Russell Edson's 'The Theory' 🌌 - A Surreal Dive into Transformation and Loss

The big one went to sleep as to die and dreamed he <br />became a tiny one. So tiny as to have lost all substance. To have <br />become as theoretical as a point. <br /> <br /> Then someone said, get up, big one, you're not doing <br />yourself any good. You puddle and stagnate in your weight. <br />Best to be up and toward. It irrigates you. <br /> <br /> What, said the big one, have I not disappeared? Have you <br />not mistaken a cloud for me? Perhaps some local hill fulfills <br />your expectation? <br /> <br /> No, it's no mistake, it's you; those interconnecting puddles <br />of flesh pulling at your bones, attempting that world-weary fall <br />toward the great waters of the world. <br /> <br /> How you manage against gravity is one of the greater <br />triumphs of nature. <br /> <br /> Do you think, said the big one, there's a woman who <br />would like to marry me? <br /> <br /> Yes, had such a woman done everything in the world except <br />marry you, she might think it worthy before dying to complete <br />her catalogue. Or having done everything, go meekly <br />without decision or care to such a consummation. <br /> <br /> Then you really feel, said the big one, that this woman <br />could come to care very deeply for me? <br /> <br /> All is theoretical. Who knows enough to say the outcome <br />of any event, save that it was past us, and we saw the back of it <br />moving slowly into the Universe, seeking other settings to <br />repeat the fall of fate. . . <br /> <br /> That sounds wonderful, that a woman like that could be in <br />love with me, said the big one. <br /> <br /> But in a few moments the big one was back asleep, dreaming <br />that he had come to such enlargement that he constituted <br />all the matter in the Universe, which must include the earth <br />and the woman he would have loved. . .<br /><br />Russell Edson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-theory/