An Empty Sneaker

2024.08.15

Good morning that wonderful place.

Just before sunup, with Abe, well fed, there's coffee, there's cereal, there's a keyboard, there's quiet, there's a massive ball of fire in the sky, a mothership incoming to light it all up.

Shields up!

Only if it's a Sci Fi film, but it's only a day.

A starship called Today.

What's in a star, what's it made of?
How do you light a match in space?

There's a question for science.

Where's the matter come from?
How'd we get all that stuff without water?
Without wind how do the planets move?

Gravity?
Magnetism?

Are they balls on a board like Einstein thought, rolling around on whatever the table of Space is?

Why's it matter?

We ought to think of it more.

The tree outside your window makes as much sense as Neptune in regard to its existence.

First thing in the morning deep thoughts.
Though, it's far from the ocean's floor, thoughts of space are some of the deepest thoughts.

We throw numbers at them more than words.

Our language for something defines our relation to it, and so, as far as Space goes only those brave with mathematics discuss it.

We have our science fiction stories.
They help comfort our curiosities with it.

It's a joke that we call it Space.

"Well, Smart Scientist friend, what shall we call it?"

"We'll call it Space.'"

"Space? Like an empty attic? Like what's in your shoes across the room without your feet? Like the air?"

"Not the air, no there's stuff in the air, there's no stuff in this Space."

"There's air in my sneakers."

"Friend, Space is not an empty sneaker."

"Then what is it?"

"Space, friend, it's just Space."

"So, you have no idea what it is."

"Yup. None whatsoever. Just where everything that's not Earth hangs out. We don't know what it is. Can't touch it."

"Guess it's just Space. Wonder if anything else is in it."

"What?"

"Well, we can't measure it, so maybe there's other things in it we just can't measure. You can't see what your dog's smelling."

"What's your dog's nose got to do with space?"

"Why not ask him?"

"I don't speak dog."

"You don't speak Space either and you still can't measure a dream."

"What's a dream have to do with Space?"

"Well, Space looks exactly like what I see when I close my eyes. So probably a lot more than we think."

"Wonder what Space smells like?"

"Definitely, not like a bunch of hot air."

"Though... maybe, an empty sneaker."

...

A quiet night in August just before dawn, no one around but the dream you just had you don't remember but it must have been a good one because you feel better than you have in weeks.