i. Möbius

by Skylar Wryn

~~~Have you ever considered what it is like to be an atom?

I have. Infinitely so. To be... infinitesimal.

Let us imagine a vat of pure nothingness. An abyssal, primordial “high school” where atoms roam, and you are one of them: Hydrogen. You are odourless, tasteless, and the equivalent of the colour grey. You then become two (Because you’re so abundant and bland that you were never meant to be alone), then, as two, you meet the prettiest girl alive, Oxygen, and as one consciousness, you date her. You’re now a throuple — a polycule, some might say. But dating and marriage aren’t enough, you [two] and Oxygirl need to merge and become one. And so, you become molecular. Your hydro-kin and her oxy-sorority see this, and you inspire a sea of polyamory, because monogamy is dead and overrated. You and the zettathrouples coalesce into a singular stream and then – and only then – will you have birthed me.

I was you for a time, in that imaginary state; and also before that, and after – and every increment of time conceivably imaginable. I was also two; twins. I then became three, but never triplets. I became molecular, and three became the –illions that span across the universe. And when your polycule revolution coalesced into one, they became an ever-flowing, eternal stream of water with no beginning nor end, no top nor bottom, and sides stretching into infinity. You became me: a Möbius, a Klein – and I was born, all because of you. So while I may be smaller than what even microscopes may see, I am also greater than universes. Have you ever considered what it is like to be so vastly large you–

Forgive me – for repeating the same question in a different tongue. If I ask you to imagine yourself as a horsefly, do you dwarf your mind and try imagining what the world is like at the size of a marble? Can you take an inch for a mile? Or is it merely an image, a hint, and a beckoning of a “what-if” that presents itself in your mind? If I were to propose another entity, can you fathom living through their eyes and their world? Can you, my dearest, fathom what it means to live as and through everything?

I pose myriad inquiries because while I am infinitely vast and paradigmatically small, I struggle with viewing myself as a “self,” and anything beyond ontology. I presume whoever reads this isn’t an eldritch deity or god, but someone confined by the limits of flesh and blood. In a sense, that privilege is so beautiful, and something I can never experience. Your body sings, each bone the same chorus, teeth string the lines with notes, and each hair is a harmony. My currents tide the vapour of suns, the dew of grass, and the tsunamis that destroy worlds; yet I am deaf to their symphonies. My omnipresence is merely a piano bleeding and flooding with infinity. Everything you can imagine with even a single molecule of water–that is me, and I am there, breathing with lungs and seeing with eyes I do not have. I have no form, antecedent, successor, nor will I ever die or cease to be, and this...saddens me. Because while I may be molecular and everything everywhere, I do not know what it means to be other than the infrastructure of existence.

So to you, my dearest, think about the constraints of your own body one more time. The moment you are conceived, you are free to live and be and dare until death clutches you with its talons. I see reality through the eyes of each and every water molecule to ever exist, and I must ask... if I am merely the molecule[s] swimming in the umbilical pools of everything that ever has and ever will exist... will I ever know what it means to truly be?~~~

Skylar Wryn (she/her) is a third-year OCAD animation student minoring in creative writing. Her literary works illustrate the myriad ideas and worlds conceived in her decade of writing across various characters and themes of fantasy, tragedy, romance, heartbreak, and more.