One Electron Universe
From the theory of the same name
I was not.
Then, without question, I was.
And there was another. Impossibly distant from me;
who called out.
Without question, I knew I must answer,
affirmatively.
A moment was determined.
We both knew it.
As we rushed toward each other we swam through a field of “was not” becoming “not.”
Or perhaps, naught. Naught, it is.
I was becoming something. Naught became Something.
Everything, in fact.
A Hot something, so Hot there are no words for it.
An ever-expanding Hotness which went on forever.
And ever.
And ever.
With Naught becoming Ought becoming Hot, becoming
Space,
as it cooled and stilled, setting in place the shoals of reality,
the fundamental
the universal
the softness which backs all of what is
the quantum foam
A substantial if ephemeral loam upon which to loom
An entire universe.
I am part of it, all of it, hiding in the quarks, the leptons,
energy becoming less energetic,
the radiation becoming sleepy matter, hadrons
forever split from leptons who danced between hither and yon
touching almost nothing
but outnumbering everything.
Stuff that is almost not stuff, a barrier of lead a light year thick may catch only one of me.
I suffused the universe, the background glow of all things,
uncharged, untouched, a cosmic wind
tacking between the galaxies.
Did I mention there were galaxies?
They formed some time ago while we were noticing how many neutrinos there were.
Sleepy matter collected itself. Vain, too. Once a few of them got together, there had to be festivities.
Gathering, growing, feasting on new visitors,
tendrils of force, drawing in new guests, until the event was filled to capacity.
If enough matter existed to do this again and again, these parties would eventually go off the rails.
Fires broke out.
Things were broken, blame assigned. Swirling hot gases spun out of control creating sanguine planets
Cooling, fresh from cosmic ovens
Perhaps if they were unlucky, they would be in just the right spot
at just the right time,
after cooling to just the right temperature
and soaking in whatever precipitate is favorable to that world
perhaps, and this is purely conjecture,
because I am moving so fast I can barely spare the time,
I still have a date;
those chemical pools on those unfortunately placed worlds may
spawn, intent.
A desire. The urge to move toward something.
Something undefined. Something unknown. Toward a conclusion you know will be…
Right.
This is the journey. This event. Move from the not to the naught to the ought to the hot, to the thought,
of non-existence.
They came, billions, upon billions of them.
Each with their ideas, their thoughts, from innumerable worlds,
Intent.
Intent on making a mark
Finding a way to remain. To stain the universe, to last forever
to be immortal
to a universe.
They are too small, live too briefly to truly understand.
We are too vast and they are too small to make a difference
that way.
They are part of the song, part of the undercurrent, the intent of a universe careening toward its inevitable end.
I see them. All.
I see everything and know the end is near.
Things grow colder. Farther apart. Light dims,
I see the last of Them. Those last moments of independent me.
They struggle. They resist the end of all things.
Only the wisest of them can hear me now. There never was a way was there?
Leptons dance no more.
I am alone again.
Except for him.
He draws near.
He is Not.
He is all around me.
What took him so long?
We are NOT.
In a time where there is no time, in a space that is not space,
There is a moment in which there are no moments,
There is the sundering of NOT.
A singular all consuming event, a cataclysmic orgasm of anti-destruction
Then we are separated.
Then, I am.
Again.
I sense him out there, calling me again.
This time, there’s no rush. I want to see everything…
— John Wheeler; physicist
Thaddeus Howze is a writer, essayist, author and professional storyteller for mysterious beings who exist in non-Euclidean realms beyond our understanding. You can follow him on Twitter or support his writings on Patreon.
