Writing Contest Winner: Austin Moon

Congratulations to Austin Moon on winning second place in our Trojan Times Writing Contest! Please read their winning submission below.

“Emergence”

By: Austin Moon

To think that this feeling is but a constellation of chemicals,

each one a collection of atoms,

each atom a clustering of barely perceptible particles,

each particle the result of an explosion long forgotten,

whose echo resonates in the vibrations in my skull,

sparking millions of invisible fireworks every time I see you.

To think that this feeling is but the result of the branching, winding fractal

that we call evolution,

that this is Nature’s cruel way of fooling her subjects

into continuing her unrelenting force into infinity.

If only she knew what we both know.

Can you hear it?

The sound of a hundred trillion beings singing through time

commanding us, like a siren’s call, to be one.

To think that this feeling could get us killed.

In a different time or place,

perhaps we already would be.

To think that this feeling is the sum

of ages upon ages of cosmic and biological interactions,

the culmination of all those before us,

human and non-human,

living and non-living…

And yet this is so much more.

Hephaestion & Alexander could feel it.

Hadrion & Antinous could feel it.

I can feel it.

Can you?

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