Linearisation

One of the main problems in hypertext is known as cognitive overhead. It can be sum up by two questions: Where am I? and Have I seen all that was to be seen?

So I've decided to give you, in a subjective order, all of this site's paragraphs, as well as a map for those who want to see sharper.

§ 1 The synthetic solitaire lies as heavy in my hand as the recollections of the passing time. Its edges bruise my palm, crush my phalanxes and flex my arm's sore muscles. In a moment of stasis, the eyes lost in the depths of the carved diamond, I remember... Elyne and Kenza. And Jahl who, for having loved them too much, had striven to wipe them out. Jahl especially. § 2 This is not the end's slow agony that awaits us. Rather a snapshot, in full apotheosis. And then, something else, a kind of resurrection, the ability to glance behind the walls of antimatter, to go where tachyons go when they escape and, who knows... even maybe the ability to comprehend slightly what is really going on. § 3 Progression, change, elevation, immanence and transgression are the five dimensions. The fourth represents the sum of the first three, the fifth the will to escape it. Beyond that, the rules change. § 4 He used to define the crystal as being the outcome of the association the cuneiform mathematics with Einstein's relativity. There, one's mind is trapped like the body in the universe. And these tachyons always moving faster than light-speed. § 5 What maintained Elyne in his orb was this self-assertion, this longing for recognition, for being elected, chosen. A sense of beingness that was stronger than any self-conceit, any vanity that would drive him. He simply regarded her as the receptacle of his ambitions, the shrine and the casket of his being. § 6 The stabilizing element of Kenza's equilibrium was this need he had, always to go ahead and make progress, to be less than tomorrow but more than yesterday. He had an unshakeable will to change and become, to contravene himself. She stood as the witness of his progression; she was his mamory, his log. § 7 Like electromagnets connected up to Jahl's wheezing dynamo, their attraction jolted them apart roughly to move them as close together as before. § 8 And the walls move forth or back, forth or back, at a tremendous speed. The white noise of the universe... Not recollecting an imergence, rather echoing an explosive and continuous destruction of matter by its opposite. Or the gnawing of the void by the creation that overflows and surges on the outside. Depending on the mood. § 9 - He still didn't make any sign? - Not yet... Kenza lays her hand on my shoulder and looks deep in the diamond. What does she see in it? What shape, what message does she perceive in it that I fail to see? She shuts her hand on mine, compelling me to lay it back. My stiff arm hardly manages it. The knuckles grate and the fingers, too closely tight, refuse themselves to open. All the warm of her palm is needed for them to come back to life and part away. Put on the desk, the diamond has lost a part of its symbolism. Nevertheless, a strange feeling remains. The crystal's sides are the reflection of omnipresent walls whose existence reveals a threat beyond each passing second. The event horizon is blocked up, we both know it. Hope remains however, even if more and more slender. - He'll be back, I'm sure of it. Hearing that, Kenza's hand has shivered. Then she removed it. - Excess of confidence... § 10 Elyne took the shock, fruit of a long time habit. Each time they meet, retorts burst out. Always seemingly so tactful... They size them up at a glance, seek the break, greedy. Nothing in their gesture unveils this tension in them, else to their powerless witness. Soon, they will tell my incompetence, my faults. I will let them do, too happy of seeing them unite, even it is at my expense. § 11 Sometimes, I like to imagine myself in his place. What does he see if he can see? What does he feel? Did he even keep his unity, where he has gone? I like to believe it. His faith in himself was unshakeable, how could it be otherwise? Nobody else could have accomplished that, or even dreamt about. If there is one person able to do it, he is the one. But can he? § 12 He had that worrying habit to see people like instruments. He gave them a function and then he used them until they did not fulfilled it any more. Sometimes, his choice was wrong, the usefullness he was searching for did not fit the person. So he chose another one. I believe to have some idea about my function. I was for him a kind of motor engine, a spur, an ass-pusher as he could have said. That aspect of his personality was not strongly affirmed: he knew that and he responded to that urge in his own manner.