Red,
Blue, Green and Yellow
by
Mary Jo Rabe
From one pico-fraction of a second to
the next, the tight, comforting compression that kept
them together was gone. Red, Blue, Green and Yellow were
thrust apart, to their surprise and completely against
their will, when the collective in the singularity
exploded into a hot, dark and endless cloud.
Back in the confines of the
singularity they had no reason to define themselves; all
were one with the others. After the explosion, though,
they were suddenly separate entities, sentient,
sensitive and yet telepathically connected.
Yellow was overjoyed at suddenly
having room to move. Red was curious, never having
thought about life beyond the singularity before. Blue
was apprehensive; life in the singularity had been more
than good enough, and this new development could only
end badly. Green was angry and wanted to know which
idiot decided to force them into a big-bang situation.
And by whose authority?
"I don't like this at all," Green
fumed.
"I'm scared," Blue admitted.
"Don't worry so much. This is
fascinating," Red said.
"Wow," Yellow said. "I love this, this
speed!"
"What is this new feeling?" Red asked.
"I sense the three of you just like before, but it's
also different, and getting more different all the
time."
"That's space between us and time
passing," Yellow said. "The space-time continuum is
expanding, and we're moving with it. We never moved
before. I love this."
"I hate it," Green said. "I want to go
back. I want things to go back to the way they were.
This is not good."
"Can we go back?" Blue asked.
"Who knows? This is a completely new
situation. Still, somehow I doubt it," Red mused.
"I hope not," Yellow said. "I want to
keep moving."
The space-time continuum was a new and
startling phenomenon, and many of the other members of
the singularity collective didn't like being apart and
alone. Some of them began to gather together in one,
overpowering force, and then the forces split up.
Green was drawn to the gravitational
forces, Blue to the strong nuclear force and Red to the
electromagnetic group. Yellow was far too impatient to
join others in forces and enthusiastically moved into
dark energy, wallowing in the sensation of faster and
faster motion.
"This is good," Green said. "My group
is going to pull everything back together; I'm
optimistic. Those of us in the force of gravity should
be able to squeeze this world back into a singularity."
Blue said, "I don't know. This strong
nuclear force is also something to be reckoned with. In
many cases we're stronger than gravity. What if we …"
"And the electromagnetic," Red began.
"We're stronger than gravity, too. I love how all these
forces suddenly came about."
"You're all crazy," Yellow said. "Your
forces are way too sluggish. You should join me for a
wild ride on the ups and downs of dark energy."
During their deliberations the hot,
dark, endless cloud continued to expand and began to
chill. The forces, once established, didn't do much new
or exciting.
Red was the first to abandon
participation in the electromagnetic force and transform
into a photon, just out of curiosity. Photons were fast
and reliable. Maybe it was only imagination, but as more
members from the singularity became photons, the cloud
that the singularity had turned into became somewhat
transparent, though with a hint of reddish light. Red
found that pleasing.
Green joined the quark group and Blue,
just to be contrary, went to the neutrinos.
"I have the feeling these particles
are what will draw the world back together in the long
run," Green said. "Quarks will join together to form
other particles, which will combine to create new
structures, and then gravity will have something to work
with."
"Hmm, maybe," Blue said. "In the
meantime, neutrinos can go everywhere, especially now
that there are places to go."
Others from the singularity collective
indulged in similar transformations. After a spirited
contest of dueling charges and anti-charges, matter
prevailed over anti-matter and Red, Blue and Green were
lucky enough to have picked the winning team. Green was
a little disappointed and would have preferred
continuing confrontations, hoping that that would
re-establish the singularity.
Yellow initially resisted the allure
of the matter state and refused to give up the thrill of
dark energy motion which kept increasing in speed.
"The great thing about dark energy is
that it keeps going faster, and then the faster even
gets faster," Yellow explained.
"But isn't that scary?" Blue asked.
"No," Yellow said. "It's liberating;
it's fun. You should try it."
With a fair amount of deliberate
concentration and occasional calculation, the four of
them stayed connected. They often created a certain
physical proximity once they mastered the trick of
switching back and forth among the various forms of
matter and energy. Definite, pleasant sensations came
from immersing themselves in elements and actions.
