30: The Land in the Sky (Terra in firmámentó)

terminal 0

unfinished

alone in its existence sojourning through time and through space yet it alone knows its speed it alone knows the distance of its travels for it is the single point of reference in an otherwise infinite universe of nothing Were it to move faster than light, would it move but an inch in the millennia?

Perhaps it knew. Knew that solitary existence was not existence at all. And so it succumbed and exploded, and with no other utterance, showering the once nothingness in an explosion of unimaginable light and heat atoms and molecules swarmed and collected in this celestial crèche of material madness stars and bodies formed and were ripped apart and torn asunder in the millisecond-old ashen madness of a universe born where laws were yet to be learned by matter

And within and around the toiling shapes, bonds were made that refused to give. First an atom, then two, then clusters, and in such chaos they were born, and were fast to adapt to their environments. As the brothers to the stars, they had within their very essence the power to bend matter and time and existence to their whims, yet infantile and without speech, this power very nearly wielded them, and such as they were beings of pure wielding mad souls without a mind to express their dreaming essence and a boiling discontent that suggested all was not right with the universe

Light overtaking darkness overtaking light as planets split apart in unnatural directions, molten cores evaporating and spinning away as a star implodes and explodes simultaneously; bodies and moons appear and disappear randomly, as solid objects pass through them as if they weren't truly there, in fact, they are not, nothing is truly there yet everything is there omnipresent, each piece, planet, comet, ship, and molecule is simultaneously dematerializing and solidifying, flowing free into confinement lasting milliseconds and infinities, time, gravity, mass, energy are amplified and diluted, they are coming in and out of effect in and out of practical meaning In and out as randomly as the objects they are supposed to control.

Thrown upside-down and inside-out, every event within this twisted reality reoccurring, objects and ideas crossing over themselves and erasing, elapsing and disappearing leering smearing searing clearing over and over again until there is nothing left but everything, a nebula of pure contradiction folding over itself and rolling through the blackness, consuming it, consuming everything without compassion for logic, regard for consistency, without a care for life and the predictability it brings, because it knows it can have those things, it can have them all and throw them in and out of the universe as it pleases, because this roiling mess of purple, moonless black and eyelid-peeling light is not unlike a beast, it is not unlike a soul, it is without feelings, yes but it is not without feeling

And it is grasping reaching and pushing outward with all the energy it does and does not have like a hand through a deck of cards, but backwards spinning again spades and hearts through the dark one-eyed dark joker wild a strong breeze like a bell tolling backward but unable to tell it is doing so the beast is hungry and is full all the time it is all of what it encompasses and it is nothing of it

It is what it is. Like any other being, it exists simply because it does. And by that it is to say that the nature of it is simple, if it follows the universal rules of what we believe to be life. it is the absolute zero flashpoint it is infinite and infinitesimal

yet sentience in their destruction blooms! Your ancestors knew nothing of what slept beneath their feet. though they had names for him and his minion these titles were wrong, for had the beast, dreaming dreams forged of randomness not dreamed of the stirring of a concoction in some tidal pools so long ago your home, your ancestral home would be naught and like any other cratered body floating aimless only to be ensnared and destroyed by yet another's musing