Core

I've been to the galactic core. In the utter silence of a day that never was, I sat on a hill that was not my own and flew. The void was massive but I believed that on the other side, I might find something else, someone else. When I arrived there, softly etched into the cloud that was its edge, a common ground of silky stars that pulsated with a massive light, were words that shook with a feathery light. Consider writing, the magic of humans, the only thing we have that comes close to the wonders of nature like snails or leaves or radiation or snails. Slithering, we can leave our mark across parchment and that comes in many forms: paper, hearts, leather, stars, snails. We can choose to break off a piece of our inner furnaces and burn across, but gently, our chosen surfaces, our chosen messages. And these words pulsate and grow and slowly stretch, flimsy fingertips that cajole and beckon and push. They are fists and handshakes both, greetings and condemnations, blessings and casus belli.

So, on the core there were softly etched five words that I was surprised to find. After all, I thought as I looked around, there was nothing more alone than this, nothing more central. Central is used by people to denote crowded, not alone, full of people or meaning. But that is not a center at all, that is an outskirt. The core, the galactic core, is a place that is alone in itself, so silent it reeks, so unique it shatters its own borders, its own craters, its own snails. So, you can imagine my surprise at finding writing there. Who could trace it? What hand had softly grazed the molten, searing surface and left its intentions there? And, more importantly perhaps, how had it known to write these words in a language I would know? Now, I know what you are thinking, that all these facts only lead to one conclusion, as inexorable as an exercise in logic, drawn towards the end of its own arc like a snail towards, well, the end of its own arc.

But no, that doesn't make any sense, and I'm trying to make a little more. I've already told you, this was when I first found the galactic core. But, this is not the ocean. There are no edges here, in spite of one you might find if you carefully look at what I've already told you, that was just a form for you to better understand. It's a new thing, bear with me. In any case, this is not the ocean, so I can't create or discover the edges, the others who plagued me or plagued me on. In this new place, I am not the pen nor the ink, not the blood or the ligament. I am simply me, guided as I often am by a burning star, that calls out to the core, calls out to the other stars around it. Again, you're trying to make these limits, to make these mean something but there is one feature the core shares with the ocean: we hate your borders.

So, the mystery of what's written on the core remains unsolved. I can tell you the contents, but that won't solve the mystery:

"Hoc est verbum".