Mapping Eternity
'Whatever happens, stick to the paths you know,' my father used to say.
If only he could see just how far I've strayed, the places my wanderlust has taken me.
That was so long ago. I can't remember now whether he meant literal paths, if he was worried for my safety in the forests I grew up in, or whether he meant in life. Maybe it was both, I didn't write everything down in those days, I thought my memories would hold true forever.
I could tell him I became a historian, and he would be happy. It's a safe, boring, tangible job. It's true too, in a way, but it's as true to call me book-keeper, librarian, geographer, cartographer, time-traveller, space-man, alien - to some. I journey and I watch, I measure, I record: everywhere, everywhen, whether I know the path or not.
I have studied empires spreading over islands, over planets, over galaxies. Nothing is ignored, no matter the size. Scale is noted, but everything happens and so everything is important, and is documented.
I have witnessed beginnings, so many of them. Births in every sense you can imagine, and an almost infinite amount you can't.
I have charted the idea of Apocalypse moving through the universal undermind. Seen, in actuality, a thousand apocalypses ravage and destroy civilisations. The Horsemen - as my people called them so long ago, before they visited my homeworld in turn - are real enough, psychic entities feeding on mass devastation. But I have chronicled the new worlds that rise in their wake too, a thousand glorious re-births.
I have seen the past, and visited so many futures, and yet I failed to foresee my own. For so long an existence I had missed out on the greatest treasure, that thing that so many artists and poets have tried to capture, to pin down, but never quite succeeded; that sought me out, struck when I was unaware, pinned me down.
I always thought exploration would be my only true passion. Forever I have observed, never interracted, known that to be my place. A lonely eternity maybe, but necessarily so; I have never begrudged my solitude, that I should be anything other than alone has never crossed my mind. But now...
And I always thought this great work, the greatest work, would be my only child, born to me and mother universe. I thought this map, so full of the life of others, yet none of its own, would be my only legacy. But now...
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
-Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
If only he could see just how far I've strayed, the places my wanderlust has taken me.
That was so long ago. I can't remember now whether he meant literal paths, if he was worried for my safety in the forests I grew up in, or whether he meant in life. Maybe it was both, I didn't write everything down in those days, I thought my memories would hold true forever.
I could tell him I became a historian, and he would be happy. It's a safe, boring, tangible job. It's true too, in a way, but it's as true to call me book-keeper, librarian, geographer, cartographer, time-traveller, space-man, alien - to some. I journey and I watch, I measure, I record: everywhere, everywhen, whether I know the path or not.
I have studied empires spreading over islands, over planets, over galaxies. Nothing is ignored, no matter the size. Scale is noted, but everything happens and so everything is important, and is documented.
I have witnessed beginnings, so many of them. Births in every sense you can imagine, and an almost infinite amount you can't.
I have charted the idea of Apocalypse moving through the universal undermind. Seen, in actuality, a thousand apocalypses ravage and destroy civilisations. The Horsemen - as my people called them so long ago, before they visited my homeworld in turn - are real enough, psychic entities feeding on mass devastation. But I have chronicled the new worlds that rise in their wake too, a thousand glorious re-births.
I have seen the past, and visited so many futures, and yet I failed to foresee my own. For so long an existence I had missed out on the greatest treasure, that thing that so many artists and poets have tried to capture, to pin down, but never quite succeeded; that sought me out, struck when I was unaware, pinned me down.
I always thought exploration would be my only true passion. Forever I have observed, never interracted, known that to be my place. A lonely eternity maybe, but necessarily so; I have never begrudged my solitude, that I should be anything other than alone has never crossed my mind. But now...
And I always thought this great work, the greatest work, would be my only child, born to me and mother universe. I thought this map, so full of the life of others, yet none of its own, would be my only legacy. But now...
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
-Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken