49

it was the first thing they thought of, first thing they dreamed, the inexorable, unimaginable, for weren't humans made to desire that which cannot be attained, cannot even be felt or seen but we must be able to feel it a little bit, like a curtain with a shadow showing through, a bright light around the corner and they wondered always what it would take to tear a eye-sized hole in the curtain, to poke their head around the corner just for a moment, but they knew it would be a terrible god, and they would be shamed and blamed if not by it, by themselves, and they would cease to be them and begin to be different beings all together trapped by that sight, in that sight, irrevocably changed, like when you begin to learn the secrets of the universe, the first time you find out about how sex works, the crudeness and the mundane, beautiful, soily, thought, or how you find out that saline drips and operations cost real money like food, and the lessing of it afterwards tunes you into just important your sickness was, or how you believed silk was satin and the confusion of it just made you hate fabric for the rest of your life, but suppose you kept on believing, suppose you knew these things, suppose you remained without - you would be happier now, wouldn't you?