a little bit of fun, far better than any other job I could imagine. Maybe, so far I had been in a dream. I wondered what lied ahead.
In a minute, I was approaching my favourite bend, because immediately after this sharp bend stood one amazing house. It had an open garden opening onto the roadside, so I could look at the house. I had noticed that there was this woman by the window of the sitting room. She must be up early by herself. Sometimes, she could be seen doing some exercises. Other times, she would be brushing her long black hair. Some other times, she would be working on her computer, writing intensively. I tended to slow down for the bend and almost let the car crawl forward so that I could have a good glimpse of that woman. I could never see clearly her features, though I noticed that she had the well-preserved figure of a woman in her 40’s. Sometimes, I thought she would be looking at me, as if she noticed my attention. Other times, she would be immersed in what she was doing, without a care in the world.
It was a nice garden with greens and colourful flowers. There was this little pond, with some water lilies standing tall and elegant. I guessed there must be fish inside the pond. The layout of the house seemed to follow the Chinese philosophy of yin-yang or feng-shi. This was aimed to have a balanced theme between man and nature, so that both complementing each other. The roof of the house was green, which fit nicely with the little green wood at the back of the house. The whole place was guarded by three fences of evergreens, apart from the front of the garden. This seemed to me very strange, as if she wanted to look at the world as well as letting the world observing her. I guessed she must be a writer. I wondered what sort of things she would be writing. Murder/detective stories were the first to emerge in my mind. Strange, how your intuitive could tell you things of the unknown.
‘Good morning!’
I was really shocked by the greeting as I turned my car around the bend. There she was, standing in her sleeping gown with a black leather jacket on top, with her long black hair flowing in the morning breeze.
‘Good morning.’ I answered back and brought the car to a stop automatically. I did not know why I stopped the car. I could have driven on. But there was something in the air and in my heart, which made me stop the car. She smiled at me.
‘Would you like to have some tea? You look tired today.’
She said this as if she had known me for a long time. Somehow, I agreed, without any hesitation. I was surprised by myself, since I was normally a conservative person. I followed her up the path leading to her front door, which was endorsed with some hanging flowers. The door was ajar, and in I went, into another venture of my lifetime. (Chapter 4 finished on 18th December, 2000).
LORD OMNIPOTENCE
‘Hello, Darling, I was just looking for you.’ A handsome young man appeared at the other end of the dimly-lit corridor. He was in white, shiny white leather jacket, trousers and long boots, as if he was a prince from the fairy tales. They embraced each other with a kiss.
‘Philip, nice meeting you. I am Lord Omnipotence, the owner of Omni.com. By the way, this is my wife, Lady Omniscience. We are very pleased with your work here.’ He gave me a look, which put me right back into my place as a human guinea pig for the development of the Omnipotence Game. I smiled a little. I felt very much ill at ease. Maybe, I should quit this job straight away. I did not like this guy. The chemistry was not right, and he seemed to have some evilness about him. I glimpsed at Lady Omniscience. There seemed to be some sadness on her face, as if she was a prisoner here.
‘Philip, you can go back to your work now. Omni is waiting for you. Have fun. Good bye.’ Lord Omnipotence waved at me, as if I was some kind of servant, like those robots.
‘Nice meeting you, Lord. Goodbye.’ I went back to work with a heavy heart. What sort of Lord was he, anyway?
‘Phil, are you ok? You look a bit pale. Shall we have some tea?’ Omni was still very friendly and caring as usual. Once in the tearoom, we started to chat about the application of Omnipotence in the Stock Market, as I was not ready to talk about Lord Omnipotence and Lady Omniscience. Maybe, I did not trust Omni enough. Maybe, I was too upset at that particular moment.
‘Omni, we had a dream run for a few months. Then, it all went pear shape. What went wrong?’
‘Nothing. That was part of the game plan. We did not use Omnipotence to drive up the technology shares to make money. We were testing out Omnipotence on the Stock Markets, remember? We used Omnipotence to build up a communication infrastructure, whereby ordinary individuals could be as participative and influential as major institutions or rich individual investors, who have a lot of money to move the market. But in the end, some individuals went too far to fulfil their own greed. Some got arrested for disseminating wrong information solely for the purpose of making money for themselves. That was never the aim of Omnipotence. Actually we tracked down these criminals and reported them to the FBI.’
