(as in if)
by Else
On the first “"”day””” God coded the force of electromagnetism. On the second day he coded gravity. On the third “"”day””” he got excited and coded all the other forces. On the fourth day he didn’t get much done. On the fifth day he did some technical thing we will never understand. On the sixth day, he chose the seed—all the universal constants, including all the ones we don’t know about yet, and the position and state of every particle at the moment of the big bang. On the seventh day, he rested. And then, the big bang begun.
All the planets around all the stars in all the galaxies formed from the chaos. On one utterly insignificant little blue-green planet1, life began. It changed slowly, like the continents, and eventually humans came to be.
They discovered fire, and farming, and writing. They had times to be born and times to die, times to laugh and times to weep, times of love and times of hate, times of war and times of peace (I swear it’s not too late)2. They sang their Joy3 and canted their Lamentations4 5.
They found science, and imprisoned lightning6. With one small step for a man7, and one giant leap for mankind, they set foot on the moon.
On stardate 43173.58, Captain Picard brought someone from a Vulcan-like bronze age society aboard. She thought he was a god, because he could do many things she couldn’t comprehend. He explained that he was a mere mortal, with sufficiently advanced technology.9 She saw her planet from space, like we can.
A couple thousand years before the first moon landing, in the land to the southeast of Earth’s Mediterranean Sea, a human child was born, and he became legendary. The myths claim that he could cure diseases, and even resurrect the dead. He walked on water, iff10 you can believe it.
He taught that people should treat others the way they want to be treated, and be forgiving and generous, and many other good things11. Among my people, this is why he is remembered.
Over 1600 years later, Barent Coeymans built a mill on the kill that now bears his name. As for his debts and deeds, are they not recorded in the annals of the Ravena Coeymans Historical Society?12 13 He married Gertruy DeVos and begat Pieter B Coeymans, who married Charlotte Drawyer and begat Charlotte Coeymans, who married Jan Jonas Bronck, of those Bronx, and begat Jonas Jan Bronck, who married Maria Ten Eyck and begat John Jonas Bronck, who married Gerritje Vanderzee and begat Barent Ten Eyck Bronk, who married Sarah Mull and begat Elizabeth Bronk, who married Alonzo Powell, the doctor whose horse Spider took him home from house calls while he slept in the carriage. They begat Ten Eyck Powell Sr., who married Kate Easton and begat Ten Eyck Powell Jr., who married Barbara Fletcher and begat Ten Eyck Powell Ⅲ, who married Julia Dessloch and begat me. My other ancestors include Rip Van Winkle, Yankee Doodle, and Uncle Sam. The Ferengi were inspired by yankee traders like these,14 some of whom haven’t been pirates in over 5 years.15
In their time, my ancestors built the temple which still stands today atop the hill at Coeymans Landing. It is a two story brick structure, neoclassical in style, painted white. The windows are frosted white in the center, with rectangles of stained glass around the edges. Inside, there was a great organ, played masterfully by a neighbor. We sang together. I lost my voice. There’s no longer a congregation there. All in all, it was all just bricks in the wall.16
On stardate 45047.217, Captain Picard met the Tamarians, who spoke in a tongue that consisted entirely of references to tales that Picard did not know. Picard and the Tamarian captain, Dathon, fought an invisible beast together at El Adrel. In his dying moments, Dathon told Picard the epic of Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, and Picard told Dathon the epic of Gilgamesh. Picard then told the Tamarians what had happened, in their tongue. Picard was inspired by this experience to read the epics of Homer. After seeing this story a few times, I was inspired to read the epics of Jesus.
I started with the book that had a story I remembered from the church, before it died. Jesus gets left behind in Jerusalem, and his parents find him in the temple. They tell him they’ve been worried searching for him, and he says “why did you need to search? Didn’t you know I had to be in my father’s house?”18 Growing up, this was spoken of as proof that he really was God’s son. To me, it only ever meant that he believed what his parents told him. In my reading, when he realized the truth, he was tempted to kill himself.19 I can relate.
Nevertheless, some of the descriptions of healing made sense to me. I can understand casting Legion’s intolerable parts into intolerable animals20, and trees that walked21 intrigued my saccadic eyes. I can suppose that a Good Charlatan22, caring and charismatic, fatherly and forgiving, someone who absorbed the stories that shaped people as if they were stories of his own father, might be able to pull someone from the thrall of their trauma, and drive off the demons and phantoms that haunt them. Through the lens of myth and the context of the time, I can believe it.
When I was very young, I was diagnosed with a disorder called anisometropic amblyopia. The treatment was to have me wear a patch over my stronger eye, to prevent my brain from learning to ignore the weaker one.
The doctor said it had nothing to do with any of the severe trauma I had already endured23. I don’t buy it. I did, though, as did everyone else.
I was told that without treatment, my brain would ignore the stronger eye, too. I thought I was already blind. I’ve since been told none of that was true. If it wasn’t, the treatment was worse than the disease. Regardless, I didn’t have a choice. I was told I was admirably compliant, yet at some point the fabric patch that slipped on over my glasses was replaced by one stuck directly to my face, so I would stop looking through the cracks at the edges.
It was during this time that I chose to be right handed. My pre-k peers were discussing it in class, and agreed that right handed was better, because the scissors are made for right handed people. I didn’t have a preference at the time (this was noted in a report card), so I chose to be right handed. When I was at my lowest, I got a ⛤ tattoo on my left wrist. These things feel connected to me now. It never did make sense to me that I’m right handed but left eyed.
The patch came off after several “"”months””” but I continued wearing the glasses. Around my 18th birthday24, I learned that my vision was sufficient to drive without them, and when I got to college I tried living without them. I got horrible headaches, and I blamed this for my suffering academic performance. Fearing what my life would be without a degree, I put the glasses back on.
I completed my degree and became a software engineer. With my stability assured, I began taking estrogen, in pursuit of a lifelong dream of transitioning into someone I could bear to be. It helped, but not enough. I tried other medications, to selectively inhibit the reuptake of other hormones or otherwise cure my mind. They didn’t help at all. I attempted suicide.
Certain that I am better with estrogen rather than testosterone, I had surgery. I asserted sovereignty over my body in an undeniable way, and I became intimately familiar with the concept of phantom pain.
I continued to struggle. I continued to feel purposeless and unworthy, afraid and alone, and my senses continued to overwhelm me. My voice was escaping me, and my legs were getting weak. I maintained a facade of functionality at work until 2020. I made an obvious bet on how my employer’s stock would perform in the pandemic, and saw how worthless such money is. The following year, while preparing for another suicide attempt, I decided instead to quit my job and live until my winnings and retirement fund ran out. It was at this time that I started watching Star Trek.25
Without income, rent in the city was rapidly depleting my savings. By tremendous good fortune, my parents were able to offer me my own home—a remarkably necessary extravagance. I didn’t die, I just went to a farm upstate. Here, I attempted again to remove my glasses. This time, I had the wisdom and the grace to treat the headaches as a phantom.
My parents saw the original Historical Documents26 on the air when they were kids. The tales I had heard them and others recount had always intrigued me, so I reviewed the Documents. I revisited a dark page27, saw past this mortal coil28, and met the empath29. I traveled far beyond the stars30, and found meaning in the stories. They’re real to me.31
The implant changed who I am.32 For better or worse, it reprogrammed me, and I didn’t choose it. But they programmed that in; I thought it was elective.33 There are 4 lights.34
Humans from the mirror universe are more sensitive to light.35 There’s a ganglion in the human eye, discovered within my lifetime, which plays a role in the body’s response to light.36 It effects circadian rhythms and pupil size, but might it also affect emotion? Is this where fear of the light and dark starts? Am I feeling pain, or discomfort, and is that where it’s from? These ganglia can’t come off37, but my relationship to them can be changed. My visible spectrum began shifting as I crossed the galactic barrier.38
It’s a different world in the starlight. Or it’s the same world, but I see it differently. Different things matter. Or the same things matter, but I have to prioritize and process them differently. It’s just as valid, just as real, just as meaningful, but differently. There’s nothing wrong or fearsome about difference. Maybe this is a path to Kityha39, but I am certain it means something. These aren’t the only stories I’m hearing it from.
Since I started hearing it, something feels changed. The headaches aren’t totally gone, but now they seem to come from thought and emotion. It used to be that when I let my eyes relax at all, their vision would split and double. That still happens, but less, and it’s easier to bring back in line. And it, too, seems connected to thought and emotion.
Is this all I ever needed? Some time in the dark and a way to believe I might heal? The glasses were surely for nothing, but was the patch, too? I can prove nothing, and surely it would be wrong to overgeneralize. But maybe this isn’t just a hopeful delusion, and maybe there are others like me out there.
I kept my voice quiet about this for far too long, because I was afraid of how it sounded. It’s loud and it’s distorted, the longer I avoid it.40 Don’t make my mistake. Let it out. Sing it for the world.41 Write it down, with footnotes to translate your tongues.42 Anyone who knows the red text43 will forgive you for it, and it will help you to forgive.
The blind cannot lead the blind. There is still much I can’t see, and much I turn a blind eye to. I have no business telling anyone else what they must do. I’ve heard about the pit, and I’ve been told to be afraid of everything that lives within.44 Others have claimed to know how to fix me, and in trying harmed me, so it would be wrong for me to repeat that error. And yet, something screams to me from the oldest myths and the newest science, from song and story, from my own experience and what I have heard from others.
There is a time for light, and a time for dark; a time to be blind, and a time to see.45 The eye that seems to be weaker is indispensable, and the parts of the eye that we think are less honorable we should treat with special honor.46 Therefore, let nobody judge you for a new moon celebration, or a sabbath night.47 Make time to gaze into the stars, without the distraction of artificial lights or the distortion of artificial lenses. Disregard the input, and relax. Let your eyes move themselves. Put out the fear of silence, put out the need for guidance, put out your own devices, and don’t be afraid of the cold.48
My kind of blindness can be healed. Go to the mirror, boy!49
I cannot pretend this is easy. I fail at it regularly. It makes the Giraffes come out, and my head explodes with dark forebodings.50 Facing these is rather the point. The predictions may come true, and the reminders may be grim, and they may need my attention come daylight, but in the night, they do not need my fear.
I pray that someday soon, we will learn to come together, and share our understanding in the peace of the night. When we do, we will be able to put out all the lights across the land, so that each and every one of us, in the city as in the mountains, can look up and see the galaxy the lights have been hiding from us.
From The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams ↩
From “Turn, Turn, Turn”, itself from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ↩
Reference to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, 4th Movement ↩
Reference to the Book of Lamentations ↩
Some manuscripts have “shared their joys and sorrows” ↩
Reference to “The New Colossus”, by Emma Lazarus ↩
It is generally agreed that this was the intended phrase, but due to either misspeaking or radio issues, the recording seems to say “one small step for man” ↩
Reference to the third of Clarke’s three laws, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” ↩
This spelling is used in formal logic to mean “if, and only if” ↩
Referencing a line repeated in 1 and 2 Kings ↩
“Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 3”, from Pink Floyd’s The Wall ↩
Alluding to the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37 ↩
Among other things, I drowned when I was 2 years old, and was back in the water the next day. Just keep swimming… (a reference to Finding Nemo) ↩
Initially this said it was when I was 16, but I had misremembered the timeline ↩
Actually, I had seen the 2009 movie twice in theaters, but had entirely forgotten it ↩
Reference to Galaxy Quest (1999) ↩
A quote from “Far Beyond the Stars” ↩
The technical term is “intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cell” ↩
“I Will Never Settle”, by Metric ↩
hi ↩
Reference to the convention of printing Jesus’s words in red ↩
Alluding to Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ↩
Alluding to 1 Corinthians 12:22-23 ↩
Alluding to Colossians 2:16 ↩
“Growing Old is Getting Old, by Silversun Pickups ↩
“Go To The Mirror!”, from The Who’s Tommy ↩
“Brain Damage”, from Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon ↩