Sinking or Floating

Sum Flux Vol. 6 Open Call: Stream of Consciousness

Between 0 and 1 exists every universe. An unquantifiable infinity beginning somewhere we don’t know and stretching out to some place we cannot fathom. Begin at nothing, start at before and nowhere and reach down into the murky soup to find it bottomless. At 0.1 you feel the ripple of cosmic explosion, big bang — huge bang, massive — but you reach past it. Your arm sinks into the silt of 0.001 and your skin sizzles with the heat death of another universe but still your arm sinks, submerging deepening into the codified data of an orderly universe. 0.0001 and you’re in up to your elbows, stretching and leaning, groping the very cold primordial waters of dubious origin. Your shriveled hand waves and swirls the unstirred liquid of eons past 0.00001, unreckoned time and space and matter swish and swash off the hairs of your arm in a lazy dance of tides. Your shoulder dips into the cosmic pool, nose kissing the conscious surface of 0.1 while the raisined tips of your frozen fingers diddle the edge of 0.000001. And then you slip, fall, splash into the colorless void to sink like a stone through the heat death the freezing substrata and into 0.0000001 and beyond where there is no more sensation of anything or nothing and you cease to fall because you cease to be, yet the bottom is nowhere and the unquantified tidal pool between 0 and 1 goes deeper, 0.00000001 and deeper 0.00000000001 and deeper 0.00000000000000000000001 and it never stops, you never hit the bottom and so are you really falling at all? Can you sink if there is no bottom, no known qualia to define how deep you have gone and how deep you will yet go? Are you really only floating, suspended in an unknowable place between places where everything is and isn’t and hasn’t been but always was before and after and forever? Are you falling or are you floating?

0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001

and you sail smoothly through every decimal marker

0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

without knowing to what place you have come or gone

0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

you are slick, oily smooth, featuring no resistance

0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

and there is no destination, no bottom, no end

0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

so are you sinking or floating? You are descending beyond all meaning of quanitity, past the minuscule and microscopic, through the atomic and clear by the humming connections of quarks

0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

And just think, this perilous void between zero and one, exists between every number — from 1 to {infinity}

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