He explained that an Aleph is one of the points in space that contains all other points
Photo by Gerardo Meléndez
As weeks went by, I learned to appreciate the Swedish winter. The snow and the cold went from being exciting and new, to customary items of my day-to-day life, and then evolved again into two mysterious friends.
The reasons why I had decided to exile myself into a far away country had turned back to me after a few months of aperiodic ostracism. Had I resolved my questions? Had I found a solution for everything I left behind at the place that I used to call ‘home’? The answer was no, of course. Yet these matters didn’t seem as harsh as I lay down on the cold snow, away from the people, the noise, and the light, somewhat closer to death than to all those things.
You see, my sleeping patterns changed widely after I moved to the dark North. My body lost all sense of a normal day cycle, and in that particular week I was unable to wake up before 15:00, not even a couple of hours before the sun went down again. Thus, my daily walks in the woods and around the frozen lake quickly transformed into nightly strides through passages that showed me different faces every time.
For some reason this new setting made me feel adventurous. At all times I would stay out of the paths and enter unexplored areas of the woods. When I found that a boulder, a fallen tree, or the frozen lake obstructed my way, I climbed, dug, and risked falling into the icy water without much hesitation. Little by little I uncovered the secrets of that lonely place, and it became a part of me.
This also meant that I frequently got lost. Although this was usually not a problem, since I could just look for the lights around the roads, or try to walk towards the water to get some sense of orientation, this one time my adventure had taken too long. At midnight all artificial illumination ceased, and I was left in complete darkness, wondering around my forest, thinking about the meaning of life, and all the other questions that haunted my thoughts.
Many hours had gone by since I had started roaming around, at some point my legs betrayed me, and I decided to sit down. I closed my eyes, and listened to the music of the nature, took in the cold air, which didn’t feel cold anymore, and felt my body going numb. By the time I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying on the snow, completely still, unable and reluctant to move a single muscle.
The cloudy night had acquired strange tonality. The snow seemed to be reflected on it, and gave me the illusion of being trapped inside an infinite room full of mirrors. Not a patch of the sky was discernible; it was all snow around me, on top of me, and under me. I felt as if I were completely absent. The numbness of my limbs, the cold inside my chest, and the pain within my heart all disappeared. And then it happened.
A single star became visible above. One small dot, breaking through the impossible mirror of snow; countless particles of hydrogen burning millions of years ago, their story travelling at the speed of light, echoing through the corners of the Universe, until it found me. For an instant I could understand everything; it all became as clear as the most crystalline water, and I could see all at once. “I felt infinite wonder, infinite pity”, I had found an Aleph.
