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Death Without A Soul And The Spacetime Between Us
By S.G. Greene
Art by Layne Hunt

        Something’s happened. Something’s happening.
        Sweat beads on your face as the controlling drum of your heart hammers away inside your chest. Just seconds before, reality seemed within your control—the sandwich in your hand was the main goal and the last half of the day was all that was ahead. A night of work, dinner, and maybe a movie or show to cap before you fall asleep in anticipation of doing it all again the next day. Earth dances on its axis as it revolves around the shortest and most convenient path around our local star. [1] The temporal illusion continues as you twist into the night. But now, your brain is firing so rapidly you cannot think. Are you having a heart attack? A stroke? Are you choking on the cheap bologna sandwich you lazily made yourself when you woke up? To choke on three dollars of low effort food would be the ultimate irony of a life not fully lived. Across the creek, at rest with you in the same local reference frame, the love of your life has emerged. For a moment, your time is atomically synced with theirs. A soggy piece of mayo-ridden bread drops from your slack-jawed mouth. They have locked eyes with you. Panic seizes you! Of all days, bologna! The memory of you deciding to leave the rest of your porterhouse steak and seasoned wedge potatoes for dinner later that night screams at your consciousness. Damn fool! What person would be attracted to mayo-ridden white bread and questionable meat? You toast your poorly timed sandwich to the person across the creek and, to your surprise, they toast a mayo-dipped corn dog back. Your eyes dilate. Madness rushes in.

​

        Something’s happening. Something’s happened.
        Out beyond the influence of Earth’s gravitational field, time speeds up. In an existence
where Earth has not yet split its supercontinent into seven, a main-sequence star fuses hydrogen to helium in a dance of cosmic equilibrium. [2] Though this star is unaware of its existence, it is winning against the crushing force of gravity. Thermal energy radiates out from its fusing core and pushes against the will of the greater universe. [3] It is the ultimate need to survive happening entirely by physical circumstance. Indifferent to the fact that no planets orbit its might, the star floats through space in tandem with the galactic flow of its neighbors. Across the empty silence, something wanders through. Uncaring and unaware because it is a star, it does nothing. After a long journey through the galactic plane, the beaming little traveler finally finds the willing embrace of another object. Unbeknownst to the Main-Sequence star, one of the most furious things in the universe has altered its orbit. The two do not exchange words or gestures and there is no animosity projected from one to the other. The Main-Sequence star does not care that something called the Pauli Exclusion Principle is directly responsible for causing something called “degeneracy pressure,” which in turn keeps the little diabolical corpse from imploding through the universe itself. [4] It does not know that the little radio pulsar wandering into its gravitational influence is the equivalent of a radioactive nuclear zombie that’s on fire wandering into Grandpa Lou’s annual Christmas party. It does not know that one day it will find another main-sequence star and prey on its energy to topple its Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff Limit. [5] They both are indifferent to their futures because they are stars. All is well. All is normal.

​

        Something’s happened. Something’s happening.
        Just as the Main-Sequence and Radio Pulsar do not know of their own existences, you do
not know of theirs. All you see is the human before you. All you feel is the spacetime between. Your fingers interlock and you feel the sensation of being intimate and close. Being any closer would make you and them a star. No matter how hard you try, no matter how hard you press into one another, kissing their neck, their chest, their groin, you cannot fuse your soul into theirs. Skin rubs against skin. Sweat drips from your face to theirs and theirs to yours. Your hearts beat madly in unison and your nerves flare like a cosmic display. To a being that could see wavelengths in the infrared spectrum, you’re both but red-orange silhouettes of energy trying to merge into one. But because your bodies cannot fuse so that your minds inhabit the same plane, you manifest a version of them in your head. Your inner selves align. When sitting alongside the creek eating your sad sandwich, you had never considered your place in the universe. Your life was a series of repetitive steps leading toward the inevitable. But then something awoke inside you. The world around became dismally apparent and then it struck you; what does it mean to be alive? Why are Earth and Sun not considered alive? The universe was not made as a playground for you to inhabit, you are just a product of cosmic happenstance. All things are born from energy. To be human is to know what this means. The sun cannot feel the electromagnetic radiation it emits, just as you cannot fuse with your love to create a singular entity. You stare into the eyes of the one who broke you free; a mortal being whose essence was forged in the same star as yours. Together, you are the afterlife of a star gone supernova, reunited in a gravity well that bore your existence. You both breathe the atmosphere like newborns struggling for their first breaths. Gazing into one another’s eyes with a sort of clarity no other thing could comprehend. You picture yourself crawling out from the surface of the sun; born from a flare, the universe as Man but for the blink of the eye.

