((::))::

And yet, despite this accumulating ground, apareidolia fiercely prevailed. Opposed to the compulsive drive to detect patterns in the undifferentiated, apareidolia describes an inability to generalize relations, sensations into stable percepts that would allow for secure enough transit between micro- and macro-perceptual scales, such that more or less robust prediction could be ventured (equipped with fallback subterfuges in case primary targets had been missed). After all, even a sketchy knowledge of The Brown Study’s overall structure would invest each asounder with coordinates defined enough to fashion an approach that could evolve autonomously. A contrario, a steadfastly prosecuted molecular immanence kept architectonic yearnings in check. Such an obsessional presentness jibed with the theory that the priest was conducting an intricate analysis of melodic propensities through setups that enjoined asounders to tarry in the dark, struggling to be inventive without ever transgressing the threshold of necessary confidence as to the validity of this or that contrivance over time.

It’s likely (though not axiomatically) true that the vagaries of time would eventually end up concretizing the general constitution of the experiment, if it lasted long enough. But with the end in sight, such conjecture could not be conclusively tested. Nevertheless, X wondered whether the regress at work was less than infinite.

The fourth, longest and most abstruse interregnum yet interceded, assuredly priming in its recondite bearing for the monomania to come. Section N consisted almost exclusively of ascending and descending scalar lines, at differing speeds (once again, deploying a notated rubato meant to discharge affective effects). It was a more streamlined proposal amenable to swift adumbration. A conspicuous hostility began to erupt within the more conventionally trained division of the emergent egregor enduring its intuitive brethren’s irrepressible vagrancies in what turned out to be the most intensely exposed moment of the entire evening. Tension was also being brokered through both speed and directionality: something was being built up to, paradoxically through discontinuities, interruptions and resumptions.

A trumpeter asounder—invisible—flaked out into stratospheric range, keening obliviously.