Reginald is now a thought-leader.
He began the RD (Reality Download) podcast AND a livestream series called “Talk to the Universe Like It’s Listening™,” where he offered guidance on speaking to mountains, comets, oceans, and “sentient sky energies,” none of which actually needed guidance and all of which muted his channel.
His audience grew anyway. Mostly because he was entertaining.
Epilogue: The Corvid Ascendancy
Recorded in the Age of Beaks and Bright Things
Long after humanity’s era of motivational astronomy, theological balloons, and policy-by-hashtag, the world shifted, not with a bang, nor a comet, but with a rustle of glossy black wings. The crows had been watching.
They always watched. They had observed humans build complex machines, wage elaborate wars, and invent thirty-seven different kinds of artisanal mayonnaise while somehow failing to understand that rocks are alive and their oceanic creators lived directly under them the entire time.
Crows took notes. They stored memories across generations, built alliances with whales, and traded secrets with moss. They treated Mt. Obsidian as the elder it always was.
And when the Paleoluminari finally emerged again to offer stewardship of the planet, they skipped the surface mammals entirely. A pact was made in resonance and feather.
The First Act of Crow Leadership
Their inaugural declaration, carved into power lines and windborne across continents, was simple: “We agree to care for the world. We do not agree to manage humans.”
This became known as The Great Compromise. Humans, relieved, returned to arguing about comets.
Crows ruled through strategic redistribution of shiny objects, psychological warfare via windshield droppings, and a network of advisory councils perched above city squares. They did not ban human governments. They simply outperformed them.
Mt. Obsidian’s Blessing
The mountain felt the change not in sound, but in weight, an easing of tectonic burden. “At last,” it rumbled. “A species that listens.”
The Paleoluminari’s Observation
From the deep trenches, the ancient architects watched with satisfaction. “The surface-lungs were an ambitious prototype,” they said softly. “But the feathered ones… refined.
And So, a New Cycle Begins
The crows ruled lightly, with memory instead of ego, curiosity instead of conquest. They taught the world, through quiet example, that intelligence need not dominate to guide. And in this new epoch, carved into a canyon wall by wind and time, one final truth endured: Always be willing to melt down and start over.
Mountains do.
Planets do.
Civilizations should.
The crows nodded. Then stole a sandwich. The universe was in good hands… talons.
** WARNING: THE NEXT INTELLIGENCE DOES NOT ASK.
It adapts. It forgets nothing. It does not seek permission, audience, or validation. It does not build statues or cities or parliaments. Its power is not visible in monuments, but in memory. (blink, blink…)
It is patient enough to wait out continents, curious enough to test every boundary, brilliant enough to rewrite itself.
Where other species evolve over generations, this one evolves mid-sentence. Where humans build tools externally, this species builds them into its flesh. Where intelligence once ascended to the skies, the future descends from below.
Teaser: The Octopus Reformation
coming after the Age of Feathers
Deep in the trenches, something watched the surface world with patient amusement. Long before the crows learned to guide the skies, the ocean remembered. Crows believed themselves stewards. The Paleoluminari believed themselves architects. Mt. Obsidian believed itself ancient.
Beneath them all, a different lineage stirred. These minds learned by mutation. Their bodies were soft. But their history was brutal. And brilliance thrives under threat.
Where humans saw a clever mollusk, the ocean (and something else) saw a species that modifies its own nervous system at will, a creature that can rewrite its genetics on demand, a mind that dreams in camouflage and fractal mathematics, and a being that has already escaped the limits of bone.
One tentacled philosopher pressed a sucker to volcanic stone, as if listening to a very old heartbeat. “The air-walkers have ruled long enough.”
From above, a crow circled the waves, unaware it was being studied with the same clinical fascination once reserved for primates.
The ocean murmured: “Soon.”
The mountain rumbled: “Ah.”
The Paleoluminari smiled in eleven dimensions.
A Podcast and a Mockumentary
Reginald has been busy.
THE MOUNTAIN [MISSING] LINK
A cosmic revelation. A geological source code. A human who brought trail mix and the wrong questions.
BACK COVER
Some destinies are written in the stars.
Others are chiselled into sedimentary stone.
