Tag Archives: time

General Fiction, Science Fiction

The Temponaut & the Clocktower at the End of Time

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 “đ’Łđ’„€”.

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?

Horror & Dark Fiction, Science Fiction

Jefferson

He struggled forward–one step after the next–as he absentmindedly wiped his hand on his spacesuit’s pants. The blood had long since wiped off and the bodies were far behind him but all he saw was his goal. It was just in front of him. At this altitude, distance from the starship and without backup equipment, he doubted he would make it home anyway, not that this mattered much to him.

After Jefferson had proved the theoretical existence of inter-dimensional wormholes, he had sought to recreate them in the laboratory. Unfortunately, they required such vast amounts of energy that he could not achieve quantum states of sufficient mass.

That is what led him to search for these enigmas in the cosmos. Theoretically, under just the right conditions where there was a Newtonian Equilibrium between two Black Holes’ Event Horizons, space would be thin enough and the energy dense enough to potentially open such a wormhole.

He could feel his blood thinning as his heart struggled against the lack of gravity. His suit protected him from the worst of the environment but prolonged exposure meant that enough had gotten through. Micro-tears in the fabric were beginning to risk the suit’s integrity, anyway. Behind him, there were piles of bodies. Some team members had died on the voyage out. Others had died traversing this super-large asteroid–megatroid–left spinning on its own axis in space-time.

The landscape was harsh red with shimmering dust as space bent slightly like ripples in a pond. He could not feel it bending but its effects were everywhere. From the aggressive hyper-cancer that had consumed his last few team members and was eating at his own body to the fractal dust from a shaken reality that slipped through his suit and clogged his lungs.

It had taken billions of dollars of funding and teams of scientists and supercomputers all scanning through every know data point in known reality to locate only one such potential site. It had taken inventing cryogenic stasis to traverse the distance between the populated cosmos and this older, darker part of the cosmos. It had taken three hundred and fifteen scientists and a full engineering crew with a military-grade starship and cutting-edge equipment to arrive at the megatroid.

But Jefferson felt it had all been worth it.

Despite being ravaged with cancer and struggling to breathe while on his last round of equipment and with three-hundred and fourteen bodies behind him, he was smiling. His face was lit up with wonder and his eyes sparkled.

He pulled himself up the last ledge onto the pinnacle of the megatroid’s largest mountain range. And, as his head cleared it and his vision stopped swimming, he stood and focussed on the swirling light before him.

It was beautiful.

Before him, on a parabolic-Cartesian plane, spinning between two equidistant black holes on their event horizion’s, floated a small tear in space-time that pierced into our nearest parallel dimensions. It had a peculiar golden glow, perhaps a side-effect of the cold fusion occurring at atomic-level, Jefferson thought?

He blinked and his eyes adjusted slowly to what he was seeing. Beyond the golden swirling form that silently rippled space around it, he was sure he saw something.

Could it be? Could he be looking through into another dimension? Could light from that other dimension be penetrating ours?

He had fantasized about this moment his whole adult life. What wonders would he see? Was there life or alternate geometry? Did new, undiscovered colours exist in that dimension? Would he peer through and see God? What incredible wonders would he see there?

His hands were shaking as he strained to see what lay beyond the golden swirling form. Something was definitely there. It was small and dark but the longer he looked at it, the clearer it became.

His oxygen tank’s warning light had been flashing for a while, but it began to beep. He was on his last breathes. This did not matter much, as the cancer was metastasizing in real-time and his lungs began to collapse as micro-tears in his inner-suit began to equalize with the vacuum of space and the blood in his veins began to heat in the dropping pressure.

Jefferson fell to his knees but kept his vision straightforward. Even if he could never tell another living soul, he was going to be first to actually see into the next dimension. He had lived his entire life for this moment and he was not going to die before he got to see it.

The black shape was solidifying in the rippling golden light, but his vision began to blur. Oxygen deprivation and dropping pressure in his suit were converging, and he began to fall forward slowly in the low gravity of the megatroid.

Just before his vision slipped, his head fell forward and the last ounce of life left him, the black shape solidified and Jefferson saw what–or who!–was peering at him from another dimension.

