2012.12.23
advent day 23
On a Small Planet
I did not tell Uncle and Aunt about all of my visits to Aalam-104729. Or of the many things that I saw. Once, I hovered invisibly in a city that arched over a hill. The planet was one of a dozen orbiting an ordinary star, the smallest planet in the system. It was a quiet world. Oceans and wind made scarily a sound. People spoke to one another only in whispers. I floated above the city and looked down at its streets and inhabitants. Corners of buildings rusted in the air, billows of steam rose from underground canals. Through throngs of creatures moving this way and that, as creatures do in their cities, I spotted two men passing each other on a crowded walkway. Complete strangers. In the eight million beings living in the city, these two had never met before, never chanced to find themselves in the same place at the same time. A common enough occurrence in a city of millions. And as these two strangers moved past, they greeted each other, just a simple greeting. A remark about the sun in the sky. One of them said something else to the other, they exchanged smiles, and then the moment was gone. What an extraordinary event! No one noticed but me. What an extraordinary event! Two mean who had never seen each other before and would not likely see each other again. But their sincerity and sweetness, their sharing an instant in a fleeting life. It was almost as if a secret had passed between them. Was this some kind of love? I wanted to follow them, to touch them, to tell them of my happiness. I wanted to whisper to them: "This is it, this is it."Mr g is kind of a creation myth - God wanders the void with his Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva (kind of representing a spirit of science and rationality and one of religious feeling, respectively) and creates a universe. It's a creation myth very in tune with our observations of the history and construction of the universe, a kind of plausible tale of a compassionate yet non-interventionist God, a watchmaker who set things in motion, things that have unfortunate side effects of suffering and pain as an inevitable result of the original parameters. It's a lovely book.