"I wonder if there is anything we can
do now to get back to the singularity again," Green
said.
"Probably not," Red said. "But who
knows what other interesting constructions will come
about when enough particles assemble."
All four of them agreed that the
formation of stars was indeed an experience they
wouldn't have wanted to miss. When they became part of
the first blue supergiant star, Red, Blue and Green even
persuaded Yellow to join them.
Yellow grudgingly admitted that
getting blown out of this first supernova was even more
fun than cruising along with dark energy. Later, riding
a gamma ray burst from one end of the expanding universe
to the other was almost as enjoyable.
The four of them spent some
time--though they really didn't notice the passing of
time that much--merging with molecules which later drew
themselves together as stars and were blown out into the
surroundings again when the star went nova.
"You really should spend some time in
every new element," Red said. "Plutonium feels
completely different than hydrogen."
"I still don't like this, though,"
Green said. "I want my singularity back. Why do we need
this distraction of atoms or elements or stars? We had
it good together with everyone else back in the
singularity."
Yellow didn't bother to answer and
continued to join and abandon the waves of dark energy.
Red searched for new experiences to recommend. Blue was
still scared most of the time, but generally willing to
try out Red's recommendations.
Green was overjoyed when they
discovered black holes. "They're just like the
singularity we were expelled from," Green said. "We can
enter a black hole, and it will be just like being home
again."
"I don't know," Blue said. "I have a
bad feeling about this. Our singularity was everything,
but there are so many black holes out here. They can
only be imitation everythings. How do you know that they
are at all like our old home? I don't want to risk
getting trapped where we don't want to stay."
Red was pensive for a while. "These
black holes are a fascinating development, and I'm all
for investigating them, but I don't want to make any
decisions that could have consequences I can't reverse.
How about if you don't completely enter the black hole?
Just surf around outside the Schwarzschild radius and
see what you can find out."
Green agreed, took off and returned
somewhat subdued. "You're right," he said. "I joined
some virtual particle pairs and one of each went into
the black hole while the other stayed on the other side
of the event horizon. What the particles in the black
hole described wasn't anything like our singularity. I'm
glad I could take off with the rest of the Hawking
radiation."
"Maybe I have to give up the dream of
going home to the singularity," Green said sadly.
Yellow stayed with his dark energy
buddies, but Red, Blue and Green experimented with being
all combinations of matter and energy, from cosmic rays
to dust to quark stars. They played galaxy tag while
Yellow continued to shove the clusters of galaxies away
from each other.
Blue was the first to notice that the
larger clumps of matter that were sometimes infested
with structures grew, changed, reproduced themselves and
disintegrated on special planets while transmitting
strange bits of data. They had a laughably short period
of existence, but Blue didn't know what to make of them.
Somehow they seemed threatening.
"They are so intent on examining the
universe and figuring everything out instead of just
enjoying the ride," Blue said. "They could make changes,
things that would affect us."
"You're worrying about nothing," Red
said. "These very fragile combinations of matter can
hardly threaten our space-time continuum. I find them
fascinating. I think we should investigate some of them
more thoroughly."
"We could immerse ourselves in clumps
of matter, especially those that revolve around stars,"
Blue said after a while. "Then we could observe the
development of these structures and maybe find out more
about them. I still think they might ruin things."
Red agreed that this immersion was a
good idea. At the very least, it promised them
sensations that were previously unknown. Red, Green and
Blue plunged into brown dwarfs, gas planets, asteroids,
comets, unoccupied planets and then took on the special
planets.
"All right," Blue said. "We need to
stay inconspicuous. The menacing structures should never
get any ideas about us being the essence of the
universe."
"Essence?" Green asked. "We were the
entire universe once, all of us together. But now we're
diluted beyond calculation. We're nothing anymore."
"No," Red said firmly. "We are all
that we once were, just now with the additional capacity
to learn new things and experience new sensations. Let's
see what we can learn from these fragile constructions
that occasionally populate rocky spheres around stars.
It'll just be a minor detour on our ride."
