"Why Orbit?"

"I don't really have a purpose. I smoke my pipe and make the moth-things. Don't you think they're pretty? Oh. You can't see them I suppose. Or can you see them. Through my eyes perhaps?"

"Yes."

"Good! Here. I'll make some more. Watch as they fly into the Infinite Dark." He drew deeply on his pipe and exhaled, the blackness suddenly alive with the skittering wings of moths. They soon vanished. "None ever return. They fly away into all that space. I don't know where they go, or why. I just know that they do."

"What is Orbit?"

"I have a head, and a hand that clutches a smokestrument. I have a mouth and lips, and in my mouth live the polyps. They are squirmy and tickle my throat. That is how I know I have a throat. I suppose I must have eyes, though I have never seen them. Do you have eyes Crush?"

"No."

"So you cannot see?"

"Infinite Dark."

Orbit laughed, the polyps grasping the opportunity to flood from his open mouth and wriggle free seemed to laugh too, filling the air with a low, chittering sound. "You must open your eyes dear Crush. Open your eyes in order to see. Try that and tell me what you behold."

"No."

"You prefer the black. That is all very well. I too am surrounded in the perpetual night. I don't suppose it makes much difference. Eyes open. Eyes shut. I only gaze because otherwise I would miss the moth-things, and I do find them pretty."

"Orbit Infinite Dark."

"But that's right. Of course. You see what I see. Symbiotic mesh. So you do inhabit the cavity of my thoughts. And I yours, I suppose."

"Yes. What Infinite Dark?"

"I don't know, little Crush. It has always been here, and so have I. The moths dwell there. Out there in the black. But I don't suppose they think about that very much. To them the dark is just a place to be. For me this is also true. We all must be. You and I, and the moths."

"Why Infinite Dark? Why Moth?"

"Must there be a reason? There seems always to be a question, so I suppose there should always be an answer. At least, that's what I want to think. So yes, maybe there is a reason. Somebody's reason. But not mine. I have no reason, unless my reason is to birth the moth-things and appreciate their beauty. I name them, because that makes it easier for my thoughts, but that is not really their name. Only they know their name. Or perhaps they have no name and I am here to name them. Do you think that's a purpose?"

"Yes."

"I also think this. So we agree."

"Where Infinite Dark?"

"A thing that is infinite is all things. The Infinite Dark cannot be any place, because the Infinite Dark is any place and all places, within and without and throughout and around. I am here inside the Infinite Dark and you are here inside me. You are lucky, Crush. You have a thing within a thing, but I have only... the Infinite Dark."

"And Moth-Things."

"Yes. I have the moth-things, and my smokestrument. I have the polyps that tickle my throat, and the hardness of my bone, the fastness of my skull, the eyes I cannot see, through which I behold the black. And I have my hand and my fingers, my thumb and the sinews that make them work. These I wrap tightly about my smokestrument and breathe the moth-things into life. And I see it all in my mind. But that might be you. So maybe I am the lucky one."

"What Are The Moth Things?"

"I think they are my creation. That is what I want to say, so I shall. I think they are mine, but once they are breathed into life they are their own and no longer mine. They fly into the Infinite Dark and I shall never know what they do when they reach whatever thing it is to which they flutter. This privelege is not mine. But I am happy, for I bring into each the life they live and I am fortunate enough to watch them born."

"I am Crush."

"Yes. What are you Crush?"

"I am... awake."

"Welcome then, to the place beyond dreams. Welcome Crush, my dear little Crush."

"I am... dreams?"

"Perhaps," Orbit felt the flesh at the fringes of his teeth pinching. A smile. The polyps flowed into the dark again, eager to feel the emptiness beyond Orbit's throat. "And now I have one other thing, Crush. I have new thoughts. You have brought them to me."

"I am... new thoughts."

"Yes," the smile widened, spreading through the dark, "and there is always room for those."

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⏰ Last updated: Aug 07, 2012 ⏰

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