update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<dd>This is a very rare occurrence. Earth is crowded. The shuttles are crowded. The station is less crowded, but it’s also a place where one works with a bunch of coworkers, so I’m usually not all that alone. The closest I get to being alone is sleeping or during EVAs. I spend most of that time dreaming, and I don’t mind that at all.</dd>
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<dt>Do you remember your dreams?</dt>
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<dd>My dreams when I’m asleep? Rarely. They’re usually confused images of long hallways or being super crowded in a small space. Waking dreams are much more pleasant.</dd>
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<dt>How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>I have to say, I started talking with de, one of the launch commission members, and we agreed that your questions grew exponentially weird starting about here. I originally thought I’d answer each in some snarky way, but the more I thought about them, the more I realized what you’re going for. In that vein, I’ll try to answer each as best I can.</p>
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<p>There are a good number of people who think that God/god(s) forgot about Earth. There are always doom-sayers and end-of-the-world-ites, but they have seen a huge uptick in my life alone, and I think this last century has been defined by coming to terms with how fucked up everything is. And it’s not that we don’t blame ourselves. Many of us do! But many of those same people tack it on God, too. “God is disappointed with us and that’s why everything’s shitty” or whatever.</p>
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<p>Me? I’m not so sure. I was raised thinking much of that, but I also feel like I left those feelings back planet-side. I don’t think about God much anymore. Maybe that’s part of the problem: when we forget about God, we get complacent and then get into trouble, and suddenly he’s much more relevant again. Who knows. Life up here is easy. I work, I get tired, I rest, I eat well, I get to do the thing I love most of all. Did I forget God back on Earth? Did I leave him there when I came here? Is there room for God in space? Do you have God in the System, and is that God the same one we talk about phys-side?</p>
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<p>I can’t answer the question without asking a bunch more because God and I forgot each other.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>When you become intoxicated — whether via substance use or some natural process, such as sleep deprivation — which of the following applies to you?</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>I laughed at this one. Where did you find this? I dug but couldn’t find the source. I know that the previous one is a Psalm of some sort.</p>
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<p>There are very few chances to get intoxicated here on the station. I had a glass of champagne after launch, and it was the first drink I had had in at least a decade, if not longer. You spend that long away from alcohol, and you lose essentially all of your tolerance, so I’m ashamed to say that, while I did feel drunk, I basically stumbled off to bed and slept.</p>
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<p>However, you talk about other intoxications. I am no stranger to insomnia, and you’re right that there is a sort of intoxication to that. I tend to get goofy and laugh a lot at the stupidest things when I’ve not slept for a day or two. I will laugh and laugh at the smallest thing, and then the laughter will fade and I’ll sigh and say, “I’m so tired.” And then I’ll do the whole thing all over again. I think that might be kind of like Ape Drunk?</p>
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<p>One thing this reminded me of, though, was of when I had just turned twenty and got incredibly sick. I had a very high fever, and when it was at its worst, I felt as though I was being offered a chance to peek behind a curtain, or at least see the shadows moving around backstage beneath the hem of it. I felt that I was granted a glimpse of some thinner reality that sat just behind our own. I was writhing in my bed, unable to hold still, with my back arching and my tongue sticking out, and yet there was this sense of the numinous and a short wave of ecstasy, and I felt pleasantly drunk. I don’t know what “when a man is drunk and drinks himself sober ere he stir” means. Does it apply to functional alcholism? Even if it does, it feels like that moment. When I was in fever, I burned all the brighter before I got better, and in that moment, I saw the most clearly.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>While walking along in desert sand, you suddenly look down and see a tortoise crawling toward you. You reach down and flip it over onto its back. The tortoise lies there, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs, trying to turn itself over, but it cannot do so without your help. You are not helping. Why?</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>I don’t know. I don’t know why I flipped it, and I don’t know why I’m not helping it, but I see myself there, watching it flail around, and I’m sobbing. I’m sobbing because for some reason, I’m not flipping it over and I wish against everything that I could give it relief. I feel guilt and shame in equal measure, and I watch myself beat my fists against my thighs, trying to force myself to do the thing, do the thing, just <em>do the thing.</em></p>
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<p>This is a truly nightmarish question, May Then My Name.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Two by two, two by two, and twice more. We always think in binaries, in black and white. We remember history two by two. We consider the present two by two. We think of the future twice over, and twice again. I have looked back on history and seen ceaseless progress or steps backward. I look back a hundred years and see illness and failure, and I look at today and see _____?</dt>
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<dd>
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<p>I recognize this! We read it in class. I know that the next words are “twice that and more”, but I don’t think that’s quite what you’re getting at.</p>
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<p>I look back a hundred years and see illness and failure, and I look at today and see twice that and more <em>below</em>, but up above, as it were, I see only the clean purity of space and the steady brightness of stars. If I literally look up, beyond the walls and hull, there is the System, and while I probably hold overly optimistic ideas of what goes on inside, I don’t think you have illness and failure to nearly the same extent as we do phys-side. I doubt it’s a utopia, but I would be hard pressed to imagine it as any worse than outside.</p>
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</dd>
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<dt>Oh, but to whom do I speak these words? To whom do I plead my case?</dt>
