Another Fairy Tale of sorts, but a science fictiony type one. 

***

The Waterfall and the Rabbit

The sound forms a mist around my ears, like a cloud of low noise and hissing. As I get closer, it gets louder, turning from a hushed whisper to a roar. There is light at the end of the damp tunnel and I am drawn to it. I must be 8 years old, and I look down and I am holding my pet rabbit. Why have I brought him here? I have no idea. The light is very bright. I can feel a faint tremor in the concrete tunnel walls.

 

***

 

<crackle> Computer check shows all systems are within parameters, levels are nominal, I am 4 light weeks away from the event horizon. I estimate my arrival there in the next 6 hours. [1]

 

<crackle – base command > Sam, what do you see?

 

<crackle> What you would expect, blackness. That is the nature of a black hole. <laughs>

 

<crackle – base command …laughing> Thanks Sam, we will check back in soon. Can you confirm for us that that comms tower is prepped to send the information burst from the sensors?

 

<crackle> sensors are armed, and recording, the antennae is functioning, and the data transmission bomb is armed and ready.

 

<crackle – base command > Thanks Sam, again, for all of us, for all of us <end transmission>

 

 

***

 

My name is Dr Sam F_______ , and I am an Astronaut. I studied at university the boring things you need to study to become an astronaut. I specialised in black holes, and I am now 6 hours away from entering one, and probably never coming home. And I am so very happy about that. So very happy.

 

 

***

 

I can feel the spray from the waterfall drizzling over me, my rabbit turns over in my hand, and then is still. I continue walking towards the light. I try to look down and I can’t see my legs, in fact I feel totally disembodied. But I am holding my pet rabbit? Something very strange is happening and I cannot put my finger on it.

 

We know all we know about black holes and how they work from waterfalls.

 

It really is very bright and very loud now in this tunnel.

 

Am I really 8 years old now? I feel like I maybe older, I maybe how old I am now.

 

It is all very confusing.

***

 

Black Holes 101

 

 

A black hole is an object that is very tiny, but which has such a massive mass and gravity that nothing can escape it.  A black hole is a theoretical entity predicted by the equations of general relativity. A black hole is formed when a star of sufficient mass undergoes gravitational collapse, with most or all of its mass compressed into a sufficiently small area of space, causing infinite spacetime curvature at that point (a "singularity"). Such a massive spacetime curvature allows nothing, not even light, to escape from the "event horizon," or border.

 

 

Black holes have never been directly observed, though predictions of their effects have matched observations.

 

Black holes have never been directly observed, until now

 

***

 

<crackle – base command > Sam, we got someone here to speak to you

 

<crackle> …who is it?

 

<crackle – base command > Sam, its Helen, she said she had to talk to you

 

<crackle> shit…put her on

 

<crackle> Hello Sam, I couldn’t, I couldn’t…I had to tell you that I was …I am sorry. I didn’t want it to end this way, and I don’t want you to do this.

 

<crackle> too late, as always too late. Command, get her off the mic, I owe her nothing, and I am not going to assuage her guilt.

 

<crackle – Helen> Sam, Sam don’t say that

 

<crackle – base command > Roger Sam, will do. Sorry about that

 

<crackle> Not as sorry as I am. 5 hours till event horizon.

 

***

 

Throughout our chequered marriage, Helen cheated on me 5 times. Every time I took her back, every time was a mistake. I didn’t want to hear her lies anymore. I couldn’t believe she had talked her way into command. I couldn’t believe that she wanted to give me all these thoughts before I entered the black hole.  What a bitch.

 

It was this moment, when I was feeling the most angry, that I saw it. This theoretical body in space. I say I saw it, but that would be untrue. I saw its’ effect. I saw light spiralling away from it like plumes of steam off a hot body. As it tried to escape, it was drawn back into darkness. It was beautiful.

 

The more I looked at it, the more I thought I saw flashes of images from my past, as if the gravity of the object was so great it was drawing this information from me, and eating it, devouring all this history from me. As it did, I felt my burden lighten. I saw the men Helen cheated on me with, I saw their faces elongate and get obliterated by this force of the universe.

 

As I drew nearer still, I saw the light swirl on its event horizon, like oil on water, my heart rate quickened which was when command came through to me for the last time.

 

***

 

<crackle> Sam, this is mission control. This will be the final message you can send us before you enter comms silence. Is there anything you wish to say, for posterity?

 

…

 

… 

 

…

 

<crackle> Sam, are you there? Have you got the speech we prepped?

 

<crackle> Hey mission control, sorry, it was just so pretty out here. Is it ok if I go off piste? I don’t think my speech does me justice. <laughs, crackle>

 

<crackle> Sure thing Sam, this is your party

 

<crackle> here I go. 3, 2, 1. I am in a little metal pebble hurtling towards a giant, incomprehensible object, of size and violence, that my brain cannot understand, and it reminds me of when I was 8. I went to see a waterfall, and as I approached the roar was deafening, and I was scared. My father put his hand on my back, and said, ‘Don’t worry, imagine you have your pet rabbit with you, and you are just walking to a summer shower.’ So I screwed my eyes up and imagined that, and when I came to the waterfall, the spray licked my face, and the light was so clear I felt like  it all made sense. All through my studies of black holes, I thought of the waterfall, and right now, before this universal chaos, I think of it again. I remember the walking into the light, of seeing the tiny droplets of water refract this other world energy into a rainbow. I don’t know what will happen when I cross the event horizon, but I imagine it will be similar. This is Dr Sam F________ saying I do this for all of mankind, so they don’t have to. <crackle>

 

***

 

It was quiet after that. I approached in utter silence, the only noise being the slight hum of the air conditioning units, scrubbing the CO2 from the air.

 

As I approached 1 hour from the event horizon, the ship began to shake. This was well within parameters, and was to be expected. The immense gravity was pulling us in, trying to pull the very screws apart into its constituent atoms, but to no avail, we had worked for over ten years on this ship.

 

***

 

And now I am out of the tunnel, the fine rain is settling into tiny diamonds on my clothes. The rabbit is still, its nose clicking back and forth, but it is calm and fixed on the roar from the cascading water.

 

I look around and see the shadow of what must be my dad. Or a memory of him, but it is gone.

 

I am me at both 8 years old and the age I was when I entered the event horizon. And when that thought crystallizes I realise I am all the versions of me, the parallel me from an almost infinite universes, and I stand and close my eyes as the rain from the waterfall falls on me, and a smile crawls across my face.

 

***

 

The data pulse from the fusion bomb carried by the USC Lapin reached earth 10 minutes after the ship was lost track of . It carried billions of bits of data, which the scientists were still chewing over, but one tiny fragment interested the world more than any other. It was a tiny audio clip that seemed stored after it was impossible to have occurred. It said…

 

***

 

We are everything and born of nothing.

 

Dr Sam F_______