Darkness is falling around me. Or maybe I am falling around the darkness. It is hard to tell. Sometimes it is as if I am falling through an abyss of nothingness, though I doubt that is possible, and sometimes I am watching the sun make its steady progress through the sky, seeing a million life forms live and die every moment. I see everything, and sometimes that's a curse, not a blessing. I see life, and I see death. Balance. Maybe. Though what I seem to have learnt is that life carries on. I see people – humans, I think they call themselves – carrying on with their everyday life whilst on the other side of their world people are dying, their doom sneaking closer moment by moment. And at the same time, more life forms. It is a balance of sorts, just sometimes not a kind one.
I no longer know what is happening to me. I have forgotten who I am, if I was anyone before this. But somehow, I do not care, because this is my life now. This is my existence, and even if I cannot change that, I can at least make it bearable. Hence, I do the only thing I can. I watch, and I learn, until I think I finally understand the workings of their strange and busy communities, even some of the wonders they do not comprehend, or are too blind to see. I see their undoing more clearly than they do, as they turn their backs and pretend nothing is happening as the world burns around them. Pig-headed fools. But I still do not know where I am, or what is happening to me, even though I know the words for the stars around me and all the wonders on the world below, always tantalisingly out of reach. (So many words. I do not understand why humans have to categorise everything. Why not just let creatures be what they are, without cruelly studying it for hours upon end, then giving it a ridiculously complicated name like parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides, a species of Tai soldier fly. Ridiculous!) So, I read and read again, and carry on reading. Still no answers present themselves. Maybe I will do this until the end of time but I do not care. My curse may be a curse but it is my curse to do with what I may.
Sometimes, I see light in my darkness. Burning rings of fire, windows in space, doorways to places unknown. I do not know what will happen if I go through them. Maybe I shall die. But that is better than being stuck here for all eternity. Repeatedly I struggle towards them and repeatedly I fall short. Then finally I reach my goal. Through the hole, I can see trees. At least I think that is what they are. I have never properly seen trees before. I pull myself through, and my eyes open onto a new world. And it is beautiful.
