Another Side, Part II

I will say this and this alone regarding my communications to you, my stranger friend: because I have visited your world, I will make the effort to meet you on your terms. I cannot tarry, however, to wrangle with the way that my world defies description by your words. I will simply do the best I can.

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Our kind are never truly young, though we are, for a time, ill-formed.

As best I can remember, I spent my ill-formed days very close to that soupy swamp. This was not so uncommon. Many congregated there to slip amongst the fragmented pictures and sounds. Some preferred the tactile bits, while others searched for the rarest of morsels, a taste.

By and large we did not bother each other. There, we were protected. We had no particular benefactor. We benefitted from the unmalleability of the swamp, however, because even the most senseless and vicious among us could not swallow up and digest the swamp. Only to the rare few did the swamp become a hobgoblin or nemesis; most, upon discovering its dumb defiance, promptly ignored it forevermore.

I credit two things to my time spent in that place: first, that I was able, once better-formed, to pass close to my kindred without feeling the tug of their realized impulses and passions. Second, that the form I eventually took is something vaguely comprehensible to your kind.

When finally better-formed, I departed from the swamp and slowly stretched myself outward. I sensed a different turmoil as I ventured out; the fractured parts of the swamp had cast their spell upon me, but never pushed or pulled or threatened to suck me in. They were, and are, truly maddening in their utter disregard of our presence. We know that they are not thinking, knowing things, but nonetheless we struggle with the notion that such rich and varied images can humble us with their ungreedy disaffectation.