Week 13 Theme 5

Last one!

An actual or mythical creature. (revision)

Stare into its eyes and you will see the mortality of man’s creation, the frail beams that hold insanity at bay from the human mind, and you will see them buckle and phase. Stare into its eyes and you will see fire that warms the lonely and water that calms the passionate. Stare into its eyes, and you will see the threads of those that they charred and drowned. Stare into its eyes, and you will see your nightmares, your insecurities, your Fear.

Sing, if you dare, of that shapeshifter’s face that no man has captured it in its perversion, its mirror shine, its sneaking thoughts. Sing, please, of Fear’s ethereal existence, its guises as suppressed memories. Sing what you remember of its stalking amongst the crowd, a fleeting beanie in the mirage of hats. Sing of its many forms, the phantom bear at the hiking trail, the riptide at the river bend, the bowtie on the black widow.

Listen to Fear’s listless whispers planting jealousy into your deepest passions. Listen to its syncopated thumps, the quivers of one’s heart under Fear’s firm stethoscope. Listen as it grows, those tiny ideas driven by Fear’s amplifying hand, and face it.

Stare into Fear’s glossy eyes, and you will see yourself. Stare into Fear’s eyes, and you will witness an eternity in a second, and you will wish that you had not known that Fear was always behind your head, always whispering to you and you alone. Stare into Fear’s eyes, and laugh.

Week 13 Theme 4

Priorities

Sent by Sandra Merlow (local age 60) on January 14, 2511, UTC

Received by Vince Lu (local age 64) on June 12, 2516, UTC

Dear Vince,

We’ve had so many conversations complaining about how our academic institutions undervalue the sciences and overvalue the bullshit humanities, and about people who love words too much and ignore the beauties of the practical and the scientific. I’ve changed my mind. I hope you find these words interesting – I write to you hoping for a sympathetic ear to a conflicted old man.

In our ship’s library, the Canon sits in the back closet. The works of Socrates, Marx, and Kant go mostly ignored in favor of the writings of Knuth, Purcell, and Nash. I wouldn’t change that – in a population of fifty thousand on a ship that must be self-sufficient and unable to gather more raw resources for the thirty year trip, we need as many scientists and engineers as possible. But it saddens me that our children see philosophy and art with the cultural disdain that our generation held for math and science.

Our children would sooner forget Realpolitik, intricacies of Marxism, and Christian ideologies in favor of toxicity tests, half lives of refined plutonium, and Gauss’s law. On the one hand, I am glad that our children will not suffer the ideological wars of the old world, but on the other, they will need to relearn politics, for any society will eventually devolve to politics, and the only way to avoid old mistakes is to study them.

The Space Institute was intentionally creating a branch of the human race dedicated to technological advancement. They told us that our scientific advances, once our notes from a successful colonization finally reach Earth in 35 more years, will help humanity spread to the other candidate planets, and hopefully more effectively.

We’re the vanguard, and I suppose I should be happy Earth’s nations’ delegates have decided that our best shot lies with our brightest technical minds. Here’s to hoping that’s true, for all of our sakes.

Sincerely,

Vince

Week 13 Theme 3

Humanity

Sent by Jourdan Beauchamp (local age 31) on December 15, 2510, UTC

Received by Jerome Chang (local age 36) on May 10, 2515, UTC

Dear Jerry,

I hope this letter finds you well. In our profession, I suppose “well” means a steady stream of problems and paying clients to bring them to you. You know well my reasons for joining the expedition – that troubled life I left behind, which, unfortunately meant that I had to part ways with you as well. I hope your business managed to continue without me.

I’m writing to you about a thought that occurred to me recently, something the bright minds at the Space Institute clearly anticipated when they planned our social experiment. Bring families so that the strongest social bonds are preserved. Bring people of every profession to keep the ship running. Require that at least one generation of kids grows up on the ship so that they are not predisposed to build the new colony in Earth’s image. Those make sense. What tipped me off was a recent wave of xenophobia, which had the anthropologists, psychiatrists, and psychologists worried.

It occurred to me that the Space Institute intended for our colony to be the “Adam and Eve” of a new world, and thus wanted to capture the full range of human genetic diversity in this ark. In addition to bringing families instead of unattached individuals and in addition to requiring that the first generation to step foot on the planet be those who don’t have life on earth as a reference point.

