Because there are no walls in the darkness, people speak about the depth of night. You switch the lights off, and everything that’s holding the world together gradually fades away. I suppose it makes sense here to speak about depth. It makes sense to look at this other world and to think about a well, a well so deep it doesn’t seem to have an end.

But there is also something very shallow about the absence of familiarity. You are not inside of something, you merely drift at the surface. And I wonder, what would my life be like if I was living in an alien fish tank?

It is a simple thought. Fish tanks aren’t complicated. I can build one in my head, a box of glass with a bed, a chair, a table, a small garden maybe, and nowhere to hide. It’s both terrifying and strangely peaceful. Most of my worries are gone: the aliens take care of everything. In exchange, I have to be there and forget about it, so they can see what it’s like to be human.

What exactly would they see? They would certainly be disappointed. The appearance of humanity isn’t always the interesting part. To solve this problem, the owner of the place would buy an expensive device that reads human thoughts and projects them directly on a wall of the tank. Everyone would love it.

After that, I would really have nowhere to hide. The idea confuses me. How would I cope with that? How would anyone cope with that? Maybe I would stop thinking, or at least stop eating, or maybe life would just go on, as it always does.

Also, could anyone ever be happy in such an aquarium? I try to think about it for a while, but those are shallow thoughts, built over a well of darkness. They don’t matter, they don’t even count. I turn around. As if anyone could take darkness seriously.