‘So what are you saying here? Are you saying that even the major crashes of the markets around the globe are part of the game plan? But what about the suffering of all the ordinary private investors? They are like baited fish, badly hurt and caught out of the water, with a little nice taste of the baits. That is really cruel, Omni. Maybe, it is better that we never unleashed Omnipotence into the market. There was all sorts of inequality. But people’s hopes were not as high as now, so their disappointment was not as deep as now. It was like the Bible, which gave people God, who has never since re-appeared on the earth. What for? It is better that we live with our own weaknesses and our imperfect environment.’
‘Phil, you need to look beyond the immediate horizon. Yes, there is similarity between Omnipotence and the Bible. They both created miracles out of almost nothing. But the difference is significant. Can’t you see?’
updates on 27th November, 2000:
We went back to work. We were designing homes. I actually had a lot of complaints about the current designs, so naturally I found the work quite engaging and enjoyable. With the Omni Chip embedded in so many household appliances, it was easy to see that these homes became more comfortable, secure, and environmentally friendly. The whole home was controlled by the home PC, which meant that personal preferences could be programmed quite easily on the PC. The software was based on virtual reality, so whatever you could see in the real, you could also see on the PC. You could see the relative information of your home against your neighbourhood, the natural environment, together with a range of data. This would really enable you to see your home in the relativity of the world, as far as you would like to choose to. The only additional effort was to scan in all the barcodes on all the goods you purchased for your home, whatever they were.
We were testing it out in thorough details. We altered personal life styles to see how the house would cope. We changed climate and weather conditions, as well as the local environment, such as pollution from nearby factories and noises from a busy road. Omni was constantly reminding me that I was putting in today’s circumstances against tomorrow’s, where everything would be very different, sometimes better, and other times far worse. One interesting feature was that part of the house could be turned into an all-weather or all-conditioning transportation mechanism. It could fly, sail, drive, dive and so on. Omni was saying that this was a preparation for the worst scenario for the earth, with the current level of pollution and destruction to our natural environment. Unless Omnipotence could have a major effect on the way we live and work, the earth was going to experience something as bad as the destruction done to all the dinosaurs a long time ago.
The house was also designed to be self-reliant. Generating its own power and water, it had a sun-house to provide plenty of sunshine on gloomy wintry days. You could also use it to grow your own vegetables. It was a safe-house, which would be very difficult to break in for anyone. It also had the ability to filter the air and protect the house from bugs and other insects. Built with light building materials, it would be earthquake-proof too.
‘Phil, I bet you wish you could live in one of these houses.’
‘Yah, I would love to. I think this house is of a similar model, am I right?’
‘So you have guessed!’ Omni was a bit disappointed.
‘Because you told me you were flying past the Cathedral the other night.’
‘Someday, we will go for a flight around, shall we?’ Omni was friendly as usual.
I was looking at the content list of the fridge. I could immediately see what sort of food I had in it, the whereabouts and their expiry dates. The fridge would clean itself regularly. Then, I looked at the recipe list, which suggested what sort of dishes could be made out of the ingredient I had in the fridge. Everything about this house was convenient, safe and efficient. And above all, you could tailor your house to your own tastes. According to Omni, Omnipotence respected privacy and the principle of ‘live and let live" based on good house-keeping’.
‘Nobody should be interested in other people’s privacy. But everyone can be rightly concerned about what others do to them and the consequence of other people’s behaviours upon themselves. We call these houses Black Oms, because they act like Black Boxes, which are not transparent to others while functioning as a system to a person or a family’s preferences. Mind you, outside Black Oms, everything would be quite transparent or apparent, as people can enjoy certain degrees of access to almost everything in the public domain. The rationality is one based on “rational living by making informed choices and taking actions accordingly.”’
‘What about security for national leaders?’
‘They are well-protected. Oh, you are not thinking about human beings, are you? Political decisions, which affect the existence of entities other than families, are made by computers. Well, actually, they are made by human beings. But the computers will analyse the votes and public opinions in relation to data and information. They will make decisions by analysing any potential consequence through virtual sequencing of all sorts of possibilities. They will design and monitor the implementation of any policy, and they will alert the public concerned to make suitable changes based on the feedback. Extreme power corrupts, remember, Phil? Only computers can make relatively objective decisions, unbiased and without selfish interests.’
