It was quite a thing when They decided to build the Universe. Some of Them argued that it was unnecessary, even frivolous, but the idea took root and grew. Eventually, They ran out of reasons not to do it: They could do it, They had the budget for it, and–to be quite honest–none of Them was doing anything better with Their Time.
And that was just the thing, Time. They had plenty of it. Oodles of it. All They had was Time.
The original idea was less about building the Universe–though, later on, many of Them would deny this–and more about building somewhere to store all Their darned Time. Originally, it was just somewhere They could put all Time; the rest simply followed from there.
Thus, the first thing They did when They built the Universe was build the Clocktower right at the centre of it.
TICK-TICK-TICK… The Clocktower was the heartbeat that echoed out across the Universe as it unfolded from Their Good Idea to the–let’s be honest–the rather complicated mess we all know it to be now.
You see, this is the thing with Good Ideas: because they are good ideas, everyone gets overexcited and does too much of them and, eventually, they become Bad Ideas with needless complexity and endless iterations. Awful really, if you think about it.
They thought so too and, eventually, gave up on the whole thing and left.
But the Universe kept on going. TICK-TICK-TICK… Space coalesced into stars, stars spat out planets, and planets cultivated life. TICK-TICK-TICK… Life consumed life and messed up planets, and then Life reached out for the self-same stars. TICK-TICK-TICK… Things lived and grew, died and shrunk, and expanded to fill the Space that Time allowed it to.
TICK-TICK-TICK…
But here is the thing with the Clocktower and all the Time They left behind: it was a lot of Time but it was not infinite.
And thus, as Time wound down, slowly the TICK-TICK-TICK became TICK–TICK–TICK and then TICK—TICK—TICK…
At this point, Life naturally got quite worried. It had grown very fond of the Universe and, to be honest, it didn’t really have anywhere else to go.
So all the Life across all the stars and galaxies decided to get together and, after the usual bickering about when, where and who brings the food, came to the unsurprising conclusion that something had to be done. The Clocktower had to be fixed.
This was no easy task and would involve all the cunning resourcefulness that Life had. But that was just the thing: surviving in a Universe that had not been designed for Life, Life had naturally evolved to have lots of cunning resourcefulness. Life had plenty of it. Oodles of it. All Life had was cunning resourcefulness.
Life thought very hard and then stripped planets, leaving husks in its wake. TICK—TICK—-TICK… Vast machines were built in space, linked as one Machine, and then pointed right at the centre of the Universe. TICK—-TICK—–TICK… Stars were encircled, all their energy drained to feed the vast floating Machine and a single little, teeny-weeny life was placed in the centre of the it.
The Temponaut–as the teeny-weeny life became known–was clothed in a special suite that was specifically designed to keep Life living in the most extreme, awful weather–TICK—–TICK——TICK–given a rousing speech by those who were not risking their lives, and sold the rights to his biography and a line of stuffed toys.
TICK——TICK——-TICK… Time was running out. TICK——…——-TICK… And then, the Clocktower skipped a beat. Space was running out of Time. The stars were cooling, the Machine was heating, the planets had all been consumed, and the TV reporters were certain that next week’s weather would be apocalyptic.
Then Life pressed the button–it was big and red–and the Temponaut was cast outside of Time and inside of the centre of the Universe onto the Shores of the Cosmos to stand before the crumbling Clocktower.
They had not really maintained over the aeons. Actually, They had not maintained it at all, as maintenance had never been considered as sexy as “Creating Worlds”. Honestly, none of Them had wanted to waste Their Time doing anything so trivial as maintenance.
Slowly and steadily, breathing in his very finite supply of air, the Temponaut walked towards the great looming structure of the Ancients. Its creaking frame and alien design filled his mind with awe and terror, but he could see the light at the centre of it. It was flickering weakly as the Clocktower’s great arms slowed down.
TICK——…——-…——-TICK… Back in the Universe, the stars had almost all gone out, the weather was decidedly frigid and everyone was in a sour mood. Life was passing in slow motion towards oblivion.
At the base of the Clocktower’s weathered, crumbling frame, the Temponaut found a small rusted door with a sign that said “𒄑 𒅅 𒁉 𒍝 𒇻”. This effectively translated as “DO NOT ENTER”. So he opened it and walked in, and was immediately confronted by the minimalism of the Ancients’ design.
In the Clocktoward, there were no complex screens or monitors, no vast arrays of flashing lights and no cosmic instruction manual. Time goes around in circles and, thus, the Clocktower was little more than a cosmic near-perpetual motion machine that stored Time in its second, minute, hour, day, month, year, YouTube unskippable ad-break, and millennia arms that spun around. With each rotation as these arms fractionally slowed down, the stored Time leaked out into the Universe as the passage of time and, thus, everything existed because They had gone with the lowest bidder on the Clocktower contract.
You get what you pay for, and They had gotten the Universe.
TIC-K——…——-…——-T-I—C—K… Back in the Universe, the cold lumps of stars knocked into each other as planets crumbled, and Life kept playing Friends and Modern Family re-runs to distract themselves from what was turning out to be quite a disappointing and chilly apocalypse. At least it was collectively decided to stop making more seasons of The Kardashians. No one needed that.
At the same Time but in a different place, the Temponaut stood inside the Clocktower before a single instrumentation panel. Above him, the great wheel and its arms spun slower and slower, finely grinding all of existence–including itself–into dust. And, on that single instrumentation panel, the Ancients’ contractor had installed a single big, red button that said in clear and unmistakable words it said “𒍣𒄤”.
The Temponaut had no idea what that meant, so he pushed it, and the Clocktower ground to a halt. (The Ancients’ words effectively translated as “ON/OFF”.)
T-I—C——-
The Universe’s last flickering light went out. The weather was frozen just above absolute zero and Life was no more. It was a huge bummer and everyone was disappointed.
Then–with the innately human impulse we all share when a link does not load immediately on the Internet or your TV remote doesn’t change the channel–the Temponaut shrugged and pressed the big, red button again.
And the Clocktower’s light flickered; the wheel and the arms began to move, in reverse. Time sucked back into the Clocktower, the Universe warmed as it pulled closer together, Life got quite cramped, and then everything collapsed back into the Beginning; a very, very, very small, heavy, hot pinprick of a marble. The Universe had lost its Time, and the Clocktower had all of Time restored to it.
The Temponaut blinked. He was quite oblivious to what had happened back in the old (or, now, young) Universe. All he saw was that the flickering light had grown stronger in the Clocktower as the great hands of Time had rolled back to a starting position.
But then it was done. The Clocktower was full, and the Universe was the Singularity at the start of all Time, and Time began to flow normally again.
TICK-TICK-TICK–TICK-TICK-TICK… Space coalesced into stars, stars spat out planets, and planets cultivated life. TICK-TICK-TICK… Life consumed life and messed up planets, and then reached out for the self-same stars. TICK-TICK-TICK… Things lived and grew, died and shrunk, and expanded to fill the Space that Time allowed it to.
The Temponaut nodded. His job appeared done here and he turned to go back to a brand new Universe with a bunch of Life that did not remember him. Actually, this Life had never known him but it was ready to embrace a miraculous religious figure appearing in their midst. It is said that advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and, well, magic is just religion without guilt and taxes. And taxes would be important to build another Machine for when Life next needed to (again) reset the Clocktower at the end of Time.
At the very least, this time he might be able to prevent Life from churning out endless seasons of The Kardashians. Honestly, who asked for that?
