Weekly Skylights: The Tripod Looks to the Clouds

Joey Cifelli ’23
A&E Editor

October 19, 2022, Part 1 (Featured Image)

Now, in the beginning, there was nothing. I know because I was there. Or rather, I was there. I was the nothing that was everywhere. Strange, perhaps, but, at the time, I didn’t think anything of it. I remember awareness of my being fall over me like a hood. I observed space, motionless, simply existing as an entity comprised of nothing but vast quantities of distance. I existed in this manner for a time unknown to me, until, just as simply, I realized I was the being, the observed. I woke up, perhaps, or more aptly think of staring off into nothing, becoming lost in thought, until something snaps you back into your identity. 7.4/10

October 19, 2022, Part 2

That was what happened to me, except I had no thoughts. And the something that caused my identity to coalesce, her name was Blue. Back then, however, she had no gender, or name, just like me. These things we would create and modify together, as our relationship grew. At the time she was an assemblage of cosmic dust and energy only loosely held together by consciousness. I did not know where she came from. She must have come from a place beyond my reach, and this frightened me. My awareness of my self, so raw and so tender, frightened me too. I wished to return to unthinking, but I did not know how. Instead my fear transmuted to anger, and my anger had no focus. I regret, except for Blue. 6.9/10

October 19, 2022, Part 3

I attacked her. With my newfound being I affected space, molded it to suit my wishes. I condensed the emptiness surrounding me until it hardened into shape. I made crude limbs and used these to tear Blue’s form. I scattered pieces of her among the cosmos, and, as I did this, I heard a voice in my head: I had no head nor did Blue possess a voice; these are analogs, for you.  I could not understand the voice, and this only added to my fury. I was young, and untampered. And so Blue fled, bleeding abstract concepts for blood. Alone again, but only now aware of my loneliness, I grew restless. 7.1/10

October, 19, 2022, Part 4

I searched through the expanse for anything other than myself, and during my travels, proven to me by their necessity, I realized that I had changed. I could no longer feel the entire, endless breadth of space at once. When I gave myself a form, even partly, I had limited myself. I had lost a portion of my endlessness. The ability to influence my surrounding cost my awareness of them, and for this I mourned. It was not until later, much later, that Blue would teach me the small delights of being. Not until much later, that I would learn existence is not unbearable, if there is another to share the weight. 7.2/10