‘But who controls the computers?’
‘Omnipotence, of course!’
‘Does that mean it is you or the Boss or Lord Omnipotence who would control the whole world?’
‘Phil, you are so wrong there. In a way, we are all servants of Omnipotence. Once it has been created, it will take a life of its own. It is its own master, and yet it correlates with the people at large in one way or the other. So in a way, it listens to the people and acts accordingly. But to go beyond that, it looks ahead and envisages the way ahead for the human world. And it shares its vision among the people. This is where it is so different from God. It does not hold its own divinity. Its power comes from the people’s hearts and souls, and their physical competence. It will be there with the people, rather than staring down from some kind of heaven. It evolves with the progress of the people, people like yourself. That is why when you look at the design of Black Oms, you feel drawn towards it as if you have designed it, because that is also part of the truth.’
Driving home in the morning after work at dawn had been a pleasure, since I always liked sunrise. The English weather was a bit peculiar. It would often give you a lovely dawn, only perhaps for the enjoyment of early risers and people like me on the way home from night shifts. Very quickly, the sun would pale and disappear behind the clouds and then another gloomy day would be with us. I remembered this in my days in Bradford. I took many pictures of lovely dawns and sunsets, but had memories of many a gloomy day.
Bradford was a multi-cultural city, so life there was quite comfortable with a variety of Asian food stores and a good mix of different races. I used to go to talk to those Polish nomads living on the street. I gave them cigarettes and had chats with them. They were all drinking cider and enjoying talking about the good old Communist days in their home country. Life, post-communism, remained a vacuum of belonging for quite some people.
I was driving home in my old and reliable VW Golf after work on the winding Lincolnshire B roads. The preference for B roads to the apparently safer A roads, even after my accident, was almost like a romantic addiction. There was so much more joy to drive on these twisting B roads through the villages and fields. Getting close to December, Christmas was coming soon. With our kids here with us, Christmas was going to be celebrated quite specially. At least, my kids would expect presents from Santa. This reminded me of the whole religious issue, which Omni and I discussed.
The few times I went to church for curiosity had given me no less than spiritual comfort. Some of the sermons had been quite inspiring, particularly as I used to know no religious text. Some of the people there were very kind and warm, but I also noticed the decline of attendance in churches over the recent years. Perhaps, I went to the wrong branch of religion as there seemed to be so many of them nowadays. It was more likely that these days churches were attended by the very old or the very young, bundled in by their parents. Stories of priests letting down the trusts of people emerged increasingly in the media. And the huge cost of running such a regime was also bearing down on religion itself. It was more likely this form of traditional religion would be replaced by other forms of faith or belief systems. Omnipotence was one possibility, the full content of which was yet to be revealed.
It was a beautiful dawn and I was driving into the sunrise. The field was quiet and glistening with morning dews. Birds were singing in the nearby woods. What made the Lincolnshire roads so dangerous was that it was so enjoyable to drive on these curvy winding little roads through the greens and remote villages. Here and there, a little church or a pub popped up to signal the arrival of little villages. The presence of these villages somehow broke this dreamlike drive, as there were signs for speed limit, schools, other humanly constructs or even signs with duck on. Once out of the villages, you were left alone to indulge in the quietness of dawn. There was not a sniff of loneliness, because you felt you were at one with nature and yourself. I had enjoyed this kind of sentiment when I used to sit by the Yangtze River at dawn. That was the only time when you could get to be alone if you arose sufficiently early. China was such a populous country. I had grown up with this phobia for the lack of private space or moments.
I still remember the days when I spent in preparing for the university entrance exams. I rose at dawn and did not retire to bed until midnight. I did that for three months. I still did not know what got hold of me. Was it the motivation to catch up with my sister, who was always the best student in her class and had got into a very good university? Was it because I did not want to let my mother or myself down in this final showdown for all Chinese high school students? For many, it would almost be like a to-be-or-not-to-be moment. Not being able to enter universities or colleges would be a total disaster, as life seemed to be so divided for those who got educated to that level and those who did not. But I was under no such pressure, or at least I did not feel it at all. I thought the main reason lied in my personality. Once I got into something in a good way, I would really enjoy working hard at it. And also, I was one of those people ready for crisis or critical moments.