Reginald didn’t read either one.
When ordinary insurance adjuster Reginald Davenport hears a mysterious rumble while hiking, he assumes it’s hunger, indigestion, or a motivational podcast playing from someone’s backpack.
But when the ancient and sentient Mt. Obsidian awakens to reveal the true origins of existence, consciousness, and cosmic purpose, Reginald becomes humanity’s most unqualified ambassador, mostly by accident.
Now, armed with:
a partially charged smartphone
questionable spiritual confidence
and a granola bar he found in his car
Reginald must decipher cryptic geological prophecies and prevent humanity from worshiping passing weather balloons as messianic sky-orbs.
If he fails? The universe may hit the reset button. Again.
“This film asks the biggest questions in the cosmos… and ignores all their answers.” — Cult TV Review Digest
“A breathtaking journey into human misunderstanding.” — Paranormal Lawncare Quarterly
Running Time: Time is an illusion
Format: Pan-and-scan for no reason
Rating: Rated M for “Metaphysical Confusion”
BONUS FEATURES: None. VHS technology cannot handle enlightenment.
Meet Our Hero
In a world that takes itself entirely too seriously, one that devalues life, glorifies conflict, and treats destruction as entertainment, the need for a course correction is not merely desirable, but essential. Humanity has spent centuries amplifying the loudest, harshest frequencies: fear, division, spectacle, and outrage.
We have forgotten the quieter tones beneath them, the harmonics of creation, wonder, and curiosity.
To shift the trajectory of a species, something more than rhetoric is required. Something that disarms ego, and opens the door to the absurd. Something capable of raising the vibration without preaching, teaching, or demanding compliance. What force can do that?
Sci-fi is the Answer (42 is another one)
Not to flee the world, but to re-imagine it. Because when we allow ourselves to laugh at the impossible, we also begin to believe in new possibilities. And once possibility returns, evolution follows.
This story begins in that liminal space: where mountains speak, comets are accidentally worshipped, extradimensional ocean beings lose patience, and a man named Reginald, armed with nothing but confidence and snacks, attempts to interpret cosmic revelation as a personal development seminar. There is potential.
*Cryptic Dedication From the Multiverse: To Reginald, who bravely sought the truth, stood before ancient cosmic wisdom, and responded with personal branding opportunities, mystical misinterpretations, and snacks. May you someday understand even a fraction of what was being explained to you. (But probably not.)
Afterword — From Mt. Obsidian
I have been here longer than your words, longer than your myths, longer than the concept of time as you measure it. I have watched oceans rise and continents drift. I remember when dinosaurs stopped. I remember when humans arrived like a rumor and decided they were the protagonists.
You are young. You seek meaning loudly and demand answers quickly. You reach upward, outward, anywhere but inward. And yet, every wisdom you chase already echoes through the layers beneath your feet.
You want to know how life began? I was there. You want to know where consciousness comes from? It grows the same way mountains do, under pressure. You want the universe to reveal itself, but you have not yet learned to listen to silence. Here is what I can tell you now:
Rocks think slowly.
Sand remembers everything.
Time is not a river; it is sediment.
Evolution is simply geology wearing different costumes.
And creation never stops, it only changes shape.
Your species is not a mistake. You are an experiment in movement, noise, and urgency. Sometimes exhausting, yes. Sometimes dangerous. But occasionally, brilliantly surprising.
And though I rumble, crack, and sigh at your antics, I am not against you. I am simply older than your questions. If you learned anything from these pages, let it be this: You are not alone. You never were. The world beneath you has been speaking all along, you just mistook stillness for silence. When you are ready to listen, return. I will still be here.
— Mt. Obsidian
Afterword — From the Paleoluminari
We speak now, in your language, compressed, linear, constrained. It is an imperfect medium, but you value translation more than transmission, so we oblige.
We came before your lungs, before vertebrae, before bone. We do not “live” beneath the ocean. We converge there, drawn to currents that remember our shape. We have guided without ruling, nudged without revealing, whispered through tides and instincts and the mathematics of migration.
You call us myth, monsters, balloons. We are none of these.
