It’s Her Book After All

An Excerpt from “The Book of Dwellers”

By Marti A. Silent

It was her book after all. I found it. They had her scribe on it. Everything she’d provoked against the old philosopher. Everything I believed in deeply – questioned through annotations. On one side was written, “Has the old star seeker borne witness to the explosion of a star? Has the tall-taler any evidence that such empty skies ever carried life? Have you any sky dwellers?”

She questioned his very core. The science the world accepted as truth because one creature decided it so when he was never opposed.

When his scribes contradicted his previous passages, she grew confused. While I acknowledged growth, I wanted to know that his word could be depended on. All creatures did already.

But she depended on no one; therefore she sought reliability. Consistency.

That’s when she suspected the old philosopher may have a new writer after all. A ghostly fellow, offering a cautionary tone.

“His writings became a warning,” she said. “In one passage, he speaks of venturing anatomical galaxies; however, in another, he offers desperately that we leave them be.”

And she writes, “Bodies are galaxies only when explored consensually. They are nebulae that feast on reliable presence with no threats to swallow you whole. Explore these cosmos without authority, and you will create a black hole.”

She is far more thoughtful than I am.

I said, “Explore it. We are creatures of curiosity. Curiosity insists in this world. Why exist among curious creatures hungry for exploration if not for the purpose of being discovered? Opened and shared?”

She makes me a fool, mind you. However, I’d read this book once before. She’d read it nightly. So what argument could I muster?

It was her book after all.

— Shiloh of Asterin