I watched the collapse of a star. They turned into a little black ball which they used to draw energy from. When asked, ‘Why this star?’ they responded with;
‘No one was using it.’
It staggered me then and it staggers me now. No one was using it. Is that the way we calculate value? What lives and dies? By its use to us?
They even picked a star that wouldn’t affect navigational charts once they collapsed it. One no one could see.
I think of it, lonely and burning in the void, and knowing it could feel nothing, and still feeling the injustice of it existing for so long without us and then no longer existing as soon as we arrived.
Paddy Dobson
11th December 2022