2018 Feb 27

10 minutes: Predicate, predicament, precipice

And off we went, over the edge into the blackness.

The world from which we came quickly faded from view. There was no more light to be found in the direction we were going - every one of us on this train falling into oblivion.

In the middle of free fall, we discovered we were essentially weightless. We climbed out of our seats, tentatively at first, with more confidence as time went on. Some people used their phones to light the way, but we could see nothing but ourselves and the inside of the falling train. After a few days, the last phone blinked out, and there we were, surrounded by nothing.

The train became our planet. Earth was gone, nobody could figure out why or where. We lost a few people who slipped off the train. Their voices faded away into the dark. Eventually we found safer ways to leave the train interior. Sight was no longer a sense we needed. Touch and memory served as our new cartographers of this world. With them, we mapped out every inch of the falling train, until it became as familiar as if we could see it.

Maybe the train was no longer falling at all. Maybe it was floating. But there was no measurable difference. We didn't know where our destination was going to be. Would we crash into the bottom at some point? Would we fall forever?

I suppose the same was true on earth, but that wasn't something we used to think about.

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