Rhetorical Metonymy

Metonymy: A figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated.

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Rhetorical Metonymy


Ali.

If you are defined by what you do, and you do nothing, are you meaningless? No, because while we say that somebody is defined by what they do, that is not really true. Nobody cares about what you do in private, the things you've buried, the violations your committed; out of sight, out of mind.

If you are defined by the things you say, and you are silent, do you not exist? No, because as much as we want to define people by the things we hear, the things left unsaid hold more weight. Words are cheap in our modern era, and original ideas are an impossibility; unless they are etched into a digital record, and maintained for time immemorial, they will be forgotten. They have no meaning, not one that matters.

If you are defined by what you are, when you no longer exist, are you meaningless?

Am I meaningless?

Maybe.

But at that point, you won't really be around to know.

So what's left? If we are not defined by what we do, what we say, or what we are, how do we understand ourselves in meaning?

"Ali," she said, to none but herself. It was her name, in as much as she could remember. A signifier that carries no meaning, an arbitrary one that could just as easily be forgotten. It was, unfortunately, as much as she could remember.

Rhetorical Metonymy, she thought aloud as she wandered the conceptual expanse.

Of course, that was rhetorical, given the lack of substance within her existence; she had awoken within a place of half-existence, and haunted along that divide. She existed as no more than the idea of 'Ali', she reckoned, and so to doubt that would put herself in danger. Right?

If you are defined by a single word, a name, then that name contains your very existence. If you lack a history, a past, memories, ideas, a personality, nothing changes; you are your name, and that is a simple fact. Most people are defined in a multitude of ways: short, sporty or annoying, each definition tells us who somebody is. Each facet a piece in the arch, every aspect a reflection of that core.

A person who is remembered by others exists as a composite reflection; they are defined by a multitude, one which excludes them. But what about somebody who is not remembered? A forgotten person, too, is defined as a composite reflection; they are defined by an absence, one which still excludes them. They exist to themselves, but exist as an unknown stranger to the rest of the world.

What about somebody who cannot be remembered? What about somebody whose existence is defined by the act of definition? Somebody like that, one which came into re-existence upon re-definition, in a single term: one such as that could only exist as long as they remembered themselves.

To lose sight of who you are, when you are the only one that knows yourself is to cease to exist as you were. When you forget yourself, the rest falls away, and only you are left.

I am all that is left, Ali thought, as she paced meaninglessly throughout her expansive constraints. I cannot forget myself, or I will not be myself.

So who are you, if you are nothing but self?

I am still Ali.

Is that enough?

"Is it?"

Nobody knew. Not Ali, not the void, nor the (presumed) air, light, darkness or the flashes of light trailing above; none could ever claim to know what cannot be known. The burden of existence is suffering enough, and to know that which remains beyond existence, and to retain that would be akin to trying to ignite a raging campfire via spark. One must learn not to burn out, especially if one wishes to survive.

I wish to survive, Ali reminded herself, but I did not wish to exist.

If she didn't wish herself into existence, if she did not choose to define the undefined and come into being, then it must follow suit that she could not have defined herself — no, she must have existed first. Or, at least, she existed at some point. She hoped.

I have to have existed before this, right?

Did she? Yes, it is true that she did not define herself. It is also true that not only did she know that, she knew that she was a human, and that she was a she. Three things.

Are people defined by more things, typically? she wondered, as the empty meaningless void began to twist; with each step, context was gained, the dial turned towards something. The void began to… be.

Not really, Ali wondered as she marched onwards. Think about a father. He has a job. Maybe he has a hobby. Three things. A schoolgirl, young, afraid of the dark. Three things. A doctor, brilliant, on the verge of discovery. Still three things.

Before her was a split in the road. Before, there had been no split, nor road, and yet — she had a decision. Two ways to go.

No, not two.

Three. Ali stepped forward through the split, and continued along the path. The world had cascaded around her footsteps, each sending ripples throughout reality, a cosmic emptiness folding upon itself, the wake echoing out forever, never ending, never meeting a barrier. The waves that Ali made would remain, forever, blasting out as fractals through the ground on which she walked. It lit up in a dazzling array of meaningless color, before ceasing abruptly.

It was dark again.

Wait.

Ali froze, unsure of what was happening to her. Up until now, she knew that each and every action, reaction or concept that she saw, believed or interacted with came from her, all stemming from the initial concept of 'self'. But, no — that couldn't be right, could it? It almost seemed like the world was responding to her, directly, in some pre-linear temporal way; could she have remembered herself into existence now, only once she was already existing?

No, that's crazy.

