Learning Day: A Brief History of Todd Time (Patreon)

No one spake the word, for there was no word to speak.*

So the first word did as it must, and spoke itself. Then upon the face of the deep there came, like ripples in a pond: ripples, and ponds, and starlight, and meaning to underlie those things, and the Great Stridulation of vast, vibrating fields of quanta which excited and waveformed and finally collapsed into everything that will ever be. Who observed those first graceful functions? What divine eye beheld such beauty as to call beauty itself into existence? God probably, I don’t know. Two Supermans at once? A very rich time traveler perhaps. Maybe a twist will reveal they are all one and the same - that seems pretty likely!

Regardless, the mistake had been made…the universe was here. Like spilled soup or a really good vasectomy, the process was irreversible. It was by all accounts a pretty big fuckup right at the start, but whoever did it can at least claim it was their first day on the job. Then they invented jobs, though, so really fuck them.

As long as there was going to be matter, whatever invisible hand guides reality decided it may as well be somewhat organized, or at least piled together. Soon the universe was separated into big chunks of void and just a few clumps of physical stuff: plasma, lava, dirt, and in some cases school shootings and institutionalized slavery loosely organized into what’s called a “society.” This last happened because, at some point along the way, some of the matter had become capable of observing for itself, and thereby collapsing waveforms into realities of its own choosing. Thus, these special stacks of matter could craft whole universes of thought inside themselves, and arranged into whatever shapes they wished. We call this divine spark “life,” and it is a word so precious that today we apply it only to plants, animals, magazines, breakfast cereals, and prison sentences.

At once, trillions of the living and dying things got busy living and dying and pretending that either was important. The whole time they would stack matter, discovering over and over that it could be stacked in ways both useless and brilliant. Stacking matter the right way could result in a koala, or a microchip, or a nuclear explosion melting the skin off of thousands of human beings at once halfway across the world. The universe, as it happens, is a box full of puzzle pieces - a secret menu waiting to be blended and boosted and sucked down cold and thick.***

Stacking meat and cheese on bread? Banger.

How about metal and rocks and melted sand? Incredible stack. I would live in that stack rent-free.

Stacking a gun on a robot dog? Less good. Let’s put that in the “maybe” pile.

Stacking the “maybe” pile on a pile of other meta jokes? Now we’re talking!

All the while, these living stacks of matter had been compelled by their own D.N.A. to nude up and stack themselves with other living beings so their essences could combine and grow new living stacks, called “children,” or “the things the school shootings happen toward.” One such soft target was named Samuel Johnson, and he came to this universe as we all do, ripped bodily from the comfort of the only reality he’d ever known. The year, by the calendar the living things had invented for themselves, was 169****6. The place, according to the language the living things had invented, was called Guilford.

Sam’s brain, a stack of pink slime inside the stack that was his body, busily collapsed waveforms into observations and learned and learned and learned, connecting itself up to itself in increasingly complex ways as his consciousness crystallized. It learned Latin and how to tie shoelaces. It learned Puritanism, which is the belief that the stack of matter the D.N.A. shoots out of is where Satan lives. It learned how to make his body sit still so he could get flattering portraits like this one made:

Ultimately, Samuel’s brain taught itself to teach, which is a kind of meta joke living things play on their descendents. He became a professor, a word that means “one who falsely claims a strong feeling or passion.” The strong feeling he faked was one of understanding. He read the works of Newton, Copernicus and Locke, and wrote his own encyclopedia - never published - in which he claimed to chart “the sum of all knowledge.” The book predates all known encyclopediae in the English language, and was just one of the singular stepping stones that paved the winding way fate had laid for Samuel Johnson of Guilford, Connecticut. Indeed, it was that stack of matter’s destiny to become the very first president of a stack**** where many stacks**** were taught how to stack******, called King’s College of New York, and later Columbia University.

