For We Observed his Star at its Rising
The first time we had a conversation about my degree in religion, your features gathered themselves into a look both perplexed and troubled. But why? you asked me. But you’re not a believer. But there is no God or power in prayer or hellfire and you know it.
Look, I said, this is true, but it is irrelevant. We both study the heavens. You look to the stars to read the past and the future and what I do is not so different. I ask man to tell me where the stars come from while you ask the stars to tell you where man comes from. The thing that most separates the two of us is that you supply answers and I only study them. Really, Mr. Scientist, you are the proselytizer. He nodded slowly, put his drink to his lips and drew in a slow mouthful.
I explained to him that unlike like a believer, I could do without the Adam of Eden or Egypt awash with blood and locusts; I’d always loved, yet never believed in an immaculate Son… but I still wanted to know all about God’s creation.
From that point on, he told me black hole bedtime stories every night. Once upon a time, he said, there was a supernova and an event horizon around which time curled itself…
When I finally nodded off, my sleep was so dense with his words, it pulled in and swallowed every bit of light in the room.