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| Constellations of Flowers, Deep Creek |
Only when you first turn off the lamp do you notice the tiny lights floating in the room. On closer inspection, you notice the lights have different shapes, some spiral, some with spiral arms extending from a bar across the center, some spherical, and some almost disc-like. Touching the lights causes an unpleasant shock, and since each shape is hopelessly altered by the impression made by your finger, you decide to avoid troubling the lights in any way. Creating an azimuthal chart, you plot the coordinates of each light and then tack the chart to the wall since you cannot see the lights in the daytime. One night, as you lay awake glimpsing the lights slowly whirling, you look out the window. It is a clear night, unusual in this polluted city, and you notice the stars for the first time in years. Only then does the thought occur to you that your room contains a universe. It also occurs to you that each galaxy contains constellations and solar systems that are too small to see, each potentially with life forms as significant and complex as your own species, all forms, no matter the size, held together in complex systems by inscrutable forces. For days you cannot move from the bed. Cockroaches and ants scurry over the counters, spiderwebs stretch from ceiling to wall.
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