The reports came in: all tests indicated the Light Splitter had worked. No, by a cabal of agoraphobes who wanted to run free through the streets and encounter no one. No, by the canned food companies selling out of tuna. The whole thing was a hoax introduced by the board game industry to dupe people into stocking their game rooms. The machine hadn’t worked, as they’d suspected. The following day, the people of Earth woke to the same Light we had always known. But evening arrived, bedtimes arrived, and the Light had not changed. There was speculation about when the new light would hit, conjecture that shifted with every passing minute. On the day we were warned the Light would change, we woke like children on our birthday, like prisoners on our death day, like workers on a Tuesday. We set up easels and paints in preparation.ĭo you recall what I said, about the butterfly? Perhaps not, perhaps it’s already fled. We built bunkers to shelter in or roof decks to watch from. We stocked up on food and supplies, held our loved ones longer at night. We ignored the alarmist reports, went about life as usual. The papers warned: prepare yourselves, the Light will change. Such a device would never come to completion, others said, dismissing it with a wave of the hand as the diddling of the idle.īut one day, the device was finished. If it was possible, some said, it was inevitable. A technological horizon had been reached and it was incumbent upon us to turn away, to leave the natural world as it was. A technological horizon had been reached and it was incumbent upon us to see what lay beyond. But it was also believed that the new light could uncover all manner of detail we might be better off not knowing.ĭebate raged. It was believed that the new light would lend greater vividness and clarity to our world, that it would be worth the new darkness. Should it be separated from the Darkness? Did the people of Earth have this right? Did the people of Earth have this imperative? Soon, the people of Earth were discussing the Light. The bearded man nodded his head, then shook it, then nodded again. Supposedly, a laboratory far away from them was developing a reactor that would split the Light from the Darkness. “Did you hear? About the Light Splitter? They say it could change the way we see.” But one day, a man stood outside his home scratching his beard and spoke to a neighbor. Usually, those facts were not about Light, Light being generally regarded as too banal. We were more concerned-and perhaps you will recognize this impulse-with our homes and our garments, our accomplishments and the number of facts we could retain and deliver at just the right moment. Like water and air, it was a fixture of life that the people of Earth devoted little thought to. It was many-hued, of varying gradients, gentle and unwavering. Everything, in short, but the space between. This Light covered the earth-the bark of trees, the skin of apples, the tongues of children, the palms of hands caressing hands. That may, I’m afraid, be as close as you’re going to get. Try, instead, to imagine a phosphorescence. That is light and darkness as you know it now. Perhaps what you see in your mind is a strobe light, the flashing beams you dance beside. They were two pieces of the same presence, bound to each other like the oxygen atoms that make up the molecules in our air. So, here: In the Before, Light was not distinct from Darkness. Memory, however, lives like the butterfly, transformed from its nubbly origins into something more beautiful, something with wings, that flits brightly into the distance and dies. I’d like to believe someone has told you this, has told you about what happened to us. But Light, the kind that did not require burning or electricity, existed long before. You like to say there was no light before your sun, your stars, your fire. The Day Uranus Entered Scorpio (Old Story with Benefits)by Caio Fernando Abreu Zachary Lazar’s The Apartment on Calle Uruguay by Sophie Pooleĭavid Coles’s Chromatopia: An Illustrated History of Colorby Sabine Russ Richard Peete and Robert Yapkowitz’s Karen Dalton: In My Own Timeby Jason Diamond Hasanthika Sirisena’s Dark Tourist: Essaysby Ilana Masad Painting Is a Supreme Fiction: Writings by Jesse Murry, 1980–1993.
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