From the Personal Diary of Joscelin Holloway
How curious that the dissolution of a human connection can feel like the unraveling of reality itself. Tobias arrived this evening with the precision of a temporal anomaly, his movements carrying an inevitability that even my most advanced dimensional calculations could not have predicted.
"Joscelin," he said, his voice carrying the mundane weight of impending severance, "I don't think I'm... enough for you."
Enough. Such a laughably human concept, as if the vast cosmic tapestry of existence could be measured by some arbitrary metric of sufficiency. I watched, partially suspended between three-and-a-half dimensions, as he continued.
"You live in this incredible world of impossible things. And me? I'm just... normal. I organize paperclips. I collect stamps. I make dad jokes." Toby's hands were trembling in a way that suggested he was attempting to break free from the mundane constraints of human anatomy. "At the aquarium," he began, his voice carrying the weight of carefully considered inadequacy, "when those octopi were doing their... whatever they were doing, I couldn't understand a thing. You were communicating in... whatever language that was, and I was just standing there, thinking about my grandfather's stamp collection."
I tilted my head, causing several of my non-euclidean appendages to recalibrate. "The language of the deep ones is not typically comprehensible to—"
"Exactly!" he interrupted, a gesture so uncharacteristically decisive that it momentarily destabilized the quantum field around us. "See? You speak in languages that no one else knows. And me? I get excited about paperclip organization."
"Paperclip organization can be a precise art," I offered, unsure why I was attempting to console him.
Toby laughed, a sound that did uncomfortable things to the fabric of spacetime. "No, it's not. Not like what you do. Remember when we were at my apartment, and I showed you my stamp collection? You looked at those tiny pieces of perforated paper like they were the most mundane objects in existence."
I recalled the moment. Each stamp had indeed seemed like a pale imitation of the dimensional markers my grandfather used to track cosmic migrations. "They were... interesting," I said, knowing the word fell woefully short.
"See?" He spread his hands, a gesture that seemed to map out the vast chasm of our differences. "When the octopus at the aquarium made that symbol on its skin - the same one on your floor - I thought for a moment I might understand something. But you just looked at me and talked about 'suitability' and 'doorways to dimensions beyond mortal comprehension'. What could I possibly offer someone who sees the world like that?"
My confusion manifested physically - one of my hands briefly existed in a state between solid and liquid. "But you saw the symbol. Most humans would have—"
"Exactly!" he said again, that word becoming a wedge between our realities. "Most humans. But I'm not most humans. I'm just... ordinary. Mundane. You deserve someone who can actually comprehend the things you talk about. Someone who understands quantum physics, or ancient languages, or impossible geometries."
I tried to parse his logic, my consciousness spreading across multiple analytical pathways. "But you witnessed things that would drive most humans to madness. The jellyfish dance. The octopus communications. The—"
"And I explained them away!" Toby's voice cracked. "Rubber ducks. Software updates. Flash mobs. I can't even admit the extraordinary when it's right in front of me. You need someone who can truly see you, all of you."
The apartment's walls seemed to pulse with an emotion I was only beginning to understand. Grief. Confusion. Loss.
"I do not understand," I said, my voice carrying harmonics that would have caused lesser beings to spontaneously unravel. "You are suggesting that our fundamental incompatibility is a reason to... terminate our connection?"
Toby's smile was soft, sad. "Sometimes love isn't enough if you can't truly understand each other."
And then he was gone, leaving behind a silence that spoke in languages older than human comprehension. A silence that ached - a sensation so foreign that I momentarily checked to ensure my corporeal form hadn't spontaneously dissolved.
My carefully arranged bookshelves seemed to lean inward, as if conspiring to understand this unprecedented emotional disruption. The volumes bound in materials harvested from between dimensions whispered sympathetic incantations, but for the first time, their cosmic wisdom felt inadequate.
I traced the patterns on my floor - the same geometric configuration the octopus had created, the same symbol that had momentarily connected Tobias and myself. Now it seemed to mock me, its angles sharp with the precision of my own emotional miscalculation.
The human concept of "heartbreak" suddenly made visceral sense. It was not merely a metaphorical dissolution, but an actual structural compromise of one's internal reality. My carefully maintained dimensional barriers were leaking something hot and corrosive - an emotion that defied quantum classification.
I had witnessed the birth and death of universes. I had communed with entities that existed in spaces between thoughts. And yet, this loss felt more incomprehensible than any cosmic horror my grandfather's texts had prepared me to understand.
Toby had seen me. Not just my physical form, but me - the being that existed across multiple realities. And he had found himself wanting. Insufficient.
The apartment's walls began to pulse - not with their usual rhythmic breathing, but with an emotion that would require several additional dimensional languages to properly articulate. The very air seemed to fold in on itself, creating negative spaces that whispered with unspoken grief.
The silence condensed, becoming something tangible. My carefully maintained dimensional barriers - those gossamer-thin membranes that typically separated realities - began to tremble and ripple, not with the usual cosmic precision, but with an unsettling emotional resonance that defied my comprehensive understanding.
And then, without transition or announcement, he was simply there.
My grandfather stood between the bookshelves, his spectral form wearing the same Victorian smoking jacket he'd been wearing the day he transcended mortal boundaries. Not as an invitation, not as a summoning, but as an inevitability.
"Honored Progenitor," I began, my voice carefully modulated to carry both reverence and desperation, "what is this sensation? This... emptiness?"
My grandfather's spectral form shifted, momentarily revealing glimpses of realities that existed between his words. "Grief," he said simply. "A quantum state of emotional entropy most humans spend lifetimes attempting to comprehend."
"But I am not most humans," I insisted, my fingers tracing patterns that would have destabilized lesser dimensional barriers. "I have communed with entities that exist beyond temporal constraints. How can this mortal sensation overwhelm me so completely?"
His laugh was a sound that resonated across multiple frequencies. "Because, my dear, for all your cosmic awareness, you are fundamentally experiencing. And experience, in its purest form, transcends dimensional understanding."
"Explain," I demanded, my voice carrying harmonics that would have caused lesser beings to spontaneously unravel.
"Emotional connections," he said, pulling out a spectral pipe constructed from the fabric of forgotten memories, "are not logical constructs. They are quantum entanglements of consciousness. Your connection with Tobias created neural pathways that now resist dissolution."
"But why?" The word emerged with such force that several of my books momentarily existed in multiple states simultaneously. "Why do humans design such an inefficient method of emotional processing?"
"Design implies intention," my grandfather said, his eyebrow arching in a manner that suggested multiple dimensions of amusement. "Emotional responses are not designed. They are emergent properties. Survival mechanisms that have evolved to ensure collective preservation."
I considered this, my multiple consciousnesses converging on this singular point of vulnerability. "So this pain serves a purpose?"
"Not just a purpose," he said, "but a profound one. It is a recalibration mechanism. A way for consciousness to reorganize itself after significant relational disruption."
"And the fact that it feels like the unmaking of universes?" I asked, my voice carrying the weight of multiple dimensional awarenesses.
My grandfather's spectral form seemed to shimmer with something remarkably close to fondness. "Welcome to humanity, my dear. Where emotions are not merely experienced, but felt with a intensity that makes cosmic horror seem like a mild inconvenience." His laugh was not unkind, but carried the weight of millennia of cosmic understanding. "Because, my dear, for all your dimensional awareness, you are experiencing something profoundly, wonderfully human."
The jellyfish in my living room aquarium began to pulse in synchronized mourning, their tendrils creating geometries that mapped the precise coordinates of my unexpected, utterly human pain.
I am beginning to fear that some violations of reality are far more terrifying than those found in forbidden texts.