My God!
A man makes contact with a casual observer
“Don’t do that”
Several thoughts arrived at once — ‘What?’, ‘Who?’ and a larger, more pronounced ‘What?!’ that seemed to impact the back of the skull and blast it’s way out the other side.
“That. Don’t do it bud!”
‘I mean, I wasn’t going to…’ Cameron thought, ostensibly to himself.
“Good. Just making sure”
He glanced around the room, then leaned over, tilting his head at an angle usually reserved for startled animals and peered down the corridor behind him. He stood up. “Hello?” he inadvertently squeaked, checking to make sure there wasn’t a window open.
“No need to yell”
‘Clearly’ he thought. The voice was everywhere. Cameron’s stomach had been replaced by a vacuum cleaner, his head with a cracked windshield and his chest sounded like a drum and bass concert with a drunk sound engineer.
“Oh don’t worry so much” said the source of indescribable worry.
“Where are you?” Cameron asked politely.
“About 47 million light years away” said the voice. “Give or take”.
That took some processing. “Come again?”
“It’s a bit of a hike”
“Yeah” Cameron nodded, exhaling like a cold uncertain fart. “So ah…” there was a pause in the dialogue for a few seconds.
“Sorry” came the voice again. “Just checking on something”
“Oh no worries” Cameron responded “Take your time”.
“Haha, good one!”
“What?”
“Oh it’s just…never mind. You’ll get it one day”
“Ok”…”So, what’s happening right now?”
“I just didn’t want you to do it, that’s all”
“Yeah I got that part. But like, who are you? And what is happening right now?
“Right, ah well, I’m kinda like a…I guess you’d call me an alien. Bit like a squid, but maybe the size of a small planet. Anyway, my name’s Jon. At least that’s what my friends call me and I was just watching you and I thought ‘wait, naaa man’ and so yeah…here we are”
Cameron sat motionless on his coffee table. He looked again at the window. Closed. He looked at the laptop. Off and unplugged. His phone. Dead from an unfortunate encounter with a 4th story balcony. Finally, he picked at his ears. The usual. “Ok” he paused again and took a deep breath of what seemed like increasingly questionable reality. “But like…how?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean how? How are you speaking to me from 47 million light years away? How are you watching me?”
“Oh I dunno dude. I was just looking round and there you were”
“You were looking around?”
“Yeah”
“From 47 million light years away”
“No doubt”
Cameron was becoming frustrated. “H…” he began again, but thought better of it. He needed a better question. “What else do you see?”
“Oh heaps of stuff” said Jon, helpfully.
“And…” all the questions involved a ‘how?’ Cameron was trying to avoid. Meanwhile actual thoughts were forming and breaking in his head. “So…47…relative…aren’t we too far away to talk?”
“I guess. I keep forgetting you guys are still pretty new”
“New?”
“Yeah I mean you’ve been doing this for what, a few generations?”
“I’m not sure what you mean?”
“Well we’ve been at it for a while”
“At what?”
“Like, you can see other worlds right?”
“Sure”
“And you see little things too?”
“Yeah”
“And you can communicate with each other in different places?”
“Of course”
“And how long have you been doing that?”
“Maybe a few hundred years. Only a few decades for the last part”
“Well there you go. We’ve been doing it for…since…well, I’m not sure actually, but a long time my dude. Probably half the lifetime of the whole thing. Big guy is getting smarter by the day. There’s twice as many galaxies now”
“Big guy?”
“The big guy! The point of origin. We sometimes call it the ‘Best Guess’, you know, on account of how it all got started”
“…and you’re just some squid”
“It’s Jon”
“Sorry, Jon. Some squid called Jon”
“Hey man, no need to be harsh. I said, kinda like a squid. Obviously way better”
“Sorry”
“No sweat. Hey I gotta go anyway. Good talking. Take care”
“You too!” replied Cameron exhaustedly to an empty room. “But wait, does that mean you can see everything?”
Jon made another noise resembling a laugh “No, of course not…not everything”
