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--- L E O N O R E W I L S O N They say a cold radio-noise fills the universe, a relic of the time when radiation ceased to interact with matter, half a million years after the big bang. Imagine this noise killing the pygmy bat, one that died on the trail, died supine with his wings jutted like elbows covering his ears; imagine he heard a pure sound in the forest like the voice Francis of Assisi heard, saying, "Go and build my ruined house!" How many zealots at that time of the reformation were prompted by divine commands, and how many were deemed mad, those burning with such fever that all they ate for years was Christ's daily flesh, imagine those astronomers working in New Jersey hearing the lingering echo of the universe when matter and radiation separated, world suddenly becoming transparent, when the sea of radiation was left cooling on its own until fifteen billion years later, by then it would be detected; imagine those astronomers after the sound entered them when the unbelievable became certain, imagine the divine ecstasy and horror of it, that moment when they found themselves open to the void. |
© crossconnect, inc 1995-2002
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published in association with the
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university of pennsylvania's
kelly writers house
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