With a little persuasion, Yellow
decided to join them. First, they latched onto some dust
as usual. Many clumps of dust piled together to form a
smoldering proto-planet, later called Earth by its
fragile, short-lived inhabitants. Things were a little
dull for a while until Theia came along and whacked a
satellite out of Earth's mass.
Blue almost had an anxiety attack, but
with the encouragement from the others was able to stay
in the planet and not be diverted to the much smaller
satellite.
The satellite slowly moved away from
Earth, and then marauding asteroids and comets began
their bombardment, bringing along new combinations of
atoms, all of which provided tingling sensations in the
crust of the planet. Elements rose and sank; contours
formed. Molten rocks flew above the surface and bounced
down. A super-continent formed and then split off into
separate continents and islands
As the planet cooled down, an
interesting, liquid, molecular compound began to gather
around the continents and the self-replicating molecules
came into being. A short time later, or so it seemed,
these reproducing structures began their progression
into living creatures that changed the surface of the
continents and the deep, wet masses around them.
Red, Blue, Green and Yellow
immediately joined the one-celled living creatures and
stayed with them through their evolution until they
reached a degree of what they called intelligence. At
this stage, they began to investigate the universe in a
clumsy fashion, but showed an admirable stubbornness.
Red liked them. However, eventually
their physical development seemed to stagnate.
"I'm bored," Yellow said. "It's time
for me to go back to riding with dark energy."
"No, don't," Red said. "I have a
feeling that things here will get really interesting in
the near future. We need to get into the heads of these
creatures and comprehend just how they operate. Let's
find an inconspicuous location where we could watch
without them noticing us."
"Okay," Yellow said. "You might be
right. This probably won't take long. What substance
should we immerse ourselves in and where?"
"I suggest an object made of segments
of supercooled silicate liquids that reflect certain
wavelengths of light that these creatures find
pleasing," Red said.
"What?" Blue asked.
"The natives here call it 'glass',"
Red explained. "And I've already found a promising
location."
So they became colored glass segments
surrounding an electric light hanging above the doorway
from the dining room to the bar in the Historic Anchor
Inn in Lincoln City, Oregon. The inn possessed a
delightfully eclectic collection of objects reflecting
the tastes of the various owners.
Red and Blue immersed themselves in
all of them, one after another, while Yellow buzzed in
and out of the ocean and Green continued to mourn the
lost singularity.
They also had a great time reflecting
light for the visitors.
Together with the visitors, Red, Blue,
Green and Yellow trembled with occasional planetary
tremors, collected and absorbed moisture when blinding
thunderstorms blew in from the ocean toward the
mountains and listened in on conversations among
somewhat sentient guests.
Quips, tirades and expletives from
writers were especially entertaining although it
occasionally took a while to interpret the references.
However, writers did tend to express themselves
frequently. Exuberant praise for the morning repast was
a given.
The interlude for Red, Blue, Green and
Yellow in the Historic Anchor Inn was marvelous. Even
Yellow admitted to being glad to have stayed. Red said
it was regrettable that these writer creatures, like the
other planetary creatures, only existed for such short
periods of time.
The real excitement came after the
writers stopped staying at the Anchor though. A
planetary tremor, described by the locals as a Richter
scale, nine-point-five earthquake, that arose a minor
distance from Lincoln City in the Pacific Ocean upset
the Cascadia Subduction Zone sufficiently to drop all of
Lincoln City west of Highway 101 into the ocean.
In theory, Red, Blue, Green and Yellow
sympathized with the reaction of the surprised, living
creatures but couldn't help enjoying the splash. So they
frolicked light-heartedly in the wet chemicals after the
glass shapes they had been were reduced to water-soluble
dust.
Then Yellow returned to the motion of
dark energy. "You can swim around as much as you want,"
Yellow said. "I need more speed than this offers."
Red, Blue and Green did cavort around
the floors of the oceans for a while. The planet's
living creatures held on for a fleeting period of time,
but as the local star gradually increased its
luminosity, the liquids boiled away. Red, Blue and Green
slipped into the toasty crust of the planet and moseyed
down to the core and back, over and over again. The
temperatures in the different layers of rocky substance
were delightful, once the three of them developed senses
relevant to the planet.
