I'm sitting in the middle of the sky. That's where I am right now - the sky. In an object way too large to be floating in the air. Designed by a tiny organic mass in ape shape, smart enough to mimic the behavior of other tiny organic masses. An adorable exaggeration of a bird. Built by manipulating the crust of the earth until the material is unrecognizably smooth, shiny, and hard. A quality of matter the earth would never know if it weren't for the utter discontentment and driving jealousy of a network of electricity, chemicals, and cells.
And so I'm sitting in the middle of the sky. Seeing something I was never meant to see. Seeing the surface of an alien planet, the most beautiful alien world in the known universe. The bugs that collectively made this experience possible for me are now too small to see. All I can see is the subtle evidence of their intelligence, the gentle shapes that meet their needs.
Mostly, though, the surface of the planet is untouched. Completely void of intention. Our purposes are almost not even a presence here. From this distance I can't say why any of them do what they do. And they're barely doing anything at all.
Except I do see that scattered, here and there, the gentle manipulations compound into works of art. Giant drawings on the largest possible drawing surface. Painters that don't know they're painting. Studies in composition that can only be comprehended if you're looking down on the clouds, not looking up at them.
I'm inside of a cloud. This shouldn't be real.