 

      Something’s happening. Something’s happened.
      As fast as it came, the Radio Pulsar accelerated away from the Main-Sequence.Two polar jets exploding from its poles flicker a message into the eternal night beyond. [6] For the Main-Sequence, it’s not long before the little devil is but a blinking speck lost among the glare of its cosmic neighbors. To many curious eyes and feelers, the pulsar will be a discernable message necessitating interpretation. [7] For the Main-Sequence, it would have been a fundamentally different future. The glaring radio beams are the cosmic equivalent of a relationship red flag. Even though they spin into the distance, the consequences of their brief interaction are irreversible.Through a slight perturbation in its elliptical orbit around the unknown host, its fate has been set. Another meeting is in motion. Had the Main-Sequence paired with the Pulsar, it might have had a better chance, whatever that might mean from a cosmic perspective. To keep its core burning? To keep fusing? To swell and collapse, only to explode into a spectacular fertile event? As it reaches apoapsis around the entity in which it is in orbit around, it joins its close neighbors in their uniform swing back toward the invisible apparition. They are linked. Less than a light year “down” its path, through the field of blazing jewel oases of the galactic center in which they reside, X-rays flicker off the horizon of a cosmic antichrist. [8] Its hunger
grows.

​

      Something’s happened. Something’s happening.
      Ahead of you, your loved one runs away in a playful dance. Their hair blossoms in the wind as they lay their arms out to feel Earth’s tickling embrace. You’ve never consumed alcohol, yet you feel intoxicated. Your body feels at once dense as steel and as weak as bologna. You run after them, afraid that they will soon be too far away for you to feel. Laughter fills the air as the long grass around you sways in the midday sun. You take their hand and together you spin, watching the cloud and sky swirl round and round. Something fills the space unseen; a frame of reference only the two of you could understand. All time is irrelevant. It is neither moving forward nor backward nor standing still. Millions upon millions of souls who reside in the same gravity well die every second. Millions fall in love. Millions grow old. Millions are born. Millions grow bored. Millions simply watch the night sky in total disbelief, growing restless fighting between curiosity and envy. The two of you rise above the planet, hand in hand, and twist into the night sky. The universe has no power in the reference frame of the human mind. You lie next to them and do something that the universe could never: imagine the future, the possibilities, the potential and best of all, new life to love. With a mindful twist of your body, you bend to the susurrating grass and pluck one of the fibers from Earth. With great care and focus, you twist it into a ring and hold it high for the wind to kiss. Your loved one’s eyes open wide enough for the galaxy to spill in. You slip the earthen ring around their finger; it rains diamonds on other worlds, but not wood or grass; you are sure they are unique to home. With the knot tied, the future is set.

​

      Something’s happened. Something’s happening.
      If the Main-Sequence weren’t a star, it might have begun to panic. Something was off,
its field of view slightly different. Periapsis approaches. But with what? Bright flashes give away the looming beast’s presence. They are different from the Radio Pulsar’s morse—more random and indifferent to the universe beyond. The dark madness that is pulling the Main- Sequence in stalks the cosmic night, bending the light of the background stars around its perfectly smooth horizon. For the first time since its violent birth, the Main-Sequence feels its equilibrium being tested. A force it has never felt in its two-billion-year life tugs at its approaching face. The great entity is spinning. It uses its ungodly existence to claw at the Main-Sequence through the very fabric of spacetime. To the other stars in the galactic center, their sibling dims. Its light shifts as its essence is pulled around the horizon. Time begins to slow—the greater galaxy moves faster and faster through time as the Main-Sequence moves slower. With mass comes the burden of time. [9] A tendril of matter snakes from the facing surface of the Main-Sequence It spills around one end of the Black Hole’s event horizon. It has entered its ergosphere—a point of no return. There is nothing in the universe that can stop the events unfolding, yet the Main-Sequence fights as if it can best the fundamentals of the universe. Cosmic equilibrium gives way to tidal disruption. The star is pushed and squeezed as its mass begins to accrete around the event horizon. Somewhere within, the jaws of something unimaginable pull at the mass as if it were starved of matter. The tendril of gas whips around
the horizon of the black prison, exploding all its light to the opposite side. [10] With the blinding flash of tens of trillions of Suns, a ring is formed. [11] The bind is set. The demon is alive and feasting. Slow matter rubs against fast matter, and it falls inside in a grand display of law and power. The remains of the sun are whipped far into space into a future from which it had been briefly lost. [12] The Antichrist screams forth two magnetic beams of indescribable power in an act of indifferent hubris and bravado for all the universe to see. With the knot tied, the future is set.

