(In which metaphysical authority finally meets cognitive availability.)
(Blottisham’s study. Late evening. Books stacked with militant neatness. A single lamp. Silence thick with expectation.)
Blottisham
Very well. If the public, the scholars, and the soup will not obey me… then I shall reason it through privately. Calmly. Logically. Properly.
(He sits. Opens a notebook titled: “FINAL CLARIFICATION.”)
Blottisham
Let us begin at the beginning.
Entropy increases because—
(He pauses.)
—because…
(He grips the pen.)
—because entropy increases.
(He underlines it twice. The sentence looks unconvinced.)
Attempt One: Pure Reason
Blottisham
If things did not tend toward disorder, the universe would be… tidy. Which it is not. Therefore—
(He stops.)
No. That won’t do. That’s circular.
(A long silence.)
Blottisham
Very well. Try again.
Attempt Two: Mental Force
Blottisham
I shall will a reversal.
I imagine the broken cup reassembling.
Shard to shard. Crack to smoothness. Triumph.
(He closes his eyes. Nothing happens.)
Blottisham
I am concentrating quite hard.
(Still nothing.)
Blottisham
This is extremely disappointing.
The Realisation Begins
(He flips pages. Diagrams. Arrows. Crossed‑out arrows.)
Blottisham
Why is it so easy to imagine breaking… and so difficult to imagine unbreaking?
(He freezes.)
Easy.
(He writes the word slowly.)
Easy is not law.
Easy is not force.
Easy is—
(He stops. Stares at the page.)
Availability.
(The pen drops.)
Cognition Under Constraint
Blottisham
No. No no no. That’s their word.
(But he keeps staring.)
My thoughts…
They don’t go everywhere equally.
Some continuations feel natural.
Others feel… absurdly expensive.
(A pause.)
I cannot even think the reverse properly.
(Silence.)
Quillibrace, Absent but Present
(Quillibrace’s voice, remembered.)
“Depends what you think is happening.”
Blottisham
What is happening?
(He looks at his own notebook.)
I am not failing to imagine reversibility because it is forbidden.
I am failing because the cognitive pathways themselves are constrained.
(A shiver.)
My mind obeys relational availability.
Elowen, Kindly Unavoidable
(Elowen’s remembered voice.)
“Some continuations are just cheaper.”
Blottisham
Cheaper…
Yes.
Cheaper to think.
Cheaper to say.
Cheaper to expect.
(He laughs, softly, despite himself.)
Even my outrage was following the gradient.
The Collapse of Authority
Blottisham
So even here — alone —
There is no push.
No command.
No inner arrow forcing my thoughts forward.
(He leans back.)
Only paths that keep going easily…
And others that barely begin.
(A long, quiet moment.)
Final Note in the Notebook
(He writes, carefully.)
“The universe does not require enforcement.
Neither, it seems, does understanding.”
(He closes the book.)
Epilogue
Blottisham does not convert.
That would be too dramatic.
But something crucial has shifted:
He no longer imagines a small, officious metaphysical officer pushing reality along —
because he has discovered that even his own certainty had no such officer.
Only gradients.
Only availability.
Only what continues easily.
And this, perhaps, is the most scandalous lesson of all.
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