Vision’s End

Today I started into a little story called Childhood’s End. In it, I think, I have traced the strange germination of an aspect of art which I have been trying to comprehend, revelation leading to horror. I’m sure the idea itself is not original to Arthur C. Clarke, but the distinct style of it, one I have seen in other forms, may have had its genesis here.

Since I am still in a way comprehending this, I’ll try to put down some aspects I have already sketched, not as definitive, but to try to draw a perimeter around something I yet cannot fully name. Something, a science or magic, is discovered by mankind, but like the magician’s bargain, the full price of this discovery is not at first appreciated. Revelation comes from one of two directions, the future or past. If from the past, man himself will somehow owe his existence to an awful thing, and if from the future, man will realize an inevitability where he himself becomes the thing he dreads. Either way, this power will be associated with the revelation, the power either driving toward the hateful future or derived from the dreadful past. (Perhaps both may be true at once.)

This all seems some version of making a deal with the devil, the one who is described as a father (the past), with the consequences of such compact being damnation (the future). The thing that seems novel in this instance is the unwitting nature inherent in the point of view. It is discovered too late.

One more thing, blindness is an image connected to this style, as well as an alien opposite, creatures of many eyes. They both seem responses to the revelation, for there are those which shy away from the truth, and those who pervert themselves—distorting their vision—so as to call this evil good.

Then God said let there be light, and so we see.

(My own little attempts at this idea: The Eyes of God)