A Moving Moment

For the first time, as far as I know, I have managed to capture, using a powerful scanning electron microscope, the actual birth, or at least hatching, of a small but perfectly formed Zombie homunculus. The strands you see are of fibres from beneath the bed. The magnification is 643 times.


Seated one day at the iMac, feeling weary and ill at ease, I plugged it into the microscope, and fingered the ivory keys. I don't know what I was doing, or if it came from beyond me, but I pressed one combination and witnessed the birth of a Zombie - I witnessed the birth of a Zombie!

It flooded the crimson twilight, like the close of an angel's palm and it lay on my fevered spirit with a touch of Zombie calm. It quieted pain and sorrow like petals on a knife, seeming a harmonious echo of our discordant life. It link'd all perplexed meanings into one perfect piece, like a drink in Berlin's Florian, or a bouillabaisse in Nice.

I have sought - but I seek it vainly - that moment so divine that came from the heart of the microscope and entered into mine. It may be that death's bright tunnel will pour that sight upon me; it may be only in Vierzon, or somewhere far beyond me; it may come in a boiling vision of someone who lost or won me, that I reach once more for the microscope and witness the birth of a Zombie... I witnessed the birth of a Zombie!

(After "Seated One Day at the Organ" - Adelaide Anne Proctor)

And, if you have been, thanks for looking.