FIELDS

The technician seats me in front of a luminous hollow, as if a wide, wide bowl had been turned on its side, its open mouth spilling soft, white light. From this perspective, it’s as if my entire world is the luminous field—swaths of fresh snow, or sun-bleached prairie, or silver sand. In the field, a faint, black cross is joined by tiny, glowing apparitions. Points (each no bigger than a lentil, with a golden center and soft edges) flicker in and out, weave through my field, ask me to chase them. I log each one with a frantic press of my thumb. Thumb to controller, controller to computer, computer to technician. Me, in the field. The computer has generated data from my time in the field: what I caught and what I missed, a ratio of light to shadow. I return to the field every few months to trace its contours, to check that I’m not losing ground.