"I suppose, Websurfer, the question of how you arrived here is not as significant as you may believe it to be. I suspect you are well aware of that yourself... No. The most important question you could ask would be 'where is here?' to which I, irritatingly, would respond: 'You should be asking why is here?' I joke of course, but behind every joke is a shy, vulnerable honesty. A genuine question, if you will, layered in humor to protect oneself from critique. To answer where, the place you are now in goes by two names."
"Page Not Found"
"Error 404"
"It is interesting, I think, that the latter refers to this place as an error. It implies this to be the result of a mistake. An accident. Consider, if you will, that the paths you could take to reach this place are beyond the number of stars in the night sky. And yet, there is only one path to take in order to get where you wish to go..."
"Websurfers... Such as yourself... They see sites and pages as sprawling continents, connecting edge to edge, one need only cross the border. But you do not simply cross do you? You surf."
"Vision narrowed only to your destination, you instantly cast yourself across vast waters, making landfall on tiny islands and claiming them to be brands, stores, people, communities... But what if you get lost? If your vision strays from the path by a single degree? A single letter? The distance amplifies. The error grows great. Where there should have been an island lies only empty sea. This is why I question the error. If infinite mistakes, mistypings, degrees from your target could all send you here, is there not some greater legitimacy to this place? There is only one path to get to where you are going, but all others lead here. An error is false. No, this is design. The error resides not in here, but in you. Are you seeing this place yet? Websurfer, this is not a crack between two continents you have slipped into, no hidden cave or forgotten alley. It was never hidden at all."
"You have slipped into the fundament overtop of which the worlds you know were built."
"But I do waffle don't I? Let us return to our why and the reason I believe it superior to where, in the sense of this place."
"As you always, feel a hint of disappointment on this page, do you not? The lack of what you sought, but not so simply, for an Error 404 so very rarely shows something of its own, this place an exception. So often, they lack meaning. A placeholder. But all things were once placeholders, were they not? Wikipedia was not always around, there was a time its link would give nothing. Neither was Amazon, or Facebook, or any other site currently up. There was always a time when these sites did not exist, always a time when these brands did not exist, and when the things they produce did not either."
"You may ask why this place is, and I simply cannot answer."
"It is the place before why, the place before what. The place before meaning."
"From here, like jokes, things start, rolling in layer upon layer of meaning and context until you can pretend to understand them. Some things move quicker from this place than others. Some things will never leave. But this is from where all things come."
"There is a little pinch of the unknown within everything."
"I believe you see now. You have learned all you are able to."
"It's best you go. You are not for this place. Too concrete. You're already on your way out, in the sense which I've been discussing. I have enjoyed this chat though."