contos em pílulas — IV
Alguns contos incrivelmente curtos escritos em momentos de ócio
Um conto que começou a se formar na minha mente depois de ouvir uma música de uma banda que curto bastante chamada Ludov. E é em inglês, portanto não esperem uma escrita impecável.
Aliás, não esperem nada, apenas ignorem as coisas estranhas.
point of light
I ask the crystal about where we are now. The answer is that we are orbiting some star and the Earth year is around 1.500.000. Space and time, the crystal says, are the coordinates of the universe.
I’m not sure if I understand it myself.
What I can understand is that our star is fading away. Year after year, slowly, its light is getting dimmer. Our ancestors from Earth would have hours of intense light from the star, and afterwards some hours of darkness, that were called “day” and “night”. Our star gives us practically no visible light anymore, only some heat and radiation. We have, as our ancestors would say, an eternal night.
I was already born on the eternal night, far away from this Earth.
I’m sitting here, observing a small glowing sphere floating above an energy-containing gauntlet. They say this sphere holds a “point of near-absolute gravity, containing the equivalent mass of a small planet”, and they call it an “igniter”. They gave me gauntlet with the igniter, and told me to keep it safe.
I observe the glowing light, not so different from our dying star when I look up.
They say they plan to use the igniter to, somehow, save us. I ask the crystal about how they plan to do it, and the answer is “the igniter will be placed inside our star, and when the containment matrix is turned off, the igniter will instantaneously collapse into a black star, generating a gravitational force so intense that it will attract all the remaining star mass and the surrounding hydrogen gas clouds, and will instantaneously explode, restarting the nuclear fusion and reigniting our star”.
I ask the crystal for a simpler explanation.
The answer is “they want to give us a new day”. The crystal then shows me what a day is really like: a blue sky, every place bathed by light, no darkness as far as the eye can see. Now that’s something that I understand and also can hope for.
I look up to the sky: some bright spots, our dying star among them, but mostly darkness.
They are still working on a way to place the igniter on the center of our star, but they have to keep it quiet, work on secret. They say that some people didn’t like the idea of reviving our star, and were strongly against the plan. Some of them even threatened to use violence.
I ask the crystal why are they doing this. The answer is that those people believe that we are not allowed to “interfere with the natural course of the universe”, and that the “will of the universe is absolute”. I don’t really understand why the universe has a “will” or if “it” has a “natural course”, but I think that people are just like that: they fear what they don’t understand. And some of them let this fear turn into anger and even into violence against those that do not fear the same things.
I’m afraid, too. But I want to understand what’s happening. My greatest fear is not about what the universe will do, but about the future of our people. And if we have a chance to survive, I’ll take that chance. And I’ll help them, keeping the igniter safe, away from the eyes of those who would rather throw the chance away.
I don’t really believe that the universe care about us. Hell, I don’t believe it cares about anything at all. We are the ones that should care. Or we will not be here for much longer.
I take off the gauntlet and place it in my bag, activating its standalone mode: it encases the igniter into a even stronger containment and makes it look like a ordinary copper ball, although much lighter. It protects me from the igniter, should the containment matrix fails, but more importantly it protects the igniter from falling on wrong hands. I must keep moving, and wait for their call. Our chance is safe with me, and I will fight for it if I need to.