Drifting through the cool, vast plane, another average moment passed through time the same as all those that had come before it. The perpetually unchanging essence of my environment was calm, as always. I watched as I saw a small light flicker in the distance, a rare sight, and one to behold. It drifted through my familiar plane the same way the few others I had encountered before it had, and just like its prior counterparts it soon faded away. This was all I had ever known, and while unaware of it at the time, I was content with this simple, yet impactful fact of my life. My naivety to possibility was serene, like the place in which I believed I resided. It is a feeling I will never forget, as it was the only one I had ever known.
But now I am acquainted different feeling. One left over from another, more significant sensation. The production of this sensation is still a mystery to me. Though I understand the specific element that created it, it is what created that element that remains unknown to my seemingly simple, unknowledgeable mind. It began as a moment like every other I had known. Dark, quiet, and calm. But in an instant, that comfortable, unremarkable, miniscule space in time transformed into a foreign and extraordinary one. The lights had not appeared in the distance like those that had previously entered my existence. They did not drift, nor appear in a familiar hue. Instead they appeared suddenly, and somehow sat motionless in the plane that I had previously perceived to be pure emptiness.
But in this moment that perception faded more quickly than the lights had materialized. Nothing became everything, invisible became visible, shattering my reality and my previously held perceptions of it. I closed my eyes to try to escape the revelation but the light pierced through my skin with the same ease it pierced through the darkness. I could see everything, from strange creatures and unfamiliar surfaces to my own unfamiliar fins, all of which I had been oblivious to until that unforgettable instant. I don’t know how but I knew the lights were looking at me, studying my form and becoming more familiar with it than I will ever even be able to fathom. I could not, and still cannot, believe the substance of the reality in which I exist. This involuntary epiphany was as enlightening as it was frightening. The feelings produced by this small piece of my life cannot be described, and the only thing in my power is the ability to describe what produced them, the lights. It was odd, but their presence felt unending and brief at the same time, and as quickly and suddenly as they had appeared they ceased to exist. They did not fade away, they simply vanished. I did not know what to do with my newfound knowledge, for I’d had no way to conceptualize anything like it throughout the entirety of my life.
I still do not know how to continue my existence, so I continue the way I previously did, but with new feelings and a new perspective. For instance I now question everything, while in the past I had not even been aware of the concept of a question. But of all the questions I ask, the biggest and most important one I hold is will I see the lights again? Of course I have no way of knowing, and I have continued to wander through this unempty plane waiting to see if they will provide me with an answer, forced to let my curiosity continue to sustain me. So far I have not seen them since their first momentous appearance, nor have I seen any other lights, not even the ones I had known previous to my encounter with the new ones. Another question I have is was my tiny glimpse of my true existence worth it, even if I never encounter any light ever again? I don’t know. But now I know what it means to know, and what it means not to know. The unknown is the motivation behind all of my questions, and I imagine that it is just as vast and unending as my quandaries. And though it is dark, and the darkness may remain until there is nothing left to perceive it, my reality will be forever illuminated by that brief, unending moment in my existence.