Sight is imaginary. We only imagine the night sky. Proof of that assertion is readily available in the form of brilliantly colored photographs of distant celestial objects. We see the brilliant colors in those photos only by manipulating light—filtering out one kind or color, allowing film to capture only one kind or color…we see the imaginary…the “what if” that hides behind unfettered revelation. This concept leads to a question but not to an answer: what would we see without any interference…without even a hint of external influence? Would the world and all the objects in it be transparent? Or would we see anything at all? Might we be like blind moles, feeling our way through an invisible world? Would our inability to see…anything…convince us that everything is simply an illusion? Would we come to conclude that we, ourselves, are just fantasies of imaginary beings? Our curiosity might spawn more and more questions until our emptiness is full; no more room to wonder.
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My admiration of Nordic noir television crime series took root when I watched what was billed as the Department Q trilogy several years ago:
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- The Keeper of Lost Causes
- The Absent One
- A Conspiracy of Faith
The series, based on books by the prolific Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen, led to another TV crime series, Department Q, released just last month. I was prepared to be disappointed by this one, a British English-language offering created by Scott Frank and Chandni Lakhani. My preparedness was unnecessary. Having watched six of nine episodes of season 1, I am thoroughly entranced by the show. I won’t bother describing the series (neither the original nor the new). I’ll leave it here: both are captivating, entertaining, and well worth the time invested in watching them.
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Only by viewing spiral galaxies from incomprehensibly long distances do their waving arms come into focus. Absent the benefit of vast distances, our eyes would be unable to see the patterns on display by the swirls of stars. Without powerful telescopes and amplified light, coupled with distances measured in light years, spiral galaxies would appear as mere dots in the dark night sky. Distance, though, adds dimension to the flat blackness of eternal space. Distance lifts the veil from our eyes, permitting us to see—but not to understand—that proximity blinds us to the beauty surrounding us.
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Another visit to the oncologist today. Lab work. And more magnesium dripped into my bloodstream. I wonder whether my body will ever have sufficient magnesium without having it drip-drip-dripped into me? Probably no answers. Better no answers, though, than answers I would rather not hear. Although I’d rather hear answers than have them withheld. That’s not a worry. At least I think not. I’m free to think about distance and vision and light and emptiness; without interference.
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I do not recall whether I ever actually wrote a story that included a character named Satanica or whether that character has simply been waiting in the wings for me to incorporate her into a story. That’s one of the problems with creating countless new names for characters that pop into my head; sometimes they get lost in the crevices and hidden caves in my brain. It is entirely possible that entire families of the lost live in there; perhaps even villages full of people have gone missing—stumbling into tunnels that are subsequently blocked by falling mental debris that obstructs the exits.
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