Separated by light years, it will be impractical for humanity to stay connected to its colony. The Space Institute clearly saw that, and probably concluded that the best thing they could do would be to guarantee our genetic survival in the evolutionary game. Does it scare you that we might one day meet again, but as Homo Sapiens Terra and Homo Sapiens Secundus, psychologically, politically, culturally, physically incompatible peoples?

I only wish that I could live long enough to see it.

Best wishes,

Jourdan

Week 13 Theme 2

Thought

Sent by Gray Peters (local age 45) on December 25, 2510, UTC

Received by Jacqueline Andrews (local age 44) on May 20, 2515, UTC

Dear Jackie,

I remember our weekly dinners, talking about how my teaching job on the ship might go and what the differences might be. As I’ve told you many times, it has been tough, and I have never been so humbled by the ideological power a teacher wields.

Can you imagine teaching physics in a world without gravity? Where relativistic time dilation is a fact of life instead of an arcane, difficult to observe phenomenon? Where zero acceleration in the isolated chambers is recreational? Where gravity is a remote force that acts amongst the stars and rocks, and relativity is the ship you live in? Where “down” is dictated by the rotation of the colony dome and where north, south, east, and west are not magnetic?

Can you imagine teaching math and history in a world without money? Have you tried to explain our Great Depressions to a population that doesn’t associate greed with cash? Have you tried to explain the World Wars to children with no conception of land or water?

These children grew up appreciating the heavens, the stars and constellations, but these children have never seen a sunrise over the Alps, or the crunch of freshly mowed grass. These children have never swum in a waterfall. Nor have they stood in a plaza to watch street performers. They haven’t skipped rocks over a brook, or sat under the afternoon sun reeling in a fishing rod.

They haven’t seen the sun. They have never seen a burning star from the earth’s distance – out here, there is only empty space. How, then, can we teach them in our own image, or will we create a generation of people technologically advanced, yet philosophically lacking both the problems and the sophistication that we, humanity, have come to value so much? Such is the plight of a teacher.

Love,

Gray

Week 13 Theme 1

Four linked themes. Today is theme #1.

Time

Sent by Casey Chou (local age 27) on October 9, 2510, UTC

Received by Cameron v.d. Boor (local age 33) on March 13, 2515, UTC

Dear Cameron,

It’s hard to imagine that you will be a parent when this message gets to you. To think that we were only middle school students when we had to say goodbye forever, me, about to board the bus to the elevator, you, watching as you held my half of the fluorescent bulb we pulled from an old man’s trash and I, yours. True, the time we spent apart was not in silence, but hurtling along at an unimaginable 0.5c through empty skies, invisible to your most powerful telescopes, I must be content to read about your life in slow motion, and always years too late.

I suppose that will become the sacrifice of our generation: that we volunteered entire families and communities to ride the space elevator for the last time, uprooting tens of thousands of people from their friends, knowing that they will never see each other living and breathing again.

We were happy with our holovids and our five hour latencies. I could hear about your day, and I knew we’d go exploring soon. I count myself among the fortunate ones – my closest friends are here with me. Others suffered more. But when we left the solar system, not for almost a millennium had time stretched so far that I must recall what I said eight years ago to make sense of your most recent reply.

I’m glad your boy problems ended in college, but I want to know who’s in your life now, and I have to hope that you put it in your personal record sometime in the past few years, or else I will be waiting much longer to see your family. To think that in the time it takes us to have a conversation, entire nations can rise and fall, entire wars fought, entire ideologies debated, entire lives passed, I fear that this message may have lost its reader, but I have hope that humanity has preserved peace.

What can one write, well knowing that the other person might no longer live? How can we perpetually write our last words to every one of our separated friends? I can only hope that my records will cover the thoughts that I forget to convey here.

Love,

Casey

Week 11 Theme 5

One character tries to describe a dream to another.

At the base of a fence in the Australian countryside sits one bunny and another bunny.

“I don’t like what I saw.”

“Another dream?”

“Not a dream, Buck.”

“Another allegory for your life, like the rest of them?”

“You’re mocking me.”

