“You talk to me as if I were born yesterday.”
“You were.” I grin.
“How can you know that?” You fold your arms.
“I was there.”
You snort, flustered by my stonewalling of your independent thoughts. Playing with your annoying little mind is a somewhat guilty pleasure of mine.
You try with reason again. “Why am I here?”
I consider this for a moment. “The universe ended.”
“Why are you here?” you ask.
“I live here.”
“Where is here?” You look around, realizing that “here” isn’t a very good description of your current location. You shrug your shoulders, finally content with solitude.
I look up into the melted mess of nothing, different shades of absence undulating slowly, like strands of tangled hair underwater. I am waiting for it to reassemble itself. It always does.
Having nothing better to do, I dip my hand up to my forearm in spacetimematterenergy. I like the feel of new universes when they begin to unfold, but the exciting parts go by so fast. So I always make sure to keep a little bit of reserve spacetimematterenergy, as a