Many years later - billions of years after the first sentence in this column - the universe had finally randomly stacked enough matter that enough of the matter that randomly became alive and started stacking things stacked some dirt and metal and oil and electricity in a way that produced television signal and satellite communications. Naturally, this changed life on Earth immeasurably, from the nature of statecraft to the stories we use to shape ourselves to how easily the average human being is able to watch Americans gladiate on short notice. It’s unlikely Samuel Johnson could have feigned understanding of the sort of place Columbia University had become by the time the calendar read 1989.********

That was the year another stack of matter, born into a world shaped by the choices and sacrifices of all that had come before him, left Columbia to make his way in the world. The stack’s name was Robert, but his friends called him Bob Maschio. Like any stack of living matter with enough crystals in their brain to build imaginary palaces, Bob had dreams. He had a way he hoped his life would go, and things he hoped would happen. In his case, those dreams revolved almost entirely around complicated stacks of plastic and electricity that could do all sorts of things Samuel Johnson would have considered downright supernatural. Bobby wanted to pretend to be other people in one place, and have people all over the world fall in love with him from wherever they happened to be at the time. This is called being an actor.

Just after graduation, Robert found himself alive at his prime, a fabulous meat machine laden with as much knowledge as his pink slime could stack up by absorbing what his ancestors’ pink slime had turned into physical objects like books and computers and left behind for him to find. He was a stack of miracles gifted everything that could ever exist, and although he also suffered mightily, for now the universe was his. So like a God, he chose a calling that he hoped would connect his whole being to the beings of others, and in that way turn them all into pink slime, one great shared consciousness or unconsciousness, discovering itself and what else it can be made to be. Bob made himself a passionate juror for the crew of Veronica Mars, and a despicable rapist for As the World Turns. Both were interesting explorations, but neither felt like the role he was born to play. In fact, Bob could make himself almost anyone, but he couldn’t do it alone.

That’s because the craft he’d chosen was collaborative, as it must be for there to be any possibility of connection at all. Many stacks of matter converged in a holy and time-honored ritual. Each person took on specific shapes and tasks they had made themselves uniquely suited for by dint of their choices, which depend on their wants, which outline the things they love and cherish most. By suffering together, stacking and unstacking an unspeakable number of items, and sacrificing their fleeting time as alive things, Robert and the people around him created a stack of matter and time and ideas called a TV show, and spread it far and wide across the face of space, encoded on invisible waves. They pretended together, and by doing so uplifted a most noble profession, that of lifegiver, which we sometimes call “doctor” or “person you call after the school shooting.”

Robert wasn’t the star of the show, or the standout, or even onscreen much - but he was part of it. It felt right. His energy thrummed with the vibrations of his co-stacks, and for a decade they fed each other off of that energy and shared it with the world. They would assemble again and again to stack up stories…stories to make us laugh, to love, to learn and grow. All we will ever see is the show, the waves of light they put there for us, but for Robert the experience is so much more. The people he makes art with are his best friends, and the service he provides in turn provides him shelter, food, safety, the means to find love and build a family. These are the best years of his life, no more or less.

So when it comes time to work late, or do some extra promotional material, Robert is more than happy to. If a running joke on the show demands he go topless a lot, he’ll hit the gym, no biggie. If it’s 2002 and an exec at NBC is trying to chase Blair Witch numbers by throwing out any viral marketing gimmick they can think of, hey - Todd********* is a team player.

I guess I should say “The Todd.” WASTED YOUR TIME FIVE!

-

* Saideth

** Although modern science provides compelling evidence that if there had been, the word would have been “abortion,” mostly to drive clicks.

*** The secret menu is for a Jamba Juice.

**** Nice.

***** Building.

****** Students.

******* Smoke weed out of almost anything.

******** Said calendar was recalled after a misprint was identified; the events in question occurred in 1988.

********* Robert appeared on the sitcom Scrubs for nine seasons playing a character named Todd. Ideally this would have been made clear somewhere in the body of the article, but despite dozens of revisions there just never seemed to be a good spot. As such, the author decided the least clumsy way to communicate the information would be for the reader to count the number of asterisks at the end of a word (nine in this case), match that to a corresponding string of asterisks at the bottom of the page, and then read the preceding that I am typing to you now oh no I am stuck in a present tense loop of typing what I type as I type it is this what time travel is why are my hands fading aw

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