When I Scattered

It was as I crossed the atrium to start a conversation with a woman whom I had met at a party and with whom I had been desperately awaiting another chance to speak that, for a reason I still don't understand and probably never will, I suddenly burst into a cloud of what scientists call dark matter—or perhaps burst isn't quite the right word, perhaps the better word is that I scattered for that is what particle clouds do they scatter I scattered into trillions of particles of me which flew away from what had been I with such velocity that there must have been something of a disturbance in the air where the I had presently stood and indeed my last memory of that moment seems to suggest something like a whispered bang flooding from the sudden absence washing over the atrium and all whom it contained and the trillion me's flew in every direction passing through flesh hair marble glass steel earth atmosphere tasting incomprehensible vibrations riding gravity waves along swells leading deeper into some well at the bottom of which lay a dense presence singing of light and heat and around this presence the particle-me's swung finding new swells to ride back toward some crest where for a fleeting second they recongealed into a mirage-I that for a moment reunified with me myself I as an apparition that was again gone before any could have glimpsed it though I thought for a moment that I had been seen I sensed for that moment that somebody had sensed I in alarm but then I was again no more and there were only me flitting away along their paths through everything falling gracefully along elliptical paths back towards the bottom of the well of light and heat and pressure following trajectories taking them through things faster than discernment demanded so that it was never clear exactly through what they passed only that they passed through much and felt fleeting attunements that could not affect them but that they nonetheless sensed and by the second time I again briefly flickered something like music had begun to pervade my consciousness a music of manifold themes and variations and since I was so brief and could not have hoped to make any sense of anything I ceased grasping for I and surrendered to myselves and so me flew through everything slowly attuning to the emerging themes that seemed to suggest concepts there were so many but some stood above the rest the flowing strings and flutes weaving something like love the heavy percussion and trumpets blasting something like power the processional totalizing orchestration attempting to subsume everything within itself that was something like capital the meandering aimless harmonious yet atonal purposeful purposelessness that was something like the biosphere and as me scattered again and again the themes crystalized and emerged as not just themes but each other's counterthemes vying for prevalence for dominance and for synthesis here love and biosphere crescendoed only to be beaten back by ascending capital and power which then fractured into power and love which for a moment entwined with capital allied against biosphere before shattering into discordant confusion from which power seemed to diverge into streams flowing into each of the others bolstering them from within as love and biosphere joined but were no match for capital's barbaric climax which suddenly broke across all inundating all with itself until only its triumph rang and rang and rang until against its own striving it finally decrescendoed into stillness against which it protested until the last and for a long interval there was only the faint song from the presence of heat light mass but slowly a theme something like what had been the living planet again emerged and for so very long there was nothing but that and its unfolding intoxicated me drew me finally and entirely out of myself so that with it myselves merged entirely forgetting the mirage-I that had over time drifted ever further across the planet's surface now flickering across ruined city now on a mountain slope now within a forest now above an ocean's waves now again over some land inching along some trajectory that eventually brought it back to where it had first scattered though now that atrium was broken now the atrium was underwater now what-had-been-the-atrium was overgrown with forest now there was only barren plain now there was only desert beneath ever-reddening sky and the music was again only the slight song of heat light presence as myselves once more whipped around and returned to their crest where suddenly they slammed into something that fell to the ground and after some time pulled itself to its feet and so it was that in the midst of a great expanse of scorched and shattered earth beneath a sky half-filled by a red sun that myself found I.

I had never seen this desert before but I knew what it must be, so it was only out of some instinctual desire to prolong death that I set out to find water upon the surface of a dead planet. The air was thick with heat but thin of oxygen, so it was not long before I fell to the ground exhausted and despite myself fell asleep, awoken finally by the tap of a hand upon my shoulder that sent me flying to my feet. A face like mine but much older greeted me. It was my father, whom I had not seen since the day I had found him in a hospital bed, dead. We hugged. He asked where I had come from; I asked him the same. Neither of us really knew. He was also looking for water so together we set out, now sharing stories, now in silence, now side by side, now propping each other up against exhaustion. Through the darkness we walked. As dawn's fiery fingers ripped apart the night, we summited a small rise, he tripped, I turned to help him but as his body struck the ground he broke into dust. I stood in silence for some time, then left. The next dawn found me near death. I sat and closed my eyes and drew deep breaths to gather myself. When I opened my eyes I found, sitting opposite me, in my same pose, someone whom I had once loved and who had once loved me. She looked as near death as I. I did not bother asking where she had come from; she did not ask I. We did not move, we did not speak. We looked into each other, then, as the sun reached its zenith, we reached out and touched hands and stayed that way for hours. I did not ask her of water; she did not ask me of water. Finally, as the sun was setting, she asked me if I was ready to go. I said no, not yet, I wasn't quite ready to die. She laughed at me and said that wasn't what she meant. She got to her feet and helped me to mine, then she reached into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled past which with a flick of her wrist she unfolded and together we jumped in.

We landed at Union State in Los Angeles, a few days before I had first scattered. She offered to drive me to the airport. I thanked her but refused. I had had enough of flying, for a while at least. I invited her to come visit me sometime. She said she would. We said our farewells and parted, I bought my ticket and boarded a train back to Baltimore, I returned to the atrium the moment before I had first scattered, I saw myself, I am unsure of what I should do next.