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<dd>I am writing this to you, but if I have to plead my case to anyone, it’s to myself. I have to make my case to myself that I am worth enough to upload, that I can bring <em>something</em> to the System, that I would be welcomed there. I’m a very harsh judge, though, and it’s taking a lot of work to convince myself of that.</dd>
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<dt>From whence do I call out?</dt>
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<dd>Close. So close. I call out to myself from within myself. I call out to the system through a few inches of diamondoid coating and the fabric of my EVA suit.</dd>
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<dt>What right have I? No ranks of angels will answer to dreamers, No unknowable spaces echo my words.</dt>
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<dd>This is the crux of the problem, isn’t it? I am convinced, on some level, that I don’t have the right to want this thing. Immortality is for the gods, and that’s what you seem like to me. You seem like gods, and here I am, the mortal working at sweeping the floor of your altar. The candles are out, the celebrants are gone, no ranks of angles will answer to a dreamer like me, and as always, sound does not travel in space.</dd>
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<dt>Before whom do I kneel, contrite?</dt>
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<dd>That part of me that says, “No, you are not a god.” And when I beg his pardon, he laughs and says, “No amount of contrition will get you into a place separated from you by an impossibly large gap. Only death will get there, and you are not worth that.”</dd>
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<dt>Behind whom do I await my judgment?</dt>
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<dd>I wait behind that part of me which desperately hopes that you think kindly of me, that you accept me. You, Michelle Hadje, and the whole of the System. If that part of me is allowed in, then maybe I will be seen as worthy, too.</dd>
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<dt>Beside whom do I face death?</dt>
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<dd>There is no one beside me. I have few attachments here, and what professional contacts I do have with whom I’ve fostered a friendship have no plans to upload. It’s just me before the System, waiting for death and hoping it’s enough.</dd>
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<dt>And why wait I for an answer?</dt>
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<dd>Please answer, May Then My Name. I wait because I have to know that there is something beyond this. I went into this questionnaire with an open mind, and now I’m having a hard time continuing because I just want to curl up in my bed and cry because these last questions have stripped me of any pretense that I had about my desires and what’s keeping me from them. I don’t recognize where you got them from, but they have me truly unsettled. They sound almost like your name, and if you are a part of these questions, then please answer.</dd>
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</dl>
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<ul>
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<li>How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt Thou hide Thy face from me?</li>
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<li>When you become intoxicated — whether via substance use or some natural process, such as sleep deprivation — which of the following applies to you?<ol>
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<li>Ape drunk: he leaps and sings and hollers and danceth for the heavens.</li>
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<li>Lion drunk: he flings the pots about the house, calls his hostess whore, breaks the glass windows with his dagger, and is apt to quarrel with any man that speaks to him.</li>
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<li>Swine drunk: heavy, lumpish, and sleepy, and cries for a little more drink and a few more clothes.</li>
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<li>Sheep drunk: wise in his own conceit when he cannot bring forth a right word.</li>
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<li>Maudlin drunk: when a fellow will weep for kindness in the midst of his ale and kiss you, saying, “By God, Captain, I love thee; go thy ways, thou dost not think so often of me as I do of thee. If I would, if it pleased God, I could not love thee so well as I do.” — and then puts his finger in his eye and cries.</li>
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<li>Martin drunk: when a man is drunk and drinks himself sober ere he stir.</li>
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<li>Goat drunk: when in his drunkenness, he hath no mind but on lechery.</li>
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<li>Fox drunk: when he is crafty drunk as many of the Dutchmen be.</li>
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</ol>
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</li>
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<li>While walking along in desert sand, you suddenly look down and see a tortoise crawling toward you. You reach down and flip it over onto its back. The tortoise lies there, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs, trying to turn itself over, but it cannot do so without your help. You are not helping. Why?</li>
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<li>Two by two, two by two, and twice more. We always think in binaries, in black and white. We remember history two by two. We consider the present two by two. We think of the future twice over, and twice again. I have looked back on history and seen ceaseless progress or steps backward. I look back a hundred years and see illness and failure, and I look at today and see _____?</li>
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<li>Oh, but to whom do I speak these words?<br />
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To whom do I plead my case?<br />
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From whence do I call out?<br />
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What right have I?<br />
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No ranks of angels will answer to dreamers,<br />
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No unknowable spaces echo my words.<br />
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Before whom do I kneel, contrite?<br />
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Behind whom do I await my judgment?<br />
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Beside whom do I face death?<br />
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And why wait I for an answer?</li>
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</ul>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-08-24</p>
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