Internal Struggles

A thousand years ago, when the British Empire was still a twinkle in some merchant’s eye, I had a thought that rose up from the words in a book I was reading.

In those days, after around seven or eight years of life, I would read anything. Books about birds, birds’ eggs, animals, trees, aeroplanes (avid reader of anything about aeroplanes), astronomy... anything.

Astronomy was one of my favourites although I have never been able to pick out constellations or other planets. My interest was purely academic—no practical applications at all.

As a side note, astrology has never interested me. For those who gain comfort from it, may it warm your heart and keep your soul. For me? I cannot imagine how a star many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of light years from us can have any bearing on our lives. Furthermore, the future has yet to happen and so soothsaying and other forms of ‘voyancy’ into that ‘which is yet to happen’ is a nonsense; too many variables.

I should love to know what is going to happen in the next few minutes—never mind next week, month, year...

[NB: This ‘spell/grammar check thing has no clue about ‘astyanax’. It’s quick enough to leap on ‘fragment’ and ‘passive voice’. Irritating!]

Where was I? Too many idea sprites sparking away, they trigger ‘The Voices’!

Oh, yes. The thought.

While reading about stars and galaxies, steeped in a sense of wonder at how many different forms these things take, ‘The Thought’ hit me.

Where does it end?

Our planet goes around a star that we call ‘Sol’—our sun; this, in its turn, goes around with billions of other stars in a galaxy; billions of galaxies, spreading out, presumably rotate in a Universe.

Perhaps there are many universes—in fact, there would have to be or there would just be an infinite void full of nothing out there.

So? Where does it end? Is there a wall or fence? Is there a sphere of crystalline rock entombing all that we know?

But, then, what lies beyond that?

I could feel my mind slipping away. This was a thought that I was not equipped to deal with but I knew that it would grab hold of my mind and put it in some sort of cerebral lock forever if nothing was done.

The only way I could rationalise it was to write a story. Where the story is now I know not. Lost forever in some rubbish bin swirling around in the space-time continuum where favourite teddy bears and stamp collections go.

The Seed

A boy gazed at a seed. It was quite a large seed, possibly from one of the trees that grew all around the place where he was sitting.

His focus was entirely on the seed. Nothing else existed, not even the faint sound of his Mother’s voice calling him in for lunch somewhere in the distance.

Somewhere within the seed he knew that there were smaller parts that made up the seed. That it was a collection of molecules and atoms arranged to form the flesh of the seed so that it would grow and become something bigger, perhaps huge.

He held the seed closer to his eye even ‘though he was well aware that those tiny particles were invisible; even microscopic life forms were beyond the visual range of his eye.

‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘one day someone will invent something that will be able to see atoms and molecules. But, then, how will they know that it is the atoms or molecules they are aiming at and not the particles that make up the machine for seeing such infinitesimally small points of matter.’

The boy sat back, staring, unseeing, up at the trees.

We are going around the sun. The sun is part of a galaxy. There are billions of galaxies out there just as there are billions of atoms in this seed.

What if this universe is an atom?

What if we were able to go so far out into space that we could observe millions, perhaps billions, of universes?

What would that make?

If we went even farther out, what are the universes rotating around?

Could we go so far out that we could see what becomes of these universes?

Eventually we could see that all those universes were part of a seed.

A small boy is holding it, wondering. Wondering at what tiny particles make up this seed. He is ignoring his Mother’s voice in the distance.

Does he realise that deep, deep down inside that seed is another boy holding a seed just like his and that that small boy’s seed also contains a small boy holding a seed?

Does he know that he, too, is just part of an atom?

End

Little dogs have little fleas upon their backs to bite ‘em.

And little fleas have smaller fleas, and so ad infinitum.

Anon.

Now you know.  Even back in 1956 or ’57 my head was full of odd things.