Simultaneity

Simultaneity is a term from physics that is not that different from synchronicity Jung made famous by taking from the realm of science a word that came to mean " a meaningful coincidence". To Ronald Sukenick,writing 98.6 in the late sixties, the term became "luminous coincidence" which shows even more the relation of the concept to Joyce's early aesthetic of "epiphanies" as outlined in The Portrait of the Artist as a young man.

In this awakening to sequential existence, there is guilt. To Jackson's narrator, it is beautifully put as analogous to the guilt of waking a baby. It is the guilt that comes of creation. as any creation involves the modification, and thus the destruction of that which is the precursor. To become an adult, the baby is destroyed. To become the assemblage that is the patchwork girl (or Mary Shelley's twin creations) the sleep of the dead is destroyed to wake each of their parts.

But Jackson goes on to reassure the baby, "lytel bok" , the little box, that it will be subdumed in sleep once again, as we all journey down the linear track to our deaths.