03/11/2019
I bought us front row tickets to the big bang, a few seconds before the universe was, the cosmos will soon come to life, the whole process is about to unfold in our very eyes. You will witness strange things beyond comprehension.
Dark matter and black holes shall form, Supernovas shall emerge, It's a glorious nonexistent view, isn't it? I know you have questions, but this is not a dream, neither is it a reality, but I promise to write about this as soon as I become human, that's if I remember! It may take forever to recollect but I will fight to remember. In an instant, we shall sleep, and later awake: transferred in bodies as embryos—into oblivion—knowing nothing but to feed.
In these bodies, we shall hunger and cry, live and die.
It shall be different from what are we experiencing now, I may not remember you or the billions of years we have spent together, but I'm glad I know you before I know that I knew you. I do not know when and where I shall be born, but try to find me and I shall do the same, and if it so happens that I exist a millennium—after or before you do—please write about me, and I shall do the same.
I shall have a name though I do not know what it will be, however, call on me and I shall do the same. Before you finally close your eyes, do you see that tiny sphere, the one near the sun? That is earth: the place we are to be kept for a few years. But for now, hold my hand and close your eyes, let us slumber till the time of man arrives.
The poem you just read is the one I promised to write billions of years ago; before entering my body, it took about 20 years to remember, but I have! Now, my love of a lifetime, I don't know if you are born yet, died years ago or will exist a thousand years from today. But I fulfilled my promise to write about you, for today I have remembered what happened before I became human.
If any of this rings a bell, then I am your soulmate.
Poem by William Mwasha
Illustration by Ngosa Dauya