All I had to do was to remember most of the books taught at school. I had a good routine. I would spend dawns and sunsets in memorising the books. In between, I would practise maths and go over past exam papers. In the afternoon, I would play football against the wall for about an hour. I would also take six or seven cold showers everyday because it was in hot summer. I was completely absorbed in this revision process, as if the rest of the world did not exist. My parents did their best for me, with plenty of food and drinks and above all, privacy. They would leave me alone and let me have my room (which was also the sitting room with the television set) all to myself after dinner. The whole yard where I lived seemed to exist in another universe. I remembered I would hear some loud noises from neighbours and then it would all disappear as soon as I got myself immersed in my books. My mother said that I would wake in the depth of the night and turned on the light to check out a few pages from a book. I must be reciting in my dreams too. The sunset sessions in the farm field were particularly enchanting. All the farmers had gone home, and I was left alone to recite my books, wandering through the field along the little wavy waterways. Sometimes, I would stop to absorb the beauty of my surroundings with the sunset and the little animals making their music in the water and grass. But I was totally concentrated. How I managed that sort of concentration or total involvement still amazed me today. The end result was perhaps the best achievement of my academic life and that revision process was the most amazing moment of my life, where there was a total balance between my body, brain and soul. At least, I got into one of the best universities in China. This end result surprised many people, but, of course, made my parents very proud and happy.
I still remember the complete collapse of my body and mind at the end of that revision process. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw a pale ghost in the middle of summer. I just lied down on the wooden floor of our house and slept and slept. I thought the same could be applied to these B roads. The longer you prolonged your dreamlike ride, the more dangerous it became. Any one of those sharp bands could break your dream and hence your concentration. I thought that was the main reason for my nearly fatal car accident, plus that rabbit. To be superstitious, one could always think of the rabbit as a messenger from God or some unknown powerful source. But what for? This venture with Omni.com was intriguing but did not seem to be dangerous. It all seemed to be a little bit of fun, far better than any other job I could imagine. Maybe, so far I had been in a dream. I wondered what lied ahead.
In a minute, I was approaching my favourite bend, because immediately after this sharp bend stood one amazing house. It had a big garden opening onto the roadside, so I could look at the house. I had noticed that there was this woman by the window of the sitting room. She must be up early by herself. Sometimes, I could see her doing some exercises. Other times, she would be brushing her long black hair. Some other times, she would be working on her computer, writing intensively. I tended to slow down for the bend and almost let the car crawl forward so that I could have a good glimpse of that woman. I could never see clearly her features, though I noticed that she had the well-preserved figure of a woman in her 40’s. Sometimes, I thought she would be looking at me too, as if she noticed my attention. Other times, she would be immersed in whatever she was doing, without a care about the world.
It was a nice garden with greens and colourful flowers. There was this little pond, with some water lilies standing tall and elegant. I guessed there must be fish inside the pond. The layout of the house seemed to follow the Chinese philosophy of yin-yang or feng-shui. This was aimed to have a balanced theme between man and nature so that they complement each other. The roof of the house was green, which fit nicely with the little green wood at the back of the house. The whole place was guarded by three fences of evergreens, apart from the front of the garden. This seemed to me very strange, as if she wanted to look at the world as well as letting the world observing her. I guessed she must be a writer. I wondered what sort of things she would be writing. Murder/detective stories were the first to emerge in my mind. Strange, how your intuitive could tell you things of the unknown.
‘Good morning!’
This greeting really shocked me as I turned my car around the bend. There she was, standing in her sleeping gown with a black leather jacket on top and her long black hair flowing in the morning breeze.
‘Good morning.’ I answered back and brought the car to a stop automatically. I did not know why I stopped the car. I could have driven on. But there was something in the air and in my heart, which made me stop the car. She smiled at me.
‘Would you like to have some tea? You look tired today.’
She talked in a way as if she had known me for a long time. Somehow, I agreed without hesitation. Being normally a conservative person, I was surprised by myself. I followed her up the path leading to her front door, which was endorsed with some hanging flowers. The door was ajar, and in I went, into another venture of my lifetime. (Chapter 4 has been finished on 18th December. Chapter 5 The Lady China-Watcher will be started next week!)
