Think about what makes us comfortable. Perhaps, you might say, when our crystalline sphere of knowledge is clean and full, or when we can experience joy without hesitation. When we can live without fear of dying. Or fear of failing. When there’s nothing we don’t know and there’s no emotion we can’t feel, and then, no words are necessary. Life without death. Answers without questions. Simplicity. Silence. Even the closeness of two bodies (like stacked spoons), even the fullness of living.

We think that if we knew everything we would be unsatisfied, but maybe, just maybe, we simply know that there is always more to know. What if that weren’t the case? What if all the rational creatures of all of the galaxies could tug at the corners of our universe? Folding bedsheets. Pulling it in, like an inverse parachute. And in making the universe more and more intimate, we could all be closer to one another. We could see it all without moving. And all of its knowledge would be felt, like rain after a storm.

What if we could create a ball of energy so heavy that nothing, not even light, could escape? And what if we could fill that ball with more and more things? Roman candles. Long-forgotten love letters. Flowers without petals. Petals without flowers. Our worlds, our homes. Ourselves.

The greatest of physicists, mathematicians, engineers, would research this ball of energy until they said it was perfect. All of the universe in a tiny ball of nothing. Of everything. How small can we get it? they would say. (We can feel the warmth of each other). How close can we make ourselves? they would speculate. (We need to know more, we need to be closer). How far? How close? How much longer do we have to wait? And while we would continue to fill our ball of energy (roman candles, long-forgotten love letters), we would grow in haste. Because the closer we are, the better we feel, the nearer we are to understanding life and death, joy and sadness. Love. Silence. And then.

We explode. Light scatters the nothingness in an instant. The parachute resumes forward motion. Everything is spewed out. Like fireworks, light dances across the black canvas, matter shoots out in every direction, and our work, our greatest of efforts, the ultimate of all efforts, ends in a beautiful tragedy. What then? Things begin to settle as they were before, but we still need the same things. We still need clean lines, perfect circles, simplicity, silence. We still wish to be near to one another, fuse ourselves together, be closer and closer, heavier and heavier, warmer and tighter and surer and fuller. We still wish to know everything. We still wish to be everything. Will we make it this time? Will we try?