The Second Second of Eternity

short story

I was probably reading a little too much Douglas Adams when I wrote this, but I still like it. Something about the mad rush of trying to fit the history of history onto the written page is always entertaining. And no, this is NOT the same dude created by the Coens. . .

“Far away there is a diamond mountain. Every year, a bird comes and sharpens its beak on its slopes. When the mountain is worn away, that is the first second of eternity.”

— traditional tale

Prologue

1. Picture of dark Stars

In the beginning, it was Dark. Before the beginning, there was the End. Some dude in this place that doesn’t exist anywhere readily accessible except by death was getting Lonely. For a few measly Billion Years, he had had a real neat bunch of sentient life forms to observe and be worshipped by. But now they were Gone. And as the great, swollen Stars of the Ancient Universe faded, the dude, after pondering for a few Hundred Thousand Years, decided he’d better do something before he was left in total Darkness.

2. a) Picture of Fireworks

So he said (to himself), Let’s get some Light (a phrase which has gone down the millennia misquoted), and made some fireworks to watch while he thought. Unfortunately, some of these got massively out of hand, and started a Chain Reaction. All the Stars blew up, which did make quite a lot of Light.

2. b) Picture of new Stars

But suddenly, after a couple of Thousand Years of thought, the dude realized that good could come out of all this. An Idea struck him. So for the Billion Years, he spent his time ferrying Matter from place to place, building new Stars.

3. Picture of dude blowing on fingers, Planets in background

Then, said the dude (still to himself), when I finish with these Stars and get them nice and hot, I can start making Planets.

When the Stars were hot enough, the dude pulled chunks out of a couple of them where they’d least be missed, and rolled them into balls. Then he set the new Planets rolling around their parent Stars. On the whole, it was a pretty arrangement. He finished with only a couple of burns on his fingertips.

Chapter 1

4. Picture of the dude using Calipers

The dude shrank himself a bit to look at it on a smaller scale. For three Billion Years, he had visited all the Planets he’d made, looking for one that would be just right for his new race. Unfortunately, he was a bit of a perfectionist, and it was taking much longer than he had anticipated. He had come so far, seen so many Planets, but none was just right. All the Planets were just a little too round, or a little too big, or a little too heavy, or a little too green. The dude was, in fact, getting a little frustrated.

5. Picture of Perfect Planet and O-Type Star

Suddenly, he hit on something that looked absolutely PERFECT.

Planet #2,196,837,440,639,991, 342, 321. He went down the checklist: perfect roundness, perfect size, perfect weight, perfect coloration, perfect number and size of satellites, perfect distance from its Star—

Hold it, shrieked the dude (to himself again). Ninety-six million miles! Oh, this is terrible. I might have let it pass if it was ninety-seven or even ninety-nine, he screamed, even though he knew he wouldn’t have.

Then he swore a terrible oath. He vowed to rear his new race on the next planet he came to, regardless of what it looked like. And, because he was in a particularly spiteful mood, he decided to call it EARTH.

6. Imperfect Planet, G-type Star and HUGE Moon

Planet #2,196,837,440,639,991,342,322 was an ugly Planet if he ever saw one, in an already overcrowded star system. Furthermore, it had the biggest, lumpiest ugliest Satellite nearby, almost a third of the size of the Planet itself. Even worse, the Star in that system would be a measly G-type by the time his race was ready to worship him, nothing like the O-type glory of his last race. The fact that the Planet was, quite miraculously, on the average exactly ninety-eight million miles from its Star never hit him until he had considerably cooled down and tried to see the good points in his choice.

7. Picture of water-covered World

Then the dude started to feel really horrible, first about his choice of Planets, secondly about his choice of words when he ran down his checklist versus Earth. Sorry, he said (although there was no one around to hear). Believe me, I’m not really that bad. And to make up for it, he gave the Planet a great supply of water, enough for everyone to take a shower every day.

Unfortunately, he overdid it again, and soon two-thirds of the Planet were submerged. Whoops, said the dude (as of yet, still to himself), and really started to Plan.

Chapter 2

8. Picture of Seas, Mountains, and Forests

For another four Billion Years, the dude worked his fingers to the nether-dimensional bone. He built Great Mountains. Salted the Seas. Made Fjords for Norway and lots of Cod Stocks for Eastern Canada. And then he opened her up and stuck a small Star into the Planet’s interior to keep her warm.

Then, the dude did some tinkering with this Red Snow stuff he had just invented, and created LIFE.

Prologue to Chapter 3

9. No picture

[Okay, you know, chapter 3 is absolutely my favorite chapter. It is, in fact, the point in time when the author of this story was born. Unfortunately, there are some major problems with the time scale. So far, we’ve managed about seven Billion Years in just three pages, which is a lot of time for very little to happen. The next section is just a few Million Years long, but a lot happens. I’m sure you can see the problem in this. I have to fit the entire history of life of Earth into the space of something much less than one line. So, to facilitate reading, I’m going to magnify it.]

Chapter 3

(original)

......

(magnified)

10. Picture with Human Silhouettes in foreground, Dinosaurs and Paramecium in background

Then there was Life. Life evolved and became complex, one-celled life forms blossomed and became million- then billion-celled. The Dinosaurs arose and reigned for a Million Years supreme. Then came the True Reptiles, and Birds, and Mammals, and the Man.

Man was kind of dull at first, and then he discovered money and fighting. Then Everything started to happen quickly.

There were the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans (the Chinese and Namerinds fit in there somewhere), the Celts, the Saxons, the Normans, the Germans, the Indians and the Pakistanis, the Russians, the Americans, the Brazilians, the Iraqis, the Palestinians, the Swiss, the Kiwis and Limeys, the French, and the Canadians. There were wars, peaces, scientific advances, fossil fuel technologies, space shuttle flights, iPod apps, movies, plays, closet-artsies, schools, chocolate bars, and discrete remarks to the editor. Some guys along the way deduced the possible existence of the dude and everyone called him ‘God’ with a capital G except ee cummings who never learned how to use capitals and

11. No picture

And then it was over.

(back to regular magnification)

Chapter 4

12. Picture of Lonely dude and dark Stars

Then it was over, and the Stars began to burn out One by One as the Eons passed, and the dude started to get Lonely.

Prologue

13. Picture of the dude with Fireworks

So the dude said, quote, Let’s get some Light, unquote (having learned to use Quotation Marks from grade 6 English during the Twenty-First Century, and as an afterthought, “I’ll make some really neat bipeds this time around.”

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