Light Year

Light Year

A switch depressed,
energy rushed through circuits
of complex and novel design,
the integument of everyone
in the lab
began to itch.

Tentacles twitched without volition,
a void gaped in spacetime;
beyond the opening,
queer potentials writhed,
no matter nor energy,
nothing so well-defined as a thing,

perceived therein.

Lights fluttered and generators groaned,

the rim of the opening began to fray;
that which existed
screamed into that which did not,
casting off transient forms,

of beauteous and repellent aspect
into dimensionless immensity.

A sudden shock,
the very air for a moment solid,
familiar gases, the vapor of life,
somehow thixotropic,

excruciating agony flooded

respiration webs, then release,

air returned to mundanity,
the intolerable opening
sphinctered

with a bitter gust.

It was done but, shaken, we

dispersed to soul-settle, tentacle burnish,

and shore-up our mate-group

homeostasis, as the need lay,

and many were the transient potentials

erected and discharged that watch.

The experiment turned full well,

small harms mended, ship took

we home,

and yet,

and yet,

since that moment

when world and null-world

met, tip-sparked and then recoiled

I'm feeling shadows. What cast them

was no thing, and its absence

is long gone, but something

that, in some elseworld, might be
person, creature, or device, in this is

shadow, or

almost shadow.

I feel it eating of the walls.

Cast substance soon, it may,

and casting thus may be revealed.

I listen, look, and keep on the light.