forward - it is all wrong - himali singh soin
Every day we feel something we cannot name, and name something we cannot
fully know. We should extol this: our ability to sense signs, send
signals. This natural hankering to peg ourselves in the configuration of
things.
…Everything exists in layers of representation and the chasm between the
world and metaphor is narrowing.
Is exposure always illumination? Have we mistaken visibility for vision?
Have the multiple sources of light blinded us so we can no longer parse
where they come from? While the planet is aglow with electricity and
information pulses through its arteries, satellites spinning, screens
flashing, wildfires raging, we are shrouded in darkness. We are shrouded
in the darkness of a mushroom cloud that we thought was only conjured in
the old stories when the gods were furious.
A great shift is upon us: how deep are we willing to descend, how light
will we alight? Will the shadow remain long after the light has dimmed?
P.17 What I saw, what I seemed to be standing in, was all he wrecked light
that the memories of the dead could shed upon the living world. We had all
died in our boots on the hilltops of Yakima, and were alone in eternity.
Empty space stoppered our eyes and mouths; we cared for nothing. We
remembered our living days wrong. With great effort we had remembered some
sort of circular light in the sky — but only the outline. Oh, and then the
orchard trees withered, the ground froze, the glaciers slid down the
valleys and overlapped the towns. If there had ever been people on Earth,
nobody knew it.
P.25 What if you regain the surface and open your sack and find, instead
of treasure, a beast that jumps at you? Or you may not come back at all.
The winches may jam, the scaffolding buckle, the air-conditioning
collapse. You may glance up one day and see by your headlamp the canary
keeled over in its cage. Yo may reach into a cranny for pearls and touch a
moray eel. You yank on your rope; it is too late.