by Harryette Mullen
The pope of cosmology addresses a convention. When he talks the
whole atmosphere changes. He speaks through a computer. When
he asks can you hear me, the whole audience says yes. It’s a science
locked up in a philosophical debate. There are a few different
theories. There could be many different realities. You might say ours
exists because we do. You could take a few pounds of matter, heat it
to an ungodly temperature, or the universe was a freak accident.
There may be a limit to our arrogance, but one day the laws of
physics will read like a detailed instruction manual. A plane that
took off from its hub in my hometown just crashed in the President’s
hometown. The news anchor says the pilot is among the dead. I was
hoping for news of the President’s foreign affair with a diplomat’s
wife. I felt a mystical connection to the number of confirmed dead
whose names were not released. Like the time I was three
handshakes from the President. Like when I thought I heard that
humanitarians dropped a smart blond on the Chinese embassy. Like
when the cable was severed and chairs fell from the sky because the
pilot flew with rusty maps. What sane pilot would land in that
severe rain with hard hail and gale force wind. With no signal of
distress. With no foghorns to warn the civilians, the pilot lost our
moral compass in the bloody quagmire of collateral damage. Onetheory says it’s just a freak accident locked up in a philosophical
debate. It’s like playing poker and all the cards are wild. Like the
arcane analysis of a black box full of insinuations of error.
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