You think that’s air you’re breathing now?
Everything you're experiencing is outputted by the greatest virtual reality machine ever invented, your brain. It's all inside your head. None of it is the "real thing." It's just electrical signals corresponding to the forms and interactions around you. Even though we're each living inside our own braintrix, we can use observation, perception, documentation, to make educated guesses and assumptions. One such inference concerns the shape of planet Earth. And there is truly just one way to absolutely know - or get as close as possible to absolutely knowing - the Earth is or is not the shape modern science tells us it is. If the Earth is flat, that way is up, and if it's spherical, that way is out. Seeing is believing, skepticism is the cornerstone of science, and the person convinced Earth is flat is just as foolish as the person convinced it's not.
vi.
he watched her in her deepest sleep;
for a moment he could swear he almost saw her breathe.
i. Before
1993: sitting at his step mother's house where she kissed him on the mouth and he almost touched her blouse.
ii.
1996: he kissed her neck and she cradled his head as she wrapped her legs around his waist and he laid her on her bed.
iii.
20 weeks: the house slept as her cancer repulsed and they sat together as her shoulders convulsed.
iv.
16 weeks: he remembered the dress she wore when her hair fell out in fistfuls to the floor and her mom said she was adorning; she burned that dress the next morning.
v.
8 weeks early: he clutched her hand and held her too close and she slipped away as her bones turned to shadows.
vi.
for a moment he could swear he almost saw her breathe.
Old Man Rio
Old Man Rio, why such tears of sorrow?
Sorrow? What do you know of sorrow?
I have drunk from the inner ovens of your sun
and played on the feathery tendrils of midnight lightning
My song echoes distant among ghostly hypergiants
of the celestia
I twirl The Great Flat Earth on a single digit
while my warm breath spins a hurricane over the high seas
So I say again: What do you know of sorrow?
The tears I weep created the great Pacific pool
in which I swim and dive and feast
Silver rivulets fall from my countenance and seed
the heavenly rivers and streams of the north and south
These tears of what you call sorrow run blood red
among the craggy masses of land so enriched with my iron
No, my young earthling, mine tears know no sorrow
Only the dreams and fantasies and promises of your tomorrow
