[Recorded on 13/523/01, at 15:11:13 Coordinated Europa Time]
[Entry begins]
There's this thing I've been thinking about recently, from when I was on Earth. I was taking a physics and relativity course back in college, one of the required ones or something. I forget exactly which one, but the topic had shifted to time.
The professor started talking about the concept of space-time, something I was only vaguely familiar with back then. Continuing the lecture, she explained the theory of time as a fourth dimension and how it helped her grieve her father's passing.
She prompted the class to imagine a circle living in an infinitely flat, two-dimensional universe. She then told us to imagine a cube above the flat universe, passing through to the underside. As the cube intersects with the flat universe, the flat circle would observe a square appearing and then disappearing upon the cube's exit. To the two-dimensional circle, the square is gone. But to us, three-dimensional beings, the cube is still here. As squares are 2-D cross-sections of 3-D cubes, we 3-D humans could be cross-sections of some extraordinary 4-D being. If this is true, everything that has happened, everything that is happening, and everything that will occur exists as one in space-time.
This came to mind when you came with me to repair the eastern satellite today.
I know the execs at Nile are trying to prioritize safety, but respectfully, they can fuck off. I came to Europa to be an astronaut, not an engineer. I'd rather die in space than live like I did on Earth again. I knew you wanted to see Jupiter rise today, and I was just as upset as you were that the execs were being a gaggle of bureaucrats again. I didn’t mean to startle you after I swerved off the main road and hydroplaned down the steep drop. It was admittedly impulsive and unplanned. I’m still getting used to that sort of thing, and you make it look so easy. Either way--I don’t regret a thing. I’ll never forget how hard we laughed once we miraculously landed unharmed at the canyon's base.
I wanted to watch the God of Gods rise up close, and I knew you did. too. Space-time is challenging to understand when the universe feels unpredictable, but moments like those are different. This moment had always existed, and I had finally reached the point in my little life where I had the joy of experiencing it.
The moment I say "I love you" is somewhere out there in space-time. I'll keep writing about you in my log until that moment experiences me. I’ll remember how you said, “I wish this moment could last forever” for as long as I live, and I believe in how I responded from the bottom of my heart.
"It has, it is, and it will." [Entry ends]
Milo Ferguson's critical essay "Spikes, Seas, and the Sublime" won first prize in the Tenth Annual Humanities & Sciences Undergraduate Writing Contest. They are an Animation major who graduated this spring and is currently based in the NYC metro area. They're still getting used to this artistic expression thing, but they think it's very fun and want to do it forever.