Not much later, or so it seemed to
them, Yellow returned briefly when the Andromeda Galaxy
collided with the Milky Way, not wanting to miss the
resulting and pleasingly rowdy stellar and planetary
motions. It was only a short visit.
"The excitement here is over with for
the moment," Yellow explained. "Galaxies will continue
to run into each other, but those of us in the waves of
dark energy will continue to push superclusters of
galaxies apart."
"Let's go surf around the emerging
black hole at the center of the new Milkomeda Galaxy,"
Green suggested.
"That can wait," Red said. "I want to
hang around this planet until the star expands. Either
things here will just get a little crispier, or we'll be
able to go through the journey from a red giant to a
white dwarf star. Either way it's something we haven't
done yet."
While they were waiting, the planet's
surface changed. Continents moved and broke apart and
then rejoined into one huge continent. The magnetic
field weakened and cosmic rays were able to penetrate
down to the planet's core, tickling Red, Blue and Green.
The satellite moved farther away and the Earth's axial
tilt wobbled and shifted.
"The planet is getting more
interesting," Red said. "Too bad its cycle of existence
is so short."
The star pulsated its way into a red
giant, swallowing up the planet and then spitting it out
again as the star receded to its white-dwarf fate. "That
was scary," Blue said. "I definitely liked being inside
a star's core better than being swallowed up by the
corona."
"It looks like the chances for ever
getting back to the singularity are worse than ever,"
Green said. "Everything is changing and not going back
to what I want."
"I love all the new sensations," Red
said. "I can't wait for the next ones."
Red, Blue and Green hung around the
neighborhood until the white dwarf was too small and
isolated to be of any additional interest. Trying to
cheer Green up, they surfed together around
Schwarzschild radius of the big, new black hole at the
center of Milkomeda.
Again, the virtual particles in the
black hole told those on the outside that this black
hole was also not like the singularity Red, Blue, Green
and Yellow came from, somehow merely a pale imitation.
Green stayed depressed.
Red tried to point out the exciting
light show in the sky. "Look, Green," Red said. "Stars
are going nova or supernova; the bigger ones light up
the entire sky. When dwarf stars or black holes run into
each other, the jets of radiation that are released are
brighter than most stars."
"Yes," Blue said. "It's beautiful, not
scary. If you pay attention, you see galaxies performing
wild dances that they choreograph from one time element
to another."
Soon superclusters, including the
local supercluster with its some hundred thousand
galaxies, collapsed and merged into an enormous galaxy.
The world got darker with only merging white dwarfs'
isolated supernovas occasionally lighting things up.
After it got too dark for their taste,
the three of them agreed it was time to abandon the
matter/energy part of the universe and join Yellow in
dark energy. Yellow then led the way in cruising the
entire universe over and over again, but the waves of
dark energy started to reduce their speed.
"I still miss what we had in the
singularity," Green complained. "Now everything is
spread out all over, the universe is slowing down and
we'll never be back together like we were."
"I've been scared most of the time
since we were blown out of the singularity, but I have
to admit that it's been interesting," Blue said.
"More than that," Red said. "It's been
fun!"
After star formations stopped, the
stars used up their nuclear fuel and began to
degenerate. Some carbon stars came into existence and
dwarf stars of various colors began to dissolve.
Eventually protons decayed to leptons and photons. "This
is the reverse of what happened after the singularity
threw us out," Green said. "Maybe we are on our way back
after all."
"The main thing is that we are still
on our way to something, even if we've slowed down," Red
said.
Then the black holes evaporated, one
after another. Subatomic particles still annihilated
each other if and when they managed to meet. Individual
photons, neutrinos and leptons flew around unencumbered,
though more and more slowly. Dark energy now moved so
slowly that even Yellow wasn't always sure if they were
moving at all.
Chilling in the Big Freeze, Green
complained, "I still want to go back to the singularity;
that's all I ever wanted."
"What will happen to us now?" Blue
asked.
"I don't know, but so far I have no
regrets. We had a wild and wonderful ride," Red said.
Trying to console Green and Blue,
Yellow said, "Hey, you never know. One big bang
surprised us all, and whatever comes after the big
slowdown will probably be just as much of a surprise."
Green, Blue and Red promised to give
that prospect some thought.
The
End
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