Spider
(Why We See Webs of Light When We Squint)
Children
A long time ago, all the worlds were very far apart. No one who lived in any world knew about anyone else who lived in any of the other worlds. Some people had ideas that there might be other people in other worlds, but everyone just laughed at them.
Spider thought a lot about the other worlds.
People told her, "Spider, there are no other worlds. There is just ours. Stop thinking about things that aren't real, or you'll go mad."
But Spider couldn't stop thinking about other worlds. While most people dreamt about trees, or milk, or grass, or nothing at all, Spider dreamt about flying above the ground, far, far up into the sky, where the little lights lived.
In her dreams, the lights were more than just the reflection in the sky of the moon on the water—in her dreams, the lights were the other worlds. She longed to touch them, to see what their ground was like, to talk with the people that lived there, but always just as she was approaching one, she woke up to her own nest on her own world.
Spider grew old on the outside, but in her dreams, she was always and ever just Spider, and Time could not reach her there.
Eventually, she went to sleep for the last time, and when she woke up, she found that she could touch all the other worlds, and learn what their ground was like, and talk with the people, and build new nests for herself in all of them.
At last.
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