      A calamity has come.
      A calamity is coming.
      With the booming force of the universe channeled through your organic vessel, your heart
thunders with apoplectic fear. You can feel every tendril in your body, every fighting cell. Your knees are at risk of shattering from weakness, yet something is keeping you moving along. The glare is blinding. You squint as you pass under light after light down a hall that seems to never end. Your irises dilate, letting all the spectrum in as the radiation encircles the horizon of your eyes. There seems to not be enough air to breathe yet you manage to drink it in. There are other people running around you, indifferent to your presence. You are there but not there. All focus is upon the pale husk of a human whose clammy hand has never slipped from the indestructible grip of your own. The gurney drifts at a hard right angle into a room that seems even brighter. Figures resembling humans run about the room in a hurry. They are a blur, operating outside the influence of your own gravitational pull. For you, time moves faster. The fabric seems to be slipping through your fingers as they gain viscosity. You touch the hand of the one you love. There is no heat. Their skin grows cold. You feel other arms and hands pulling you away, but there is no budging you. You feel something they cannot feel. You see something they cannot see. You stare into the radiating lights of the operating room and all light begins to bend to your will.
      You know where they are.
      You know where they are going.
      With a trembling roar of agony, you feel the Calamity at the other end of the universe. In
a single bound, you disappear into the void through a visceral tunnel of space and time. Tears stream down your face as all the universe bends before you in a singular circle of light and matter. [13] A spiral galaxy appears, and you see its horrible taunting beams of insurmountable power. Dust gives way and stars bend round your all-seeing hemisphere. Within a second, the universe snaps back into position. Everything you’ve known has been lost entirely. Before you, the Calamity awaits in stubborn silence. You skim along its accretion plane and feel your very soul begin to stretch. A glaring ring of fire burns along the black sphere’s silhouette as light from behind is bent around. Fear nearly takes you whole.
      You find a hand in the blinding light.
      Two solemn eyes stare into yours.
      You have found them.
      You squeeze hold of the departing hand as the two of you slide closer to the black horizon
of purgatory. You stare into their eyes, uncaring of the spherical nightmare pulling you in. Your bodies begin to stretch. You see their legs grow thin along the boundaries of nothing and everything, and everything and nothing. The black curve of an unknown dimension of space spills around the horizon on one side of you and on the other the universe bends with the spin of time. You see them shed a tear and shake their head no. The grip of their hand loosens, and they gently slip free.

       “Don’t!” you scream, but your voice carries away in a screaming pitch. [14]
      A gentle look settles on their face as their body is pulled. Their being begins to shift away to the red. They see the anguish in your eyes and spread their arms wide for one last distant embrace. Their mouth opens as they recede into the darkness. A song graces your ears as its very essence is slowly redshifted from existence; the loving voice you once knew slowly becomes demonic and baritone. [15]
M.a.y.b.e...y..o..u’ll...t..h..i..n..k...o...f....m.e...w...h....e...
.n...y.....o.....u.... .a.....r.....e......a......l......l.......a.........l.........o....... .n.........e...............

​

      They are frozen. Time stops. You feel the pull. You feel the crashing of your heart hundreds of millions of light years away. Four pairs of hands seize your thrashing body and force you to the ground as the monitor chimes a monotonous tone. Your old body feels young again as the adrenaline pumps from the glands to the heart. A needle plunges into your neck and you feel suddenly very calm. Your bygone mind relaxes against the floor as a warm cloth is laid across your forehead. Your heart beats once and, from across the gulf of space and time, you feel it beat once more. The face of the one you loved is frozen in your head at the precipice of unknowing eternity.[16]
      There they remain.

 

​

[1] Thorne, Kip. Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy (Commonwealth Fund Book Program). W. W. Norton & Company, 1995, p. 551.​
[2]2 Ibid., p. 37. ​

[3] Begelman, Mitchell, and Martin Rees. Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black holes in the Universe, 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2021, p. 24.

[4] Thorne, Kip. Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy (Commonwealth Fund Book Program). W. W. Norton & Company, 1995, p. 21.

[5] Ibid., pp. 193-196

[6] Begelman, Mitchell, and Martin Rees. Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe, 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2021, p. 44.

[7] Thorne, Kip. Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy (Commonwealth Fund Book Program). W. W. Norton & Company, 1995, p. 42.

[8] Begelman, Mitchell, and Martin Rees. Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black Holes in the Universe, 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2021, p. 59

[9] Thorne, Kip. Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy (Commonwealth Fund Book Program). W. W. Norton & Company, 1995, p. 100. 

[10] Ibid., p. 549.

[11] Begelman, Mitchell, and Martin Rees. Gravity’s Fatal Attraction: Black holes in the Universe, 3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2021, p. 59-60.

[12]Thorne, Kip. Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy (Commonwealth Fund Book Program). WW Norton & Company, 1995, p. 100.

[13] Ibid., p. 42.

[14] Ibid., pp. 100-104; 556. 

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid., p. 42

QUENTIN PARKER, at the time of submitting this piece, studied Creative Writing at Salisbury University. Quentin lived in Bowie, Maryland, and attended college in Salisbury, Maryland. Quentin worked as a fiction editor and a creative nonfiction associate editor in Salisbury University’s literary magazine, The Scarab.

 

JONATHAN SLINGER grew up in Boulder and competed in alpine ski racing before dabbling in other sports, including big wall climbing and ski mountaineering. He was currently volunteering as an adaptive ski instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled at Winter Park, Colorado when he submitted this photo.

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