• Our narrator, Elk, is staring pensively off to the left in the first panel, musing: One question I've been pondering lately is: have I actually had any four-dimensional experiences? Elk in the next panel pops up looking skeptical saying, Not like when I would stare at the carpet til it started moving as a kid... Elk appears in the same panel upside-down and remarks, I'm talking about some REAL SHIT!
  • Elk gestures with his hand off-screen, saying, I mean, like, what's my origin story? In the next panel, eyes closed, he wonders, Do I just like thinking about shit? In the next panel, he looks on inquisitively, asking, Or have I ever really felt it? Guiltily, he admits, Not to be a stereotypical philosophy bro, but.... One time I took salvia and imagined my body as physically embodying the entire crust of the earth's surface over the course of multiple millenia... Below this text box is an image of Elk as a teenager lying in the grass and his chest looks like a aerial view of the Earth's surface. His arms are transformed into tree roots that grow into the ground, and his eyes are blank, his face resembling a crumbling statue.
  • A text box reads, There are also moments when I get caught up in a sense of all-at-onceness, where layers of groundhog day time curdle. Elk is standing thinking, I've lived this moment a thousand times. To his right are five more panels of different instances of him having the same thought. The next text box reads, It sort of reminded me of Han Solo frozen: I felt a longer-aim vision of my place in the universe... As a relief mapped onto 3D space, like a bug caught in an ancient lump of amber: I'm still wriggling, but stuck in eternity. THere's an image of Elk in a sort of re-enactment of the scene where Han Solo gets frozen in whatever tarry black material from Star Wars. An arrow points to the image of Elk frozen that reads, a very thick slice of Elk sausage.
  • There was another time when I took mushrooms and hiked to a river in the redwoods in California... Elk is wide-eyed in front a huge slug on a log that dominates the foreground of the image. In weird bendy letters, it reads, I watched a slug for what felt like an eternity. I felt like I had been transported into slug-time by staring into its soul. It was one of the most beautiful out-of-body experiences I've ever had. Elk sits at the edge of a river with trees in the background, barefoot and surrounded by bubbles. The final text box reads, then I sat by the river and thought about the golden Age
  • Elk, high as balls, sitting on the floor of the forest surrounded by crazy wild bubbles. His eyes are HUGE! A thought bubble reads... Hesiod's myth of the golden age theorizes that the first race of mankind had lived like gods and never aged. Described as giant babies, proto-communists, and agrarian quote uber-mensch unquote, this so-called natural state of man is one of innocence, harmoniousness, and goodness that existed outside of TIME. In the next bubble, Elk thinks in cursive... I need to escape the vices of man and empty myself of my neurotic obsession with my own existence in the present. How can I exist outside of time, he wonders? How can I exist outside of MYSELF?
  • Shyly, present-Elk chuckles and says, but aside from some teenage drug-induced musings... I’ve been an avid dreamer ever since I was a kid, and the vast majority of my time-travelling has occured while asleep. Elk is lying down on a bed with one eye open, and recalls I used to sleep-walk, too.. and you see Elk as a young child with long hair drooling standing in his parent's living room in front of a long table, clearly asleep.
  • The narrator continues, I was also obsessed with the game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time... We see young Elk again, with long blonde hair, in his parent's basement playing legend of zelda on the N64. He proudly exclaims, By the time I was twelve I'd beaten it several times! Dear screen reader users, here's a fun easter egg for you: I didn't actually beat it, I would always get right up to Ganon's Castle then start over cuz I didn't want it to end. I didn't actually beat the game until it came out on the 3DS a few years back. Now back to the story! We see young Elk in his childhood bedroom dressed up in shitty Link cosplay, exclaiming, My mom made me this sweet green tunic out of felt, and I went as Link for Halloween like five years in a row! I looked sooooo cool!
  • One night around the same time, I had a very compelling dream... In the foreground is young Elk facing away from the viewer towards a motley crew of men, all of different ages, body types, and races, all wearing the same Link tunic, carrying ocarinas and wearing those same floppy little hats. The text box below this reads, I was confronted by a ragtag group of Links from anternate dimensions.
  • A desi Link with dark black hair and beautiful eyes with wavy lines emanating from him says in a funky font, We're asking you to join us in traversing time, holding out an ocarina to the viewer. We use music - the art of time - to travel across dimensions and throughout the centuries, he continues. A little circle with the narrator in it pops up, and it's a disconcerted looking Elk holding up one finger saying, just to interject here... this is when the dream gets even weirder, so bear with me...
  • Desi-Link waves his hand, conjuring an image of a musical staff racing across the page, bearing a familiar melody to those in the know. He continues, the greatest time-traveller came from your dimension: John Coltrane. He used Giant Steps to step through the veil of time, exploring alternate dimensions through SOUND. We see a giant version of John Coltrane stepping over skyscrapers in one boxed panel, and in the next we see a stylized rendition of the cover to the album giant steps.
  • Narrator Elk pops up once again, this time whispering: Of course, later I realized I had thrown Coltrane into my dream cuz I'd just first listened to that album, but whatever... Desi-Link rea--ears and hands young Elk an ocarina, saying Take this, and don't forget: We'll wait for you. Young Elk looks stunned, but takes the ocarina, mumbling OK, wid-eyed. Next we see narrator Elk again, looking embarrassed: We'll Wait for You was also the name of a track from Space is the Place, a film by Sun Ra about a black-only world out in the cosmos, an afro-futurist utopia.
  • So, narrator-Elk continues, chin in his hand, eyebrows raised, I mean other than being a little - uh - racially confused, I had taken to heart the message of the dream. I'd been given a gift by the universe, and I had to use its powers for good. We land on an image of young Elk's outstretched hands, clutching the ocarina, which now reads Philosophy of Time on it.
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