It was a middle-aged man, pale-faced and wild-eyed, dressed in a military-grade deep-space cosmonaut’s suit with blood down the left leg and micro-tears releasing precious oxygen and pressure into space. The man was on his knees and collapsing forward in the final moments of his life. Partially faded, and splattered with blood and space-dust, a small name tag across the man’s chest said something quite familiar: “JEFFERSON”.

Science Fiction

The Thing That Matters

God, Lucifer, Buddha, Shiva and all the angels, demons and mythological beings of the cosmos looked very worried. Each and every one was scared. They were lined up sitting, lying or lurking on one side of a great table just around the corner from reality.

On the other side of the table sat only three, indescribable beings of immense and immovable power: one of solid matter, one of empty space and one of infinite time.

“Why do you matter?” asked Matter.

“Why should you take up space?” asked Space.

“And what future do you think you have in our universe?” asked Time.

“If all life disappeared from the cosmos, hydrogen would still be hydrogen,” Matter stated as an irrefutable fact, “All the planets and suns would still exist, and all the elements would still remain as they are now. The universe would not notice your disappearance.”

“You need us, but we don’t need you,” added Space.

“So why should you have a future?” repeated Time, creating a sense of deja vu in the room.

All the gods started talking at the same time. The demons howled while angels sang, snakes hissed and old gods screamed of blood, war and sacrifices. Matter waved his hand for silence and Space opened the floor to them to speak one by one.

“Life is filled with love,” God spoke, “Men, women and children–as with all of life’s forms–are beautiful beings filled with love, and love cannot be replicated without life. None of you three can replicate the gravity of star-crossed lovers nor the tenderness of a mother with their child, nor the bond of a dog and his master. Yes, all matter, space and time will be unchanged without us, but the cosmos would be poorer without the love that we inspire in each other.”

“Is this the same love that chops down forests, depletes oceans and molests children?” asked Matter, “Or maybe the same love that brings war, disease and famine? Maybe it is the same love that offers us hatred, racism, sexism and bigotry while destroying all other forms of other life around it?”

“If love comes at such a cost, is it really worth that much?” asked Space.

Time smiled and moved to the other gods.

Lucifer intoned at length about lust and desire. He spoke about the tangled bodies of lovers and the passion of lives that burnt brightly. Then Buddha spoke about reincarnation and the wisdom of many lifetimes accumulating with the good deeds of humanity. Other gods spoke of wonders and empires while older gods spoke of blood and bonds. Some spoke of worship of the stars, Sun and Moon while others spoke of the intricacies of ritual, the knowledge of man and the elements of a savage nature.

“If all life disappeared from the cosmos, hydrogen would still be hydrogen,” Matter stated as an irrefutable fact, “All the planets and suns would still exist, and all the elements would still remain as they are now. The universe would not notice your disappearance.”

“Nothing that any of you have told us changes this fact,” Space added, “You need us, but we do not need you.”

Time smiled and leaned forward. It was the eldest of the three. Space could be cold sometimes and Matter was just stubborn. Neither of them remembered the loneliness of the beginning because Time had been there on its own before Space and Matter had formed. Those dark, miserable beginnings had softened Time a bit and it felt that life should be given a second chance to prove itself, but it was only one vote among three.

“Listen, guys,” Time said, trying to be encouraging, “Just give us something we can use. Anything would work, really. Why does life matter?”

The other side of the table fell silent. It felt like everyone had spoken by now and they were at a loss for what to say next.

Then a small voice piped up from the background. All the gods, demons, angels and other cosmic entities turned around and looked at the back of the room.

It was Science. He was one of the new ones and no one quite trusted him.

“Gentlemen and Lady,” he said, nodding at Time, for he knew that only women take all the time in the world, “Life has given us humans, and humans have given us knowledge, understanding and technology. If you would answer me, Space, Time and Matter, what did you call yourselves before man named you?”

There was silence in the room as the old gods all turned around to stare at Space, Time and Matter. They looked at each other and Matter shrugged.

