Followup Pt. II

It is the middle of the night, and GRB-080319B is gone. There are no lights, but for the ornaments of our particular galaxy, an assortment and curry of leftover peices. In the grand scheme of things, it has just left us, and we are left to drive home from the airport alone. And yet, we will never be so close again as we are in this moment, as it will be another light year away by the time we’ve dragged ourselves to and from our summer sheets. It is over Calcutta when we are in the supermarket, It is rounding the rings of Neptune when we are sweating on the bus. I don’t recognize anybody here. GRB-080319B is blasting forth, cutting through the nothingness like music from another room.

GRB-080319B appeared in the constellation Boötes, known as “bear watcher” for its proximity to both Ursa Major and Minor. Depictions of its figure vary from a sickle-handed hunter to a seated man, clutching a pipe. More pressing, however, is the void that occupies the constellation Boötes, one of the largest in the universe devoid of galaxies. What must it mean to travel hundreds of millions of light years without a single roadside attraction? GRB-080319B knows a darkness like a car inside a snowed-in tunnel. Granted, 7 billion years will bestow patience. There is a hum to such quiet, an abandoned interstate, lonely in the shadow of a brand new freeway in the distance. 250,000 light years of darkness. I heard an ambulance today and almost fell in love.


I heard a bucket drop from the roof of my building and thought of GRB-080319B. The satellite Swift recorded its first sighting at 2:12 in the morning, when our world was primarily indoors. Scientists measure the size of such gamma rays in terms of their redshift, a method of determining galactic distance through an object’s observable brightness. GRB-080319B is said to have been 250 million times more luminous than any previously recorded explosions to date and to have been visible from Earth for roughly 40 seconds, yet no one has reported witnessing it. A bucket fell from my roof at around 3:03 this morning, and I am currently believed to be the sole recipient of its clamoring.

GRB-080319B is gone, like a circus from a rural town. Everyone is changed, having seen themselves reflected in it, but living in their living rooms the same. These occasions, these spans of sometimes only 40 seconds are where we do our living, our windows open briefly and shut for such events. We stick our heads out like dogs in the wind, and the ride is over, we are at the vet. We are waiting for our families while they are on vacation. They say we know no sense of time, that waiting isn’t waiting if we do not call it that. We know it is. Waiting is waiting for dogs and trains and people, for bears and bikes and wheels waiting to turn, ready for pavement, pavement ready for friction, friction ready for fall. Waiting is 7 billion years through the darkness, just to flicker off without so much as a how do you do.