And I saw five living creatures stretched over the whole world:[^1] - One was like an eagle. - One was like a lion. - One was like a bear, pale and black. - One was like a bear, dark and cold. - One was like a man. The lion wore a rusted crown, and on his forehead was written twice the capital letters[^2] on after the letters L and d. And the lion had no name. And it would cage the weak when they tried to speak. The black creature was called Habit and Custom, and it flapped its wings frequently, though it did not have wings. The dark creature stood lower than the rest, and it was called The Ruler of the World and The Ruler of Peace. The Eagle was colored like the night sky, and sucked blood from its children to feed to the world. And the man was named Gift of Yahweh, and the youngest of the children of Jacob, and he was draped in white and blue, and red for he was soaked in the blood of the Eagle and its children. And they were surrounded by subordinates called Macropodinae and Apterygidae. And rats of pugilism and rats of the water were their subordinates in the south and north. And the rats of the south had words written on them like KING ARROW and ALL OBEY and they lived in a place that was like a great prison, though none of its prisoners had a spirit of rebellion in them any longer. And they were subjugated in the south, and they could no longer defend themselves, and they were defeated in warfare by an army of birds that cannot fly. And the rats of the water cut the trees in the North of the city and ensured that all downstream of them would be damned. And a leader rose among them who was called by the name of Rock True of Water, and whose wife was called a Pearl Clear of Sin, and the woman was impregnated by a tyrant whose name was Castro the Faithful, and in their adulterous Union was born a rat of the water who was called Just and True of the Water, and for this he became the Castor of the north who ensured that all who lived under him would be damned. And as they consumed the forest I was given something with a name like Elm Papyrus[^3] whose letters were all mixed up but it had no writing on either side, for it did not have sides, and it dripped like a liquid, and I was told to eat it, and its taste was sweet in my mouth, but made my stomach turn bloated. And the Eagle and the Man went to the Lion of the old crown, and to the subordinates named Macropodinae and Apterygidae. And I saw five eyes set out in front of them, and each of the five was given one of the eyes, and with these eyes they could see the whole world. And these five entered into a covenant by which anything that was seen by one could be seen by all. By this covenant they were joined, each of the five creatures now having five eyes and not one. And together they were called Aus Cannzukus.[^4] And I saw an ancient book whose name was departure and escape, and its first words named it as The Book of Names. And the Book of Names was divided into 40 parts. And I saw something like a huge mountain, all ablaze,[^5] whose name was SNH and HSNH and SHNSN[^6] and HRB. And it was cast into the Book of Names and it stayed there for a period that drew out for hundreds and thousands of years to decieve all who saw the words of the book. And I saw an ancient serpent whose name was NHS[^7] and J, who appeared near the NHSJ at the beginning of the world.[^8] --- _(Narrator: 1 is incapacitated by laughter.)_ 0: See? It's not hard. 1: How long did this take? 0: Like 10 minutes. 1: It reads exactly the same. 0: It sort of is. 1: It's like steganography. 0: Not trying to hide anything though. 1: Public key? 0: Not in the usual sense. 1: I mean it's encrypted with a key anyone can see. 0: I wouldn't say _anyone._ 1: With like five minutes of research! 0: That's a big ask. 1: For who?! 0: For a larger fraction than you'd think. 1: How did you learn how to do this? 0: Reading the old books. 1: Lots of people do that. 0: And thinking about the Authors. Like a lot. 1: How so? 0: There's lots of reasons to read a book. I think most people read the old books to get closer to god or a tradition or the divine or whatever. I don't think I have the first understanding of why most people read the old books. Nothing human is a mystery to me. Except those bits. I don't think I have those. 1: Yeah me neither. You didn't answer the question though. 0: Which one? 1: What do you mean "And thinking about the Authors. Like a lot." 0: Well like I was saying, there's lots of reasons to read a book. That's mine. 1: What is? 0: To get closer to the Authors. 1: Do you feel like it's working? 0: Absolutely. The old books are the most incredible genre. 1: You always say they're every genre. 0: Separate point. I mean they're like code. 1: In what sense? 0: Ever tried to read code? 1: Of course. I'm a devel一 0: How was it? 1: Hell. 0: Say more. 1: It's always hell. Reading code is infinitely harder. 0: Harder than what? 1: Than writing it. 0: Exactly. 1: Exactly what? 0: The old books are like that too. 1: Easier to write than to read? 0: Easier reimplement than reverse engineer. 1: I'm not even sure what that means. 0: To understand bibles, you can't just read them. 1: So what, you have to write one? 0: Is code any different? 1: I guess not. 0: Is anything? --- [^1]: Cf. Revelation 5:14. [^2]: Lit. "letters of the capital" in the original text. [^3]: Cf. Revelation 10:9-10. [^4]: Possibly German for "Cannzukus is finished." [^5]: O.T. has the Heb. באש ("bash"), meaning "burning" or "ablaze." [^6]: O.T. has 山三 here, mandarin /ShanSan/ meaning "Third mountain", reduced here to SHNSN in accordance with the principles of Abjad that the original text appears to be relying on heavily in this passage. [^7]: Written נחש in the original. This is the Hebrew term for the serpent in Genesis 3, transliterated here as NHS due to the heavy reliance on Abjad in this passage and the previous. [^8]: The original has 你好世界 here, /NiHaoShiJie/ in Mandarin, reduced here to NHSJ following the Abjad principle mentioned in the previous footnote.