“We did not refer to ourselves at all, Science, there was no need to. But hydrogen was still hydrogen, and–”

Science smiled and interrupted Matter, “Exactly, humans named you. They have also measured, documented and recorded all your attributes. Like they are steadily doing so for the whole universe. They are witness to your creations, Matter, and your size, Space, and they are subjects to your passing, Time. They are not just the librarians of existences, but they are its audience as well and its guardians as well.”

“That may be true,” Space said, nodding a couple cosmos, “But why does that matter?”

“Because,” Science said, walking passed the old gods to the front and pointing behind the three into a dark, ancient corner in that cosmic room, “Even you three have a master. Even the three of you will cease to exist one day.”

Something stirred in the corner of the room. All the gods, demons, angels and other cosmic entities strained to see what it was in the darkness, but it did not seem to have a form. Space, Time and Matter all glanced nervously at the spot, though, and Time cleared her throat.

“Yes, as the Singularity formed us, so will it eventually eat us all. Why is this relevant?”

Science’s smile widened, “No matter what you throw at life, it finds a way to survive. It has even begun to leave the planet and reach into the vacuum beyond it. And, benefiting from the passage of time is in fact life’s greatest achievement as evolution exponentially strengthens it and knowledge compounds across generations.”

The room was silent as all present beings hung on Science’s every, precise word.

“No matter what, gentlemen and lady, life finds a way to survive. Life wants to survive. That means that life’s ultimate goal will be to find a way to survive the Big Collapse when the Singularity stops expanding and starts contracting and destroying reality. That means, gentlemen and lady, that life is your only chance of salvation beyond the realm of the Singularity. With all of the matter, space and time in the world at your disposal, have any of your three found a way to survive the Singularity’s ultimate reversal?”

Space, Time and Matter all shook their heads in silence. The room was quiet. Even the old gods had their eyes wide open, straining to catch a glimpse of this mystical Singularity. Many of their own myths had called it different things, from Ragnorak to Apocolypse, Day of Judgement, Armageddon and many, many others.

In some shape or form, they all knew it was coming.

But only Science had an idea how to survive it, even if he had not thought of it yet.

Matter smiled. He might be stubborn, but he preferred existing over not existing. That was the essence of matter, after all. Space nodded too.

“Very well,” Time said, ending the meeting, “Life may need us to exist, but we may also need life one day too. There is no harm in letting this experiment continue.”

Great cheers erupted from God, Lucifer, Buddha, Shiva and all the angels, demons and mythological beings of the cosmos, but Science just smiled. He knew the real work was only just beginning. In that dark, ancient corner, the Singularity still slept. One day, Science knew, he would have to face it and, one day, he knew, he would have to defeat it.

Fantasy, Horror & Dark Fiction, Romance

Court of the Sunflower King

The Sunflower King sat on his cold throne of petals brooding. The shadows in his Court were growing long and the Sun was nearly set. Everyone was gone. They were always gone. He thought he could smell the kitchens firing and hear the clink of glasses being set out in the garden. In an age long gone, he had married a beautiful Sidhe princess under the maple and the Midsummer Sun. Her throne now sat empty next to him. But, once a year on the Midsummer night, she appeared by him again.

“My dear, how the time has flown. What have we left to do?”

He closed his eyes tight shut for a moment, but then turned and looked at the throne next to him. She–his Queen Cereus–was sitting there as beautiful as the day he had married her. Suddenly the Court was full of people, bustle, sound and light again.

“Yes, my love, the time has flown. We have the banquet to attend.”

The real curse was not that she was taken from him nor that she reappeared once a year making it impossible for him to let go of her. No, the real curse was that if he told her about the curse, she would never come back. The fragile spell that brought her back to his Court once a year would shatter and the darkness that had cursed her would take her forever. And he would be forever alone sitting in his empty throne.

“Banquet? I do not recall a banquet, my dear?” Queen Cereus asked frowning. She shivered involuntarily but did not seem to notice.

The Sunflower King smiled and reached out and squeezed her hand–it had been a year since he had touched her! “It is a surprise, my love, a surprise just for you.” It always was.

