Work Text:
The Three-Body Problem
There are always two objects that orbit each other. The great big star of the galaxy, red-hot like molten magma. Yet, he is a conversation held stiffly. Monticello, mathematically radiant as its sunlike creator. Then, there's the smaller one orbiting, grooming and clipping. Refining that star, little regard for itself—but not itself a sun, a moon softly heated. A binary star system, if that sickly one burned as bright. An ember swallowed by a raging fire.
I, the rogue planet. Slightly misshapen. For a time, we had all aligned. I was briefly captured in many orbits. War heroes, lawyers, many a set of gamblers. I find myself never synchronized, never fully at the right time. Of course, the guardrail of self-preservation. I did not want to risk colliding into anyone.
1800. The same ticket. The grand, sweltering celestial object and me. He looks at me like he isn't quite sure what I am. I am a planet, I say.
He tells me, And what will you be tomorrow?
Orbit after orbit. With this race, we should be bound to the same trajectory. Change is inevitable. And with the finish line crossed, now it is I in that binary system.
That little moon is gone now. No, 'gone' is the wrong word. Retired is the one he used, calm but tired. The quiet fire on the moon snuffed out by endless arguments and rooms full of suspense. Its surface cooled by retreating back home.
A long four years of an orbit together, but never aligned. To replicate the sun and that moon, an impossible task. Yet, I feel myself pulled inward. Gravity is not evenly spread across any object. Pulled inward, slowly spinning more violently by my own push to be more. I felt the swarming, feverlike heat as I spin closer. Closer, I cried.
The great big star took and took, and I gave. More of my orbit, amensalistic in entirety.
But when you're slipping down a hill, you always have the heels of your feet to save you. You punch down on the brakes, pinch a candle's flame with your fingers, catch a glass before it shatters.
I gain enough energy to spin outward again. Yet, I still spin violently, and the star and moon I leave orbit each other; again, haphazardly.
They tell me, I am only what I think I should be.
I say, If the opportunity is there, I will become what I need to be.
The gun in my hand feels so much heavier when I get ready to aim it at my friend, my ally, a dimmed planet, my enemy.
One body must go.