Unlike Thomas, Eli is a realist, a man of facts. The world is how he observes it, how could it be anything else? Memories are subject, clouded with time and emotion. Garbage in, garbage out. Cold and calculating, his world is not recreated with a poof, a cloud of thought. It is reformed, redefined with each new observation. Each new day, each new experience, another data point.
Charts, graphs, plots. Everything fits together. Makes a statement. Pieces of a puzzle. Not making sense? Just more research, just more data. The world according to Eli was a machine, broken though it may be. Each piece interconnected with each other, teeth on cogs on sprockets on chains. But, then, they weren’t spinning right, were they? War and poverty and hunger and unemployment and books for pedophiles and arguments. Too many teeth, too few cogs. Where’s the fix?
More data, just more research. More study. Where’s the fix? That’s the world according to Eli. A set of problems looking for solutions. A set of solutions without knowing the problems. Never fixed, always broken, but it is a challenge! Something to work for! But why doesn’t it work? What piece needs fixing? Where to bloody start?
This is the world according to Eli. And as he lay, breathing becoming increasingly shallow, nearing the end of a life spent searching for answers. Data. The Present. No reminiscing. Memories unreliable. He shuts his eyes and POOF! He slips into memory, a life spent following his passion, always looking for answers, looking for problems, plotting, graphing.
He opens his eyes again, smiles, as the teeth of the cogs align, the machine begins humming along. Smiling, he closes his eyes again, and POOF!
NB: This is a spiritual successor to The World According to Thomas.
