Spectrum Plectrum

Author : Jean-Paul L. Garnier

The shuttle clanked back and forth in its many dimensional dance. The strands all lay separated by their individual frequencies, ready for use at any given moment, and waiting for their chance to join the great tapestry that was unfolding. If only man had been given eyes to see the entire electromagnetic spectrum then maybe the loom would have been noticed, but we missed it altogether. We did see the weaver, but the size, shape, and the consistency all eluded us. With so much phase cancellation and dark matter, how could we have noticed that the great weaver, the player of the music, was in fact space itself.

The loom was invisible, but small parts of its expression were not. Sometimes when two or more colors would clash we might detect, as though from far away, an increase in perceived amplitudes, we dubbed these moments: reality. Space always looked like it was expanding, and its colors would shift because of this, however the weaver never told us, nor had any reason to tell us, that it just happened to be the colors chosen for this particular display of threads, in this section of the tapestry.

When weaving, sometimes threads jam the loom and it is necessary to detangle and retie them. The weaver took great pleasure in reaching out and strumming the threads strewn out on the loom: the cosmic background radiation. Such long threads let loose subtle bass notes that sent harmonics spreading out through most of the spectrum, making the fabric sway with an ordered mathematical music.

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We searched for the mysterious gravity wave. They remained hidden for so long that we eventually set up a laser system in space to detect such low notes. The focused light that we sent out was generally unavailable in the cosmos, until we found a way. Each color we focused and utilized, each color just one note that sat waiting for use, waiting for the weaver.

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Two threads caught and tangled, it did not bother the weaver and was a common occurrence. A gentle touch spread across the threads, rang out with the miracle of music, but something was missing, certain frequencies that should have been there were not. It was only a small few, but the music was disturbed, as though notes had been muted from a symphony.

The weaver bent inward for a closer listen to the loom. Yes, something was missing, a single frequency of red here, a single frequency of green there. Never before had there been interference in the tapestry, never a challenge to the music of the weaver.

Squinting so as to limit the frequency intake of the spectrum, the weaver looked on, closer than usual, zooming in on the details of the work. It was impossible, it was too soon, the tapestry was nowhere near finished.

Although the weaver had been working for countless eons, the grand design had yet to unfold, details had yet to be worked in. Yet here, in this insignificant almost unnoticeable and minuscule section of the fabric, a pattern had formed.

The weaver had put great care into the larger order of the work, but had decided to save the details for last, but here at the intersection of two threads, somehow a pattern had arranged itself, undirected by the loom, or the weaver.