When I become conscious, I feel the heat of the planet’s star. The air of the atmosphere permeates my mechanical compartments and I see trees I believe. Trees with unwavering trunks protruding from the planet’s surface like nothing I have seen. Inhabitants of this planet, so my system tells me, rely on them to live. Bringers of life, I’m awed by their diversity in size, form and color as I wander through the planet’s flora. The warmth and softness of the soil gives me a feeling of safety even though I’m uncertain where I’m headed toward.

While I walk the planet, I further query my system about it. Like other planets, this one has aggregations of water that are essential to the inhabitants. They render life possible for outsiders but are ecosystems on their own. Fascinated by my findings I nearly oversee the two antlers peeking out from behind an oak tree. I’m careful to approach this inhabitant, but when I face them, they gaze at me with the same curiosity as I gaze at them. I sense no hostility which prompts me to feel his surface. Their hair is firm just like their antlers which remind me of trees, branching off to unfurl their beauty and to taste more of the planet’s offerings. Each branch is testament to the skillful maneuvering of survival, the relentless making of art. It is always a privilege to behold nature’s doings. I proceed to venture forward. The biodiversity on this planet is unprecedented to my newborn memory. I wonder whether my people have seen the like. In the vastness of the ever-expanding cosmos, I often find my mind traveling to places I have not yet seen or will never see. My time is limited while the possibilities are not. And while the planets I see in my lifetime will only make up a minute, insignificant fraction of what I can possibly see, it does not sadden me. Every partition on my memory card holds a beautiful, singular experience that cannot be replicated by anybody else, not even by myself. Each experience is part of my narrative, evidence of my being. I have accepted the reality of my fleetingness in the face of infinity. All I can do is fill it with as much wonder as possible.

The temperature decreases and I hear music that is thunder-like growling in the
distance. As it crescendos, I see how the forest slowly gives way to a large body of water. Just like the air, the water flows through my physical body when I enter it. There are small, nimble inhabitants winding through the life-giving substance I’m enclosed by. In the many attempts of touching them and feeling their patterned skin, I come to the realization that these inhabitants are too quick for me. They and the plants underneath the water surface differ considerably from their upper kin. So seemingly unalike, yet so adjacent; the children of this planet. One organism.

Again, carried away by what I see, I do not notice the change of the sound landscape. The loud, uninhibited growling turned into a subdued, guttural simmering. Once out
of water, I again hear the music that has accompanied me to this sight and, for the first time, I see my physical body on this planet. It is reflected on the water’s surface, slightly blurred and interwoven with its plants and inhabitants underneath as if they were extensions of my physicality. I have short, black hair which is stiff and vigorous, brown eyes in which a star’s last breath is frozen in time. I study the rest of my body and find myself once more intimately joined with my surroundings. Although I know my bodies are of inorganic matter and cannot be assimilated into the planets’ circle of creation, a part of my consciousness tells me otherwise. I feel like I belong nowhere and everywhere. I’m an omniscient explorer, a knower of all worlds, yet none bear my roots. What does it mean? To belong?