***

“What a beautiful Sunrise, my dear,” Queen Cereus said, her head nestled in the Sunflower King’s shoulder. They were sitting atop the highest spire’s peak overlooking the grand entrance of the Sun. The blood red sky was breaking into other colours as a golden fire began to touch the horizon.

“Yes, my love, what a beautiful night,” the Sunflower King breathed, his arms suddenly empty.

He was alone at the peak of the highest spire in his castle overlooking his Kingdom. Queen Cereus was gone and would be gone for another year. His Court would be empty again.

He let his arm drop to his side and he sat in silence and watched as the ball of glowing fire burnt the start of the next year into the sky. It would be a long, lonely year again.

***

The Sunflower King could not remember how long this had gone on for, but over the years he began a conversation. Each annual appearance of his Queen when his Court was full and they held a banquet, he would try to get her to remember.

He could not tell her that she was cursed. He remembered the witches curse clearly. But, he could get her to remember this for herself.

“Do you remember where you were yesterday?” he would inquire between mouthfuls of nectar wine while the Court musicians played.

“Oh, my dear, I-I was here with you,” the Queen would reply, each time elaborating just a little more as something inside her began to get dislodged, “Didn’t we have a banquet too? We have too many banquets, my dear, we should do something else in the evening, don’t you think?”

Each year each time, he got just a little more of an answer from her.  But then, the Sun rose, she left and the Court, draped in shadows and loneliness, was empty for another year. He would spend his time waiting, watching the sunrises and sunsets on his own again while planning how to get her to remember. Nothing else existed.

***

“Do you remember where you were yesterday?” he asked, holding her hand tightly as they both sipped their nectar wine. The Court was full and the musicians were playing a particularly soft, dreamy piece of music.

“Oh, my dear, I was here with you,” the Queen answered, yet more convincingly, and then she turned her head and looked directly at him, “No… No, you weren’t, my dear. Where were you yesterday?”

This was a new line of conversation. He had never gone down this road before. Gazing at him with her beautiful eyes wide open, she involuntarily shivered again.

“My love, I was right here sitting on my throne and waiting for you in our Court,” he said slowly and deliberately.

“No, my dear, you weren’t. I was in the Court and talking to the Elders. They were saying–” the Queen tilted her head to the side like she was trying really hard to remember and her eyes moistened, “They were saying that I should consider remarrying because you were gone and not coming back. I don’t want to remarry, my dear, I love you. I love you so much.”

The Sunflower King was confused. This was not what he had expected. The curse had obviously confused her.

“But, my love, I am not gone. You–you are–” he paused, he could not bring himself to say it or risk breaking the enchantment, “I sit all year long in the empty Court and I only get to see you once on the midsummer night’s full moon.”

The Queen’s face wrinkled in confusion. Or was it sorrow? Her eyes were wet and the Sunflower King suddenly had a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“But, my dear, it is not midsummer night’s full moon tonight,” she pointed up and suddenly the Sunflower King saw it, “it is All-Hallow’s Eve on Samhain. You are the Sun while I am the Moon. You are the Day while I am the Night. And, you can speak with the living while I can speak with the dead on such a magical night like this…”

The Queen let her voice trail out. She was looking intently at him and, in fact, the whole Court had grown quiet. Even the musicians had stopped and everyone was looking at the Sunflower King. Slowly he began to remember and realise.

He remembered how beautiful his Queen was on the day of their wedding. But he also remembered how the wicked witch had appeared in their midst and he had struck out with his blade to defend his love.

Then he realised why his Court was always so empty. Why his Court was always in shadows and his sunrises and sunsets were always alone.

“I-I am dead,” the Sunflower King breathed, suddenly hearing the echoey sound of his voice from the grave.

“Yes, my love,” Queen Cereus said, looking at the pale apparition of her former husband before her, its light flickered and she saw its face contort in pain, a tear rolled down her cheek, “Yes, my love, you died defending me, but you need to move on and go to the Summerlands. I will find you there. My love will guide me.”

For the last time, the Sunflower King looked at his Queen Cereus. A single ghostly tear ran down his face and disappeared. He began to speak, but his image was fading fast and all the Queen heard through her own tears was:

“I miss you, my love. I just miss you so much…”