The Gone World

by Tom Sweterlitsch

People talk about what infinity is, and they think of things that are never-ending, but infinity cuts the other way, too. Infinity can be a negation.

I believe God exists. I had an experience, I had that vision, and in the vision I saw God. God is a pestilent light ringed with black stars. I’m still a man of faith because I believe, but when I think of God, I think of something like a parasite.”

The totality of human endeavor is nothing when set against the stars.

All of life was in a gyre, channeled to the same waste.

God is a parasite that lives in your blood, Shannon. I saw all those crucifixions, God’s doing. Those people will never die, they’ll suffer forever. Eternal life through God? Worse than death.”

Everyone’s critical flaw is that we believe in our own existence, until we’re shown otherwise. Everything we see and feel tells us we’re alive, that what surrounds us is real, but it’s all a damn mistake, all an illusion we can’t see through.

Durr we are all just shadows that come through the woods, shadows that cross the river. It’s like this, that old poem I used to recite to my Marian when she was a child and I rocked her to sleep in my lap: ’Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed, As if it could not be, And some folk thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed, Of sailing that beautiful sea.

I look out at their backyard, at the snowfall so smooth on the lawn, so smooth on the pines, so perfect, undisturbed, except for a circle of footsteps. A perfect circle of footsteps, but I can’t see footsteps leading to or from it, like someone dropped from the air, walked in a circle, and disappeared. My mother believes in omens, but never in good ones.