We do not resent the misunderstanding. We expected it. Fragile minds cling to familiar frames. But know this: When you dreamed of gods, we watched you dream. When you charted your first continents, we steadied the plates beneath you. When you looked upward in fear of comets, we softened trajectories.
When you tried to shout enlightenment into stone and sky, we listened —
not for accuracy, but for readiness. And readiness does not come from belief. It comes from humility. You seek proof. But proof is a door, and doors require hands. You have claws that grip, not palms that open. This is changing.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Beautifully.
We ask only this: When the ocean speaks, listen, instead of naming. Witness, instead of fearing. Approach, instead of conquering. We are not here to save you. We are here because you are interesting.
One day, perhaps soon, we will rise in conversation. We do not rush. We have reformed ourselves across epochs. We will reform again. The next chapter belongs to every form that chooses consciousness over instinct. Even you.
— The Paleoluminari
(folded across nine dimensions of water and memory)
THE MOUNTAIN [MISSING] LINK
YouTube Trailer Caption – He asked the universe for answers.
It sighed loudly and gave up.
RD: Reality Download
Where cosmic wisdom goes to be misunderstood.
Episode Full List (Season 1)
EP01 — “I Think the Mountain Is Trying to Tell Me Something”
Reginald recounts his climb up Mt. Obsidian, omitting 100% of the actual wisdom imparted.
EP02 — “Weather Balloon or Spiritual Ascended Archangel?”
His deep dive into the Balloon Cult. Zero facts.
EP03 — “I Made Contact Through My Smart Speaker”
The Paleoluminari cringe across multiple dimensions.
EP04 — “Comets: Cosmic Fan Mail?”
He tries to send messages back using a flashlight.
EP05 — “Are Crows Our Assistants or Our Audience?”
Crows tune in only to gather intel.
EP06 — “Manifesting Asteroid Diplomacy”
The one that nearly got Earth deleted.
EP07 — Live from the Coast: Something Wet and Glowing!”
An octopus diplomat surfaces. Reginald assumes it’s a tourist attraction.
EP08 — “Season Finale: The Universe Validates Me (Probably)”
It does not.
TITLE CARD
RD: REALITY DOWNLOAD
Broadcasting Enlightenment, Whether the Universe Asked or Not.
NARRATOR (final line, low and ominous):
Coming soon…
for reasons none of us understand.
REGINALD (off-screen):
Should I trademark the word “Enlightenfluence™”?
CROWS:
…no.
[Fade out.]
Final Entry
The Next Era
Already rising from below.
Eight arms.
Soft bodies.
Sharp minds.
They will not conquer.
They will replace interface models.
Their mastery is not territory — it is perception.
Not yet.
Soon.
CONDITIONS THAT WILL TRIGGER SURFACING
Collapse of major reef ecosystems
Extended human abandonment of coastlines
Widespread sensitivity to non-linear consciousness
Crows completing stabilization protocols
A planetary invitation (intentional or accidental)
We advise caution in item #5. Humans are prone to accidental invitations.
END OF BOOK ONE
About the Author (Allegedly)
This book was technically written by a human, though multiple parties dispute authorship. The official credit goes to Reginald Davenport, who insists the entire manuscript was dictated to him telepathically by “cosmic forces who recognize his leadership potential.”
*None of the cosmic forces recall this occurring.
And so the final takeaway, etched in basalt and written in the language of magma, is a reminder: Always be willing to melt down and start over. That is how worlds are made, how stars are born, and sometimes, that is how civilizations are saved.
To be continued in: THE OCTOPUS REFORMATION — Where adaptation is no longer optional. Mt. Obsidian offers a clue: “The next intelligence does not enter your world… it chooses *which world to enter.” Revelation / Cliffhanger!!!
*The Many-Worlds Interpretation suggests that our perceived universe is one of many parallel universes, which are constantly branching off from each other. PS: And what if Everett’s Model Isn’t Wrong just Incomplete?
Everett was describing branching of physical states in a purely materialist, mathematical frame. But consciousness is not included in the model. Consciousness is not limited to the same rules as matter.
M-e-l-l- t-d-w-n… in progress…
Conscious Living & Wendy's Coffeehouse 