Crossover

The only distraction to my mind these days, by which I mean the past 2 weeks, is the occasional consideration of whether it is myself who has gone insane, or whether it is Chef Sensei. For days now he has said nothing to me but Long shot! Quicksilver! Magick! etc. Burgers were burnt, fries over-blanched.  I daresay I have of necessity become the short order cook and master of the food dojo Chef Sensei always saw in me, by virtue of his dropping all pretence of communication in favour of my spiritual enlightenment. And still he  persists. All day, everyday, variations on the exact ordering of: Magick, spiral, bishop, quicksilver, longs

hot...

I've determined at least that these are all names of characters from Marvel comics. Basic research has also confirmed that all of these characters are capable of or associated with some kind of teleportation, astral projection, or interdimensional/time travel within the canon Marver multiverse.

I lie awake for hours every night before sleep takes hold, waiting in anticipation of the hypnogogic aura, going over the names in my mind, reciting them aloud in various combinations. To no end. Chef Sensei, for all of the jarring nonsense he insists on talking, seems patient with my progress. Later, I would come to understand that this was because of the thc in my fatty cells. At around this point, about a month since I swore off weed in acceptance of Chef's insistance that it was necessary for the full clarity of my third eye, the flow of the thc built up in my bodily tissues would begin to reverse itself, releasing into my sleeping and waking mind, preparing me for the final stage of my training.

My dreams in this time were of lurid colours and wild scenes. The intensity and importance of events I witnessed in dreams seemed significantly heightened, the memories of them I could carry over in my waking life more vivid. The very understanding of what I was experiencing nightly had me shook. I was changing and changed by the lives I led on Other sides, as I watched myself grow old and die, watched loved ones die and be reborn, as I watched all of history and of my own life and current initiation playing out in joycian witt, as I danced with witches and smoked iboga in the libraries of Harry Potter university, as Roald Dahl's Willie Wonka and I faced off against technicolour ninjas to save my family. The exercises in dream memory retention and lucid dream-hopping which my chef sensei had beaten into my reflexes were paying off large. I dreamt I was the Nightcrawler, Kurt Wagner, bampfing from one world to the next in Quantum Leaps. I knew that without smoking, I would have to rely on my training in order to dreamfast the connection between realms during the moments of hypnogogic ingress. I was ready to recite the names in order. As the aura overtook me, as the world around me dissolved in swirls of optic noise, I spake:

doctor strange long shot quicksilver spiral cable bishop scarlet which zero magick destiny gateway forge

And that's how I came to you, here in Parkdale.

the formula revealed

Everyday I awake with the tight vice of anxiety clenched around my heart. What will today bring? The first thoughts to drift into consciousness fill me with dread. I can barely eat, my pants are falling off of my waist, calories leach out of me in flop sweat as I anticipate the trials and abuse awaiting me at the Land Circle.

Chef sensei talks about death a lot. When he gets on a tear about philosophy, he always prefaces it with an old chestnut about Socrates preparing for death. He laughs at our culture's aversion to and avoidance of discussing death. He insists on pushing his body and his mind to their limits on a regular basis so that he is constantly aware of the immanence of death, the inevitability of death, encourages me towards an acceptance of death.

The real joke, he says, is not that you people try and separate life from death, to live life out from under its shadow, but that death is still considered to be the ultimate mystery, the final enlightenment...

Here he trailed off, nodding slightly and staring upwards at nothing in particular.

What do you mean, Chef Sensei?

A full ten seconds passed before I had his focus again.

Haha! Impetuous fool. Death is no mystery. It is the end of life, the majestic sleep. Can you not think of any part of your life that has taught you how to die bravely and properly?

Heartache, perhaps? I ventured.

At this, Chef Sensei belly laughed heartily for several minutes before smacking me upside the head.

Try again! Think of Nastradamus....

..."I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death"?

Precisely. Perhaps death's cousin has something to teach you. Perhaps Somnia Hypnogogis has been trying to send you a message every night of your life, hmmmm

This, for the chef-S, was a rather upfront statement. Death, interdimensional travel, hypnogogic "go-ing to" sleep states.... He was laying out his plans for me in a far clearer way than how he had trained me to flip eggs, or manage prepping during service. And just as I was starting to think I could wrap my mind around what he had in store, Chef Sensei at that moment stopped speaking to me in prose English, and for the coming weeks would only repeat the following words, in various (though not, as I would ultimately discover, random) orderings:

Magick!

Cable!

Gateway!

Doctor!

Witch!

Longshot!

Scarlet!

Quicksilver!

Gateway!

Destiny!

Spiral!

Forge!

Bishop!

Saturday service at the Hypnogogue

Chef sensei is in fine form today. Excruciatingly hungover, obsessed with his own fading youth and the moral edification of all employees at the land circle food dojo, he drops pearls of wisdom like they were confetti, asserts methods of work flow improvement that have only just crossed his mind as though they were time honoured traditions. Speaking to him I feel like novice Neo in the first matrix film, my ignorance matched only by my awe and complete respect. I am told to keep everything in the kitchen within 3 steps reach and 7 breaths contemplation. I ask him many questions when he is in this state. There is much I would know that he does not share unbidden. But on our 4th or 5th smoke break, as the dinner rush settles into a steady trickle of business, (Just enough to fuck up the fung shui of food prep, as he would say) the tenor and urgency of his advice shifts towards a differing tonal palate. Perhaps he is sobering up. Perhaps he has given up on my foolish ways. But it strikes me, as he  explains the plot of Enders Game in great detail for the third time this week, that there is a lesson for me here, somewhere in between the lines. And moments before I leave hope and return to my deep fryer, he turns his glazed, tired eyes my way and begins:

The world you see around you is like a shadow of the reality you exist in. The history you know, the stories you beleive about the past of your country, our city, of Parkside itself, is like a bad joke, accepted only as truth because it is the last thing anyone can remember being told. We speak of miracles and magic as though they were fairy tale metaphors, foggy dew through which our foremothers saw the natural world. When the truth you should be holding closest to yourself as you cower in wait of sleep is that miracles and magic are the very tools with, the raw materials from which all you see was forged and made real.

Chef sensei, what does this have to do with Enders Game?

Ha! A game indeed. From the flickering dust that you chase for your daily sustenance, to the folly of those who would think themselves mighty for keeping you in thrall, all of this is as a game played by ants on 2 square meters of land in the midst of a mighty jungle which is the fullness of our universe and the true limits of our perception. You have mastered the basic skills of prep, cleaning, service and brunch. It is time to prepare you for interdimensional travel.

Yes, chef sensei!