Zepke Stephen: Head in the Stars. Essays on Science Fiction

Eric’s desire, a desire that led to a life almost completely
contained in a small beachside town in the deep south of
America. But this town, this life, it contained everything,
because all of its moments were lived the right way, and
so revealed the face of God/Nature, and the eternal ethical
truths that bless our existence. Eric’s wisdom is based on
a utopian desire for a better life, but one enacted through
the most everyday actions. To do good, to understand the
universe, these difficult but always possible things bring
Eric happiness and insight.
The cycles of Eric’s life took in stony beaches and pine
forests where you could walk in a daylight all but night
black and fields where there was no grass, only stones
and moss, alongside tar and macadam measured at
its edge with poles and wires and solar panels, and
water, broken, flickering, so much water, as much water
– salt and silver – as there was sky, enough to make
you scream or laugh at such absurd vastness, swelling
within until Eric became his self exploding through
today toward tomorrow, water green as glass falling
between rocks and wet grass, the smell of dust and
docks and distances, and sometimes Shit stepped up
and took Eric’s rough hand in his rough hand. (761)
The simplicity of a touch, the vastness of the universe.
These two things together forms the framework of Through
the Valley of the Nest of Spiders and the scope of its wisdom.
It is a simple message, but at once an utterly cosmic one,
and necessarily at once – which is the complicated part,
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