– Newton’s Cradle

As soon as it was spotted, all the earth’s astronomers turned their attention to it. They quickly established that it was heading towards the earth unerringly, and that collision was inevitable. Further studies showed that it was identical in size and composition to the earth. By the time it could be distinguished with the naked eye it was clear that it was in every way – configuration of continents, location of cities, pattern of clouds – exactly like the earth. When it was the size of the moon in the sky it had become the most important thing in the world.

It was very beautiful, earth light. It was a new light, almost as bright as the sun, but without heat, and clear. You could stare full at it without being blinded. When it shone at night, night was banished. But people did not resent it. They walked placidly. Or slept in its healing light. Lunatics became lucid, in a new way. Mad dogs played rapturously with children. As the earth became larger in the sky, there was a great sense of exhilaration. Seeing the earth and feeling it, people knew at last what it was, the earth. They no longer felt orphaned. They no longer missed the god, whose absence had so disturbed them, with the earth in the sky.

But collision was inevitable. The moment had been calculated to the second. Now the earth filled the sky, blocked out the heavens. Now there was only earth, growing ever larger. The woman and man, at first hand in hand, then apart but close, stared up as the moment approached, saw clouds and mountains, fields and sheep, stream and wood. And figures, themselves, standing apart but close, by a stream near a wood.

At the moment of impact each saw herself exactly. Not as in a mirror. Or as others see her. But exactly herself seeing herself. Another, but herself. She said, ‘do you see?’ He said, ‘yes.’ At the moment of impact there was fusion, clarity, insight, truth.

And then a wrenching separation. For the other earth, from rushing towards theirs with such velocity, was now still in space. And their earth was moving away from it at the speed the other had arrived. Day by day they watched themselves recede, become smaller, the darkness of space grow around them, engulfing the world. Each shivered in a new aloneness.