1.06-Cascades of Shimmer

Get the Soundtrack ⁠here⁠: [Transcript]Shimmer Fly. I once was either unlucky or fortunate enough, depending who you ask, to get caught in the Cascade. Thousands of nests take to space, born aloft by biogenic balloons expanding from thermogenesis. This time, the dorsal sacks on a Shimmer caught my port-side stabilizer and I was along for the ride.Once gave a lift to a celestorian off of Vikoor 6. She could talk. So can the Fly. I made my apologies to the Shimmer, Ohulumon, my ship was adjoined to. For their part they enjoyed the company. Apparently Shimmer don’t talk much once the Cascade starts. That celestorian loved to talk about the Shimmer Fly. Whole life devoted to them. Even made friends during her long-term observations from previous Cascades. Says they only happen once every fifty galactic revolutions and can last for years.Ohulumon and I settled in. We killed time talking space, love, life, food, and friends. Ohulumon was young by Shimmer standards. Cascade came earlier in life for them. Described it like a longing, an urge, that one day you look up at the firmament and your body starts changing.The celestorian said as much when I was shuttling her around. Said Shimmer don’t have a stage of maturity. They why, I asked her, do they migrate in the Cascade?I asked Ohulumon that. Where were they all going? A warm place they said. You’re surrounded on all sides by this glow and you can’t feel no pain, no worry, no regrets. Their journey to paradise.As we traveled, Ohulumon started getting smaller. All the Shimmer began shrinking. Not just that, but regressing. Backlit by the suns of many systems, they warped and bent and folded down into primitive things.Why do they migrate in the Cascade? I asked the celestorian. Because they are returning, they told me.Ohulumon started forgetting words. Couldn’t understand ideas. First complex then any at all. Smaller and smaller. Soon they were hanging onto my ship instead of the other way around, an infant on the wing. Before long I was drifting in a cloud of embryos that began bonding, fertilizing each other in the cradle of the cosmos. The new from the old.