Yes. Crazy. Now is the right time to worry about being crazy. In the middle of emptiness, in a world without substance, defined by cognition, there is no abnormal. There is no normal, for that matter. There is no default state, there is no baseline, there is no consensus reality for one to return to — when you only exist as an idea, what is the difference between rational and irrational thought? Each have the same power here.

Ali, she thought, trying to ground herself despite the fact that said ground was relatively non-existent. What if I'm not alone?

One might think that this thought, had by Ali, would change something — and that would be true, had the other been defined by Ali's thought, and Ali's alone. But the other, the one who meant that Ali was not alone, the observer, the witness, the oculus of self: they were defined beyond comprehension. They could not be changed. They were an Icon.

"Hello, Ali."

A young woman stood before Ali, in the lobby of a drab, grey high rise office building, on the other side of the front desk. She had hair that seemed to shift hues in the light, scarlet wisps mixed with lilac strands, dancing in the sunshine. She was wearing dress pants, a blouse and a blazer; all in all, a true professional, the platonic ideal of a secretary in a legal firm.

"I'm sorry?" Ali asked, looking around the office in deserved disorientation. "I… I'm Ali."

Really? Ali thought, fuming. Your first words to another person were to apologize? Come on. Pull yourself together here, you're a professional, right? So start acting like it.

Was Ali a professional? That was new, something that might now be true; Ali wondered how much that was due to the fact that she was, in fact, a professional, compared to the contextual meaning from the office. Was she a professional? Or did she just think that, because she was in a place where one should be professional?

"You are in the right place, Ali."

"Wow," Ali thought aloud, a sarcastic lilt leaking in, an echo of a personality once suppressed by nothingness, "You certainly enjoy speaking in riddles."

"Oh, I'm sorry." The other woman's former decorum was shattered, if it had ever been more than a falsehood worn by an actress. "I'm not trying to confuse you, Ali, I'm here to help you."

"Obviously," Ali thought, rolling her eyes as she walked around the lobby, flipping through magazines and looking at files. She expected to see nothing within them, a falsehood, an echo of the unreality of this; but they were as she expected.

If fact, they were exactly what she had expected. Ali wasn't sure if they had always been that way.

"I remembered you, Ali."

"Of course you do! That's me, Ali! I'm… well, actually, that's the grand total of who I am. Sorry about that." Ali sat down forcefully in a chair, resigned to the persistence of the room she now found herself in. "You… you remembered me?"

Ali leaned forward, as the words for the emotions she was feeling escaped her. There was a warmth, a desire, a flame within; was it anger? Passion? Love?

Maybe it was fear.

"Don't be afraid, Ali, please. I know I'm not very good at this, but I don't have much experience. Obviously, more than you do, but…" the redhead said, rambling on the spot.

"You said that you remembered me. What did you mean by that?"

"I remembered you!" The cheerful grin that was clearly meant to indicate joy, and a pride in helping was lost on Ali; on second thought, perhaps the smile was a bit false, wasn't it?

"This is… do you think this is funny?" Ali asked, as the redhead shook her head 'no'. "Because saying that you 'remembered me' means nothing, you get that, right?"

After all, rhetorical metonymy exists without another; but was Ali synecdoche or just metalepsis? Was Ali part of a greater whole, or was she elsewhere, in a place she did not exist, in a time she did not belong, to be a person who was not?

"I'm sorry, I…"

A buzzer rang on the desk, causing the scatterbrained memorialist to jump in panic. She walked around the desk, and pressed a button.

"Hey, Arachne," a female voice said over an invisible speaker, echoing in Ali's non-self. "You can send them in now."

Ali blinked, and was greeted with a sensory overload. A rush of stimuli pushed to the forefront, demanding to be addressed. The woman had a tangle of dark hair, which Ali lost against the bright and overlapping shapes and lines the woman had on her lab coat. The office was cozy, not to big, not too small. There was a smell that Ali remembered, but couldn't quite place — not with that ringing in her ears, no, she wouldn't be able to focus with all that noise.

On the wall behind the woman were a handful of diplomas, some portraits of people Ali didn't recognize, and the one piece in the middle that stood out, the piece that was different. A golden baroque frame held a print of a photograph, a portrait of grotesquery, hideousness and abnormality. The figure was twisted beyond recognition, the original visage having no evidence beyond that it must have existed at some point; it was horrific, vile and ugly. Ali had no idea who that was supposed to be.

The woman's desk was messy, as many desks are — so were the bookshelves, for that matter. The letters on the spines seemed to shift before Ali's eyes, although; she was unsure if the letters were changing, or if she was. The woman — yes, the woman, with the dark hair, olive skin and piercing eyes, a smirk that somehow comforted Ali, and an outfit that belonged nowhere near academia, professionalism, or anything else that would have such a private office; she was waiting for Ali.

She was waiting for Ali.

"You were waiting for me?" Ali asked. "Wh— what the flying fuck is going on?"

"Did Arachne not explain anythi—"

"She told me that she remembered me."

Ali watched the woman rub her temples while she sighed. "Yeah, that fucking sounds like her. Sorry, she's… she's new."

The other woman laughed, while Ali stared on in confusion. The woman, seeing Ali's continued look of uncertainty, resolved to determine if that was the default, or if she was lost.

"I'm sorry, let me start over. Hi, I'm Heather, nice to meet you."

"Hi, Heather. I'm Ali."

And that was as far as Ali felt confident to go.

"So, Ali, tell me about yourself."

"I just did. Your turn."

"You only told me your name."

"I know."

Heather snorted, leaning back in her chair. "Fine. Well, Ali, I don't know how to explain this, but, well—"

"I'm dead," Ali interjected plainly. "I get it. I walked my path, saw the lights flash before my eyes, and now I'm in heaven. Nice to see that god is a woman."

"Me, god? You flatter me more than Lillian. No, you're not dead. At least, I don't think so."

"What?" Ali asked, slack-jawed. "You don't think I'm dead? So what the fuck am I?"

"You're Ali," the woman said with a smirk that reminded Ali of Arachne's, "and that is enough, isn't it?"

"I didn't come here for riddles. Fuck, I didn't even want to come here! Do you know what's going on, or not?"

"I do, Ali, I just… look, there are certain things I can tell you if you already know them, and then there are things where if I tell you and you didn't know already, well… yeah, I'm Director, but it wouldn't be for fucking long."

Ali looked at the nameplate that sat on the woman's desk, which read: "Director Heather Garrison, SITE". Beside Heather's name was a symbol.

A circle, three concentric and intersecting arrows, and an outline to contain it all. Still three things.

But, maybe… not just three things. No, these were three known things. Three familiar aspects that told Ali many things she did not understand, more that she could not understand, and even more that she did not want to understand.

"I'm sorry Director Garrison," Ali said, falling into a natural tone. "I'm not quite sure how I ended up within your Foundation facility, but if you just give me a…"

Where did that come from? Ali realized, as she looked up. Heather looked back, with a knowing smirk.

"You… knew this whole time?" Ali asked, trying to reevaluate for the umpteenth time since being reconstituted. "How much do you know?"

"I'm sorry, Ali. You understand, I can't just break the veil, even if I have my suspicions; but hey! You recognized the logo, so that's a great piece of confirmation, at least, to start. Let me try and help you put things together, where were you before here?"

"I was somewhere else, somewhere empty. I just… I was woken, and then I was. I started walking, and now…"

"Okay, great. Pretty much a blank slate, then?"

Ali smiled softly.

"Perfect," Director Garrison said laughing lightly, "let me take this from the top. Hi, Ali, and welcome to SITE. Right now, we are in a conceptual Foundation facility that exists on the Noospheric plane; you were walking around the Noosphere before you got here. Actually, first quick question: how are you here? There's no direct connections to the Noosphere, plus our shielding should have—"

"I didn't mean to."

"Oh?" Heather asked, with a raised brow.

"There was a fork in the road."

"And you took the one less travelled by?"

"No, I went straight."

Warm laughter filled the office; it took her a moment to realize, but Ali was laughing alongside Heather.

"You know what?" Heather said, making rapid notes. "I didn't safeguard against that. Good to know, shouldn't be too hard of a fi—"

"I'm sorry to interrupt," Ali said, before realizing she should be more polite, "Director, but what about me? Who… who am I? How did I end up in the Noosphere? It seems like I must have known about the Foundation to some degree, but…"

"You can't remember?"

"I can't remember anything."

Generally, it is difficult to find comradery in the dearth of something. It's tough to bond over a lack, harder still to connect through the absence of an idea.

But Heather's smile was understanding. Sympathetic. Like she knew exactly what that meant, like she understood that Ali was nothing more than the past few days of survival, knowing that anything could be new, familiar, or worse — Ali, for the first time in her short existence, was reflected back in the eyes of another.

"If you stick around," Heather said, beginning to stand and offering her hand, "I bet that I can fix that."

Ali wanted to be more than just a name; she was a person, and she needed to be her own self.

"Thank you, Director Garrison. I won't let you down."

Heather waved her off.

"Call me Heather."

They shook hands, and for the first time, Ali felt another human through her touch, and knew that this wasn't fake. This wasn't just an idea, or a fever dream, or the flashing synapses of a dying soul; no, this was real, for better or worse, so she might as well make the most out of it.

"Welcome back to the Foundation, Ali."

Ali was glad to be home.

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Welcome to SITE

Forgotten Memories - Intermezzo

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The Garrison Test

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