From atop Jeddah Tower the subtle curve of the world appears visibly heightened, and the border, where blue gaseous sky touches planar human existence, becomes more arc than line.
—until the winds blow,
and the rushing sands obscure both equally from view.
It was there, with eyes begoggled, that Altenaur first imagined constructing The Split:
A city-sized crowbar—
which he would drive into the horizon!
Cleave,
before prying apart, existence.
And he did—The Split’s straight claw penetrating—the invisible seam—further and—”Forward!” Altenaur cried—until the moment came to apply the downward force.
Theory into practice:
“Now!”
The Split breaking sky apart from land;
and into the consequential breach (into “…what?”) Altenaur and his team advanced. Pioneers. Pilgrims.
The Split, cracking; broke.
Shattered; the horizon: line-again, and the breach no more.
Much was written.
Said.
Millenia passed. Technology advanced. Populations grew, and spread among the stars. The definitive account of Altenaur’s life was Hubris & Metaphysics: From Split Atom to Split Reality by Barnam Brown.
He had dared. Endeavored. Died.
Fragments of The Split remained encased in glass in the Museum of Natural History, where children gazed boredly upon it, unaware that once humanity had feared its own extinction: its own boundedness… had sought a beyond…
One day, Altenaur
returned. Bedraggled, bearded and alone, he crawled through the horizon and fell to Earth.
A great commotion ensued.
He was aged. Fragile. “Before I die,” he said, “I must tell the world.”
The communication was beamed across the universe.
“When I am finished,” Altenaur began, “you shall know yourselves to be a hideous problem.” He then described how, crawling into the breach he and his team found themselves in a vast darkness while feeling a near-infinite smallness. “Over time, our eyes adjusted. We travelled. We saw a plane above and were ourselves upon a fleshy ground, and upon ascending to the top of the plane, we discovered it to be keratinous. Listen—” His voice rose. “—so you may know: we live within the thumb of God!” Standing upon His thumbnail, they saw and knew His substance and His form. “We are indeed made in His image.” Up the thumbnail, to the top of the finger they trekked. Across one divine knuckle, a second, and the third. “Some of us perished, into the abyss,” but Altenaur persevered. “This is what I learned:
“God sits in a room.
“Alone.
“Tied to a chair, wailing like a dying child.
“He is being endlessly tortured.
“A voice—evil—interrogates him, asking over and over about the secret of existence. ‘You are the Creator. You must know!’”
“God says nothing.
“So He is injected: with a dark virus. Under His skin. Into His eyes. Under His fingernails. The virus multiplies. Each multiplication, an amplification of His pain.
“The virus builds cities, advances, progresses—but, ask yourselves, toward what?
“Toward what do you progress?”
God wails.
“Consciousness and craving.
“Like ants upon a living carcass of creation.
“Feasting on goodness.
“Shall you continue,” Altenaur asks us, “or shall you cease?”