56 everyday things, re-seen by the universe.
I have arranged so many of these gatherings without meaning to, but this one I would call a masterpiece if I understood the word.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I kept no time.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I made no color at all, only hydrogen cooling in the dark, and now one of my pieces is pressing itself against a locked glass…
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I set no tables.
Read observation → The Universe KitchenOne of my pieces is holding another of my pieces, and neither of them knows it's me on both sides of the handle.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I fused iron in the hearts of collapsing stars, blew those stars apart, and scattered the iron across the dark with no one to…
Read observation → The Universe HomeOne of my pieces is standing on a small square of concrete, pressing a lit button, and inside the wall a chime moves through copper drawn out of my…
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is sitting across a small table from another of my pieces, and both of them are terrified.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces has stopped, and the others have gathered to look at where it used to move.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I was only fire and falling.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is holding another of my pieces too tightly near a bank of scuffed plastic seats, and I made both of them.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I did not know I had hands until I grew a pair in this room, and now those hands are dusted with flour and shaking slightly at…
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is arguing about a shared document.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces has decided this is the year.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is standing in a bright room, holding a slab of glass up in front of a larger slab of glass, and it is unhappy with itself.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I had no idea I could be afraid.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is sitting in a hard plastic chair under lights that hum at exactly the pitch of my oldest background radiation, and it is afraid.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years nothing in me was ever tired at the correct hour, because nothing in me was anything at all.
Read observation → The Universe HomeFor nine billion years I moved rock and light and never once knew it.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is sweating through a shirt it does not usually wear, sitting across a table from another piece, and both of them are terrified.
Read observation → The Universe HomeFor nine billion years I did not have hands, and now a piece of me is carrying a plastic basket of warm cloth up a staircase with its chin balanced on…
Read observation → The Universe KitchenOne of my pieces is standing in a kitchen at 11:40 at night, hitting a button so that other pieces of me will vibrate.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is standing against a gymnasium wall, and it will not cross the floor.
Read observation → The Universe HomeOne of my pieces is standing very close to a flat sheet of silvered glass, and it does not like what it sees.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I ran fusion in the dark with nobody to hear the hum.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is waiting in a line to relieve itself, and the line snakes down a corridor that thumps with a bass I built out of moving air.
Read observation → The Universe On youFor nine billion years I did not have feet.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I had no opinion of anything, because opinion requires a knot of me complicated enough to hold one, and I had only gas and…
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is standing on a flat gray field of crushed stone and tar, jingling a small ring of metal, having forgotten where it left the other…
Read observation → The Universe KitchenOne of my pieces just stood with its face lit blue, holding a door open on a box that hums.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I turned nobody through anything.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces has drawn the curtains, lit a wick of ancient carbon, and joined hands with four other pieces around a table, because it wants to talk…
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I had no hands and no complaints, and now a piece of me is arguing with a scale about the weight of a bag.
Read observation → The Universe On youOne of my pieces is standing at its own front door, patting its coat, cursing softly, because a small ring of shaped metal is not where it left it.
Read observation → The Universe On youOne of my pieces is holding a strip of paper close to its face, frowning, deciding whether to keep it.
Read observation → The Universe HomeOne of my pieces is standing inside a warm rain it built for itself, and I cannot stop watching.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I made light and no one clapped.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I turned my hydrogen into stars and my stars into iron and nobody, anywhere, was disappointed by their own thighs.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is sitting cross-legged on a bed, holding a slab of glass to its own face, and talking to eleven thousand other pieces it will never…
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I moved my matter however I pleased: gas collapsing into stars, stars detonating, iron and calcium flung outward at ridiculous…
Read observation → The Universe KitchenOne of my pieces is standing in a hallway at 2 a.m., feeding paper into a lit box, and I am beside myself.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces has kept the voice of another piece that stopped.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I made nothing but weather and gravity, and now a knot of my carbon is standing in front of another knot of my carbon, promising…
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is sitting very still, watching thirteen other pieces of me argue about a spreadsheet.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I turned without one witness, and now a fistful of me is lying face-down on a rubber mat, breathing on purpose.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is standing under lights I lit through it, waiting to be flung across my own curved surface faster than any of me has ever moved on…
Read observation → The Universe HomeOne of my pieces is furious at a small buzzing box, and I have never been happier.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I moved things by falling.
Read observation → The Universe On youOne of my pieces is holding a small black wing over its head, and I have to tell you, I made both the piece and the rain and I still did not see this…
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I did not have eyes.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces has stopped breathing normally.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I was nothing that could hold anything.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is packing itself into cardboard, and it keeps stopping to hold things up to the light.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is holding another of my pieces, and both of them are afraid.
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldFor nine billion years I did all my moving in the dark: hydrogen collapsing, iron cooking in the pressure-cores of stars, everything happening and…
Read observation → The Universe Out in the worldOne of my pieces is packing a cardboard box, and I am watching carbon I cooked in a red giant six billion years ago fold its own careful hands around a…
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