“Raphael,” She remembered asking one summer day after dusk, early in the summer, “Why did you study physics? All you talk about here is cryptography, code breaking, and predictive modeling. Why didn’t you study that stuff?”
He sort of scratched his head, and then said, “I guess I didn’t know what I was interested in yet, when I started the doctoral program. Besides, a physics PhD is very useful.”

Honey laughed, realized he was not joking, and then laughed more. He smiled back, sharing in the humor, belatedly, and then said, in a serious tone, “I thought physics would reveal the secrets of the universe, and then I got interested in secrets.” She was watching the energy around his head as he reflected on the question. It sparkled gently, pulsed blue-ruby, and a symbol in blue-orange drew itself in the space above him. Briefly, she shut her eyes so she could see the symbols more clearly. They raced by, as always, fast and morphing, rolling, spinning, and hurrying to tell her a story that she never quite understood.

She caught just a few of the symbols clearly, with the distraction of Raphael talking. A cube, outlined in wire frame blue orange, which morphed into an equilateral cross in a circle. The symbol for earth, she had learned.

🧊 → ⊕

Quickly, a rose flashed, followed by the symbols for salt, sulfur, and mercury. Then there was a pause, followed by an elaborate cross.

❁ 🜔 🜍 ☿ ♱

Then the message appeared to be over. As always, Honey did not really know what it meant. She had been seeing the symbols hovering in her visual space for a few years now. When it first started happening she had looked up the meanings in several symbol charts found on the interest. Sometimes the message included planetary symbols, or zodiac signs. Sometimes shapes for which she had no name. Sometimes eyes, or stars of many points. Always, the symbols were in outlines, like they had been rapidly etched in the ether in the color that she could not quite name, an indigo orange, a plum green. She saw the symbols with her eyes open or closed, but they were easier to see in a meditative state.

Apophenia, having worked for a decade in a very private manner, was unaccustomed to sharing her development process with another. But, over the past year, as the bizarre aspects of the world became ever more explicit, as the Overton window got pushed and pushed until they were all sitting on the windowsill, she had begun to open up, especially to Igor. When she chose the name, Apophenia, some ten years ago, it had been tongue in cheek. But, because of the academic and objective style of writ- ing, and the fact that the word was not part of everyday lexicon, few had the opportunity to appreciate the humor. As the years marched on, she began to wonder what might be the inverse of apophenic. What was the term for failing to acknowledge patterns
that had become blatantly obvious? Like an addict insisting there was no problem, despite their life crumbling beneath their feet, the refusal to see these patterns needed a name. Dysapophenic?

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“Oh lucky you. What an unusual name! What does it mean?”
“Ah. My parents were into languages….one who sees patterns.” Apophenia watched as the small misdirection, the white lie she had told, took shape in front of her eyes as a tiny prancing yellow beast, and then hurtled itself right at Sara, dissolving in a puff of sulfur as it collided with her charming profile.

✑

“The Eighth Sphere, as might be expected of a dystopian parallel universe, presented itself as a world of endless comforts, entertainments, perfect freedom and perfect information. When the first spidery limbs of this netherworld had begun to infiltrate the real earth – back in the nineties – it had seemed so unthreatening. The newly born netherworld was not frightening. It was a clumsy little stick figure of a child, a little hastily drawn spider, that was attempting to crawl around and do some not very useful things”

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Apophenia had skills that were unusual, but perhaps the most unusual skill was the ability to change her voice at will. She perceived all voices as specific colors and textures, including her own. Because of how precise her voice memory was, she was always able to recall and recognize a person’s voice, as well as remember exactly which voice color she had used with which person. Michael’s voice was 24 carat gold. Igor’s was sagebrush green. The Three Fates all seemed to have transparent, pastel voices – yellow, pink, and orange sherbet.

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