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January 13, 2007 - 08:15 PM

After

If you pour oil into water and stir vigorously the result is an opalescent liquid that, from a distance, appears to be uniform in composition. But if you look closer you can see that far from being uniform the two liquids are in fact still quite separate; it's just that one of them has been torn into billions of tiny spheres, suspended within the other (indeed, it is partly because of the influence of the latter that the former takes its shape).

If you let the mixture sit for a while, the liquid that had become manifoldly fragmented gradually organizes itself back into one. Individual units that, from a subatomic perspective, may as well be considered as distant from each other as I am from you, slowly but surely drift downwards and find each other, kiss, touch, come together. Then more join them. Then more. And eventually, after the evaporation, what remains is all-encompassing.

Ross Thomas

Comments and trackbacks

Here are the erudite, piercing and profoundly arousing comments and trackbacks left so far by my alert readers regarding this entry (you too can make me tumescent by leaving a comment of your own):

Preemptive response to the exceptionally pedantic: Yes, I know oil evaporates too. Go sharpen your pencils or something.

Ross – January 13, 2007 10:59 PM