Voyager: Constellations of Memory

by Nona Fernández

Stardust, gas, hydrogen, fire, atoms from stars, molecules, microorganisms, bacteria, cells, algae, plants, oxygen, insects, amphibians, reptiles, invertebrates, vertebrates, explosions, gases, volcanos, rain, floods, climate change, meteorites, mammals, primates, centuries and centuries of evolution, and all I can make of it is that we are the children of chance. We move through time propelled by the energy of the great explosion that made us, swept along in the undertow of the great initial stampede. And thus we get up to make breakfast each morning, oblivious of how our organs, our genes, our race evolved despite us. A vital force from the past secretly sets us in motion, transforming us into something beyond our comprehension. We are inheritors of an enigmatic process, of a timeless time, of a logic silently proceeding along its unforeseeable path.

This treason thing, says the young astronomer, is so much like heresy. It all comes down to thinking differently. Dying for thinking differently.

Ham k’ Win Saik, translated from the Selk’nam tongue, means those who have gone. In funeral laments the phrase took the place of the name of the dead, which could not be spoken. From an old Selk’nam song about the departed: I stand in the footsteps of those who are gone. I believe that I come from those who are gone. Who are here no more. Who have left and gone away.

D realized he was alone. No Golden Fleece would come to his rescue when history repeated itself because of the tolerant and conciliatory attitude he was being forced to adopt. There were no responsible adults, or so it seemed. Probably there never had been.