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Space. It’s vast and empty. At least, it used to be, but in one corner (or perhaps it was somewhere in the middle) something big was about to happen.
It started as a non-descript ball. That’s all I can say about it, because the main description about non-descript things is that they’re usually indescribable.
Besides. I wasn’t there first-hand to see it.
But the space around this non-descript ball is easy to describe because there was nothing in it. Just big, black, empty space. Quiet, ordered and logical. A bit like Finland, but quieter, and more ordered. It wasn’t logical though, because Finland hadn’t been created yet.
Then it all changed. That indescribable ball took care of that. An explosion with energy so vast and so violent that it created matter, and then dispersed it into every corner of that enormous space. Like cooking popcorn with the lid off the pan. It was quite a spectacle to watch, and indeed the bespeckled astrophysicists were amazed at the wonder of it.
Even the theoretical physicists looked up from their books, peering over their half-moon glasses to have a quick glance. It needed to be quick; they were busy creating a new branch of physics until one them pointed out they hadn’t actually yet evolved and therefore didn’t exist. There was a brief meeting where they got their knickers in a knot, but they finally concluded that since time also didn’t exist then the order of events didn’t matter. And besides, they may as well finish what they had started.
Then all the big-banging stopped and all the big bang scientists got mightily angry because they had to start again. But at least now everything was ordered and made sense. Like their drawers where they kept their pants and socks.
Now that time had been created – and much of it had been spent figuring out the sock drawer assembly instructions – the scientists wanted some time off. They had a look around and found a blue and white planet they fancied calling home.
The marketing department thought calling it “home” would be too ambiguous so they named it “Earth” which is what the indigenous gardeners called the muddy brown stuff they stuck sticks into and watched the sticks grow leaves along lines based on simple fractal geometry.
The astrobiologists among the settlers were so excited they grabbed handfuls of earth and threw it joyfully in the air, howling in delight as it fell like a rain of brown gold. When they’d finished soiling themselves, the party ended.
One of the meteorologists pointed out that the Earth may only have this brown colour because there wasn’t much light around. Pens and papers came out, and for one lucky sod, a torch. He wasn’t lucky for long because he couldn’t find the flimsy little plastic on and off switch. He thinks it even might have snapped off in his pocket.
By the time it was bright enough to see what they’d written, daylight had broken. Even though the mud was still brown, there were lots of other colours around, especially in the gardens where green photosynthesising leafy sticks had sprouted flowers reflecting all kinds of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation.
To top it all off, any previous hope of getting the flash light to switch on was vastly overshadowed by a bright ball hanging in the sky. It was quite possibly deadly with its nuclear fission, so they put on sunglasses and shorts and felt safe.
The planet Earth. It’s ordered and organised, but it’s a difficult ball to describe. The brown land is separated from the blue sea. The blue atmosphere is full of white clouds, and the white clouds turn grey and dark and leak onto the earthy land which makes the gardeners happy.
It all gets on together.
Well, it usually does. Just wait till the indigenous species wakes up in the mornings. Then it’s truly chaotic.
Paul Sterlini
About this Piece
Written as a 60-minute writing challenge (theme: chaos) with some minor edits.
I had the beginning and end of the story in my head, but I ended up taking a very different route between them than I expected at the beginning!
“Then there was Chaos” is just one of my 40 stories in Outburst! A Collection of Short Stories of Human Nature and Science.