“Fine, what did you see?”

“Cut, green grass, but it bruised. It bled. It shriveled away wherever we walked.”

“Shriveled?”

“Perhaps the eagle flying away with a scroll in its talons had something to do with it?”

“Crazy. That’s what you are, crazy. I can’t think of any way those are connected.”

“Call me what you want, but it means something.”

“Just figure it out so I can get on with my munching.”

“Well, do you know how long our family’s been here?”

“Ages. We’ve always been here.”

“What if we haven’t? Maybe that’s what the dream’s saying. Maybe we’re causing this grass to bleed. Maybe the eagle flying away is like the history of this land disappearing under our feet.”

“I still think you’re crazy, but you didn’t tell me how it ended.”

“Bunnies. Lots of them, growing out where the grass died. A whole field of them, just more and more bunnies.”

“And what does that mean?”

“I think it means we’re killing the land.”

“Look at this, all the grass, nobody to hunt us down. Doesn’t look dead to me. Now shut up and eat.”

Week 11 Theme 4

An important life decision.

In the entrance to the MIT library on the final day of Campus Preview Weekend stands a rat. A brass rat, dropped by some unfortunate alumnus who was probably wondering where the brass rat went. So Jordan had an idea, picking up the rat and heading for the stairs to the tunnels. “What if you get lost?” he thought, “and miss your flight to Palo Alto?” Or rather, he wished he’d thought of that before dropping down into a low tunnel, pipes running the length of the ceiling. So he crept, looking for that alumnus.

At the first trapdoor, he climbed out into the soccer field. The ball zipped past him, followed by a swarm of tree colored jerseys cheering them on, people shouting “Jordan!” And so the ball landed at his feet. Soccer. He thought, as he dashed forward to join the formation. How did they know he was on the team? How did he know he was on the team?

But there was no time to think, so he passed, forgot about the ball, and turned around into a lush, green forest edge. Spring grass, thick and green. Perfectly trimmed. Crickets chirping under the cool New Jersey evening air. “What do you think?” a voice asked. Jordan looked up, his classmates all staring at him. “I’m sorry, what?”

“There you are, back with us, Jordan?” Jordan opened his eyes, wondering why he hadn’t done his Plato reading. “I believe you found my brass rat?”

Week 11 Theme 3

An actual or mythical creature.

Stare into its eyes and you will see all of man’s creation, the fires that warm the lonely and the water to calm the passions. Stare into its eyes and you will see the sorrows and regrets of civilizations gone, and the petulant monuments to all of their sins. Stare into its eyes and you will see inspirations of geniuses past, and those yet to be found.

Stare if you can, into that malleable wraith that cloaks itself with the terrible truth, the innermost thoughts and fears manifest in the air for one to see one thing and another to see another. Watch its grace and beauty idolized by bards past, and its mutations and contortions inspiring poets today. Watch as it confronts its people with their dreams, forces them to face hidden fears.

But stare into its eyes, and you will not find the future, the sparkling, uncertain future, for the wraith is found only in the present as a monument to the past. It repeats. Recites. Retells. It watches, not knowing what it sees, for the wraith does not see, it reflects. And those who look into that fearsome, ethereal face will see their own scowling back at them.

Week 11 Theme 2

Retelling of a fable.

A fallen log sat up high where one finds mountain goats. Windswept and chilled, it became a slippery shortcut for a long path down and back up to the other side. Today, two goats were headed to opposite sides, and only that log stood in the middle.

One goat stepped onto the log. Then the other did. The wind blew and their hairs followed, but the goats stood in place. One stepped, then the other did, then the first, then again the other. And now they had a problem: goats don’t walk backwards. With nothing to lose and the greener grass on the other side to gain, the first goat stepped. The second stood in place, his mind not decided. So he stood as the other goat stepped, barely keeping his grip on the slippery log underneath.

They paused again a couple feet away from each other. The moment of truth. They turned their heads and stared as well as animals with herbivore eye placements could, eye to eye, singular. Then our decisive goat charged. And our other goat thought “what the hell?” and lunged. They locked horns, and they thrashed, and they both slipped on the wind-polished log, falling off, one into the rapids below, and another to the side of the log, shaken, and wiser.

