Game Show

I watched a trickle of fluid snake its way across a barren landscape, meeting up with other trickles, becoming tributaries for larger streams and rivers. The rivers turned into massive torrents of rushing fluid, and then into wide serene seas, back into tiny trickles on and on, repeating forever in all directions. No borders, no boundaries, no categories or distinctions. The scale staggered me.

I noticed I could zoom in and out. I zoomed way in and became aware that the fluid was composed of human forms. Millions, billions of human bodies, being transported across vast expanses of space. I zoomed in further and I could see the humans’ faces. They looked at peace, almost bored, even as they violently crashed through raging eddies of other bodies.

I watched this play out for hours and then days. I got interested in it, it became my whole life, I got bored with it, I tried to make it change. None of that mattered to it.

After a long time, I realized what I was watching was a game show. Counters ticked and bells dinged. I had witnessed the march of human souls and realized the march itself was a deeply profound, deeply vital gag.