How It Began by Chris Impey

Author:Chris Impey
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2012-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

PART III

ALIEN

11

BIG BANG

THE FOG AROUND ME GLOWS A DULL VERMILION. It’s hot enough to melt steel but the color makes the plasma seem cool. It’s disorienting not to be able to tell the difference between up and down or in and out. I have the vague sense that the fog is steadily thinning, but if there’s any motion it’s almost imperceptible.

Something remarkable is happening. The glow around me is sliding toward a deeper and richer color, something like dried blood. Meanwhile the texture of the light is changing. I sense diminishing opacity, and a shift from translucence to transparency. The effect is subtle; no objects appear out of the mist because there are no objects to appear. The light is sharper. Distances seem greater. I’m no longer inside a cocoon. It seems like I’m suspended inside the invisible lattice of an endless ruby.

This is the infant universe. Around me electrons have paired off with protons and shimmering plasma has turned into mundane gas. Light is no longer the servant of matter. It moves through space unimpeded, affected only by the unfolding of space. As the waves stretch beyond my ability to detect and comprehend them, I’m slightly sad. The universe is fading to black. Before the color slides off the end of the rainbow and disappears I want to tell someone about it, but there’s no one to tell.

I wonder: If nobody is there to see it, does this amazing quality of redness have any meaning? And if the scene around me is a dream, is the dream shared by anyone else?

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