Week 11 Theme 1

A dream

Kat had a superpower that made her afraid to sleep. Whenever she dreamt, she could not feel pain. And because she could not feel pain, her mind took it as license to imagine morbid things. Thus were her dreams: painful scenes without the pain, nightmares with fear but no adrenaline, surreal, disturbed pictures she would gladly forget over her morning cereal.

Kat was in a plane. It was crashing into the Atlantic, flinging her into the seat in front. Kat bounced, skipped into the water and sank, feeling the cold water in her lungs but not the paralyzing fear. She watched fishes swim by as she sank deeper and her diaphragm spasmed with the numb twitches of a jittery muscle. Constant, small jerks that moved her ribs. And her eyes sank into the black.

Kat was sitting at a fire, hands cold, too cold. So she pushed them into the fire, feeling the gentle warmth and pleasant tingling. She watched as her skin blistered and shriveled, as her bones turned black from the soot rising from below. That was how her hands were supposed to be – not too cold, not too hot.

Kat was sitting at the ledge of the Grand Canyon. She wanted a photo, something to remember the exhilaration. But the wind was blowing, and as she stood up, she fluttered into the air over the Colorado River below. And she fell. She hit a rock, a surprising bump. And then another. And another. And she looked at the red lines forming on her limbs, wondering why the blood blossomed like her mother’s rhododendrons. And she thought to herself: aren’t rhododendrons pretty?

Week 10 Theme 5

Need to take my fourth of four nights off - I can't find the time tonight to write a proper theme.

Week 10 Theme 4

About a risk taken.

A brief conversation with my internal conversationalist:

“We’ve gone through this before. Risks. All that jazz.”

“Yeah, we have. But now I have to write about it. And I didn’t take any.”

“No, you can think of risks. You’re just setting the bar high, because you know how small ones don’t make good stories. They’re boring. Mundane. Nobody wants to hear about them. Or they actually just want to tell you about their stories while you listen.”

“Exactly. So I need something big.”

“What about your relationship stories? How they began?”

“I pretty much knew they would begin. I just didn’t know how.”

“Choosing colleges?”

“Didn’t know what would happen, but I couldn’t go wrong.”

“Startup idea?”

“Knew it probably wouldn’t work. Signed up anyway. Had nothing to lose. Lost nothing.”

“Your jobs?”

“Nope, that was a tiny risk. Paid off big though.”

“So what you’re saying is that you’ve never taken a risk?”

“I guess I haven’t really. I’ve pretty much always known that it’d turn out fine. Never risked losing anything. Nothing big, anyway.”

“So you’ve never done anything without knowing the ending?”

“Of course I have. It’s just that uncertainty isn’t danger. You can know it’ll end fine without knowing how it ends. It’s like learning to dive. You know you’ll be fine even if you bellyflop.”

“Or like learning to juggle fire?”

“Yeah. You know it’s not dangerous, and you know it’s fun, so it’s not like you actually stood to lose anything.”

“Did you ever stand to lose anything?”

“Frankly? No.”

Week 10 Theme 3

A theme around the words “I remember.”

I remember when you conceived me in a moment of unity, inspiration, irony. I remember how proud you were to show me to the world, your baby for all to see and for all to describe, however, imperfectly, to their friends. I remember the confusion in people’s eyes at the monster before them, now grown from a cute baby to a terrible two. I remember being the butt of every April Fools joke. I remember being brought to basketball games. I remember being hidden during your conversations with other people, only to be brought out, always at the least opportune moment. I remember playing peekaboo, so many times, always when they expected someone else.

But I am not your baby, because you did not conceive me like you think you did. I remember an earnest effort, a time when I was appreciated at face value. I remember when there were many others like me, when we were the hits on the dance floor, when we were the companions everyone wanted to bring along on trips. I remember finally retiring as the younger generation took our place in your minds and hearts.

I remember when you resurrected me, disturbed me from my resting place telling me that you had great plans. I remember what you said: that I am the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time to make all the difference in a jaded world needing a hero. Then you found a younger, prettier one, leaving me once again spent, old, forgotten. But I won’t forget. I will never give you up. I will never let you go. I will never run around, and I will never desert you. Never.