And out of this worldwide festival of death, this ugly rutting fever that inflames the rainy evening sky all around—will love someday rise up out of this, too?

—Thomas Mann

The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

—Lao Tzu

The supernova levels the playing field. Nothing is killed. It is death. Supernova is an absolute that operates above us, as death itself does, without concern for our wont of control. It is a function of stellar mass, which becomes, all at once—critical. The supernova is not simply an example of death, but a system, an arena organized around it—separate and self-contained. Considered alongside famine, war, and disease, Supernova is endemic, a function of its nature. Without pathos, it releases energy and achieves super-luminosity, unmasking darkness. 

1990 saw my family relocate to what my mom and dad called "the country": 10 minutes outside of our small coastal town, under a broader and clearer expanse of sky. In the yard outside our rough new home I began spotting named stars and their constellations season by season. I'd stay up late on the rare, clear weekend nights, slip on my dad's Romeos and a hooded sweatshirt and stand in the shadow cast by our garage to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. The mercury vapor security lamp that towered above our neighbor's trailer house had become my prime foil. It dispersed an eerie silver-green pall over the property. Months earlier, my father had insisted that I learn to fire a .22. I grudgingly accepted, puncturing several holes in a large plastic lid at close range. I derived a mischievous thrill in conspiring to turn the barrel of the rifle on that bulb and, with a single whip-crack, plunge my corner of the world back into darkness.