The Legacy of Tarsus

I live on a toroidal planet.

You see, my world is in the shape of a torus. You would call it a giant doughnut. We call it Tarsus.

I live in the middle class area, right around the 2 degree mark. I can’t afford anything flatter. Gravity doesn’t pull straight down; it pulls toward the center of the world, toward the Void. That means that the ground is slanted everywhere other than exactly around the outside where the richest people live, centered on a giant road that circles the planet.

My friend Jenny lives out in the 5 degree zone—not because she is poor, but because her passion is exploring. She’s unsettled by flat ground; she would rather be constantly hanging on for her life. The risk thrills her.

Jenny likes to take me on rides in her helicopter. These are times when we can detach from the world and exist on our own plane—one that’s flat. She doesn’t mind being flat (her house is perfectly level, being built on stilts); it’s just a flat horizon she can’t stand. We’ve seen plenty of amazing horizons on our journeys. Out there, beyond civilization, the strangest creatures have evolved. And there’s just nothing like a slanted sunset.

One day, we packed our bags and set off on our longest trip yet. We flew farther than we’d ever gone before—past the 90 degree mark where the rivers become waterfalls, and all the way to the forever dark inside of the ring, where the planet was just a granite ceiling above us. We found a cave and had a picnic there, sitting on the edge with the stars below us, obstructed by a ring of stone that began at our heads and extended far beneath us.

We stared at the Void, the center of our world. We could feel its tug of gravity, but it seemed like there was something more. It was a call filled with so much longing and so much hope. It came so suddenly, yet it was so familiar.

“Can you feel it?” Jenny asked me, the stars twinkling in her eyes.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “It’s very strong, but I think somehow I’ve always felt it.”

“Now you finally see,” she said, her face aglow.

We clasped hands and together we jumped into the unknown.

We spun in the darkness—completely weightless as our eyes were fixed on the immobile stars. As time slowly trickled by, the atmosphere grew thicker, slowing our descent. Eventually our feet touched strange but solid ground.

We had arrived at the island within the Void. This was where all the detritus from the mother planet accumulated, creating a world within itself. Everything we stood on was once a part of Tarsus before it was lost and forgotten. Before it found a new purpose.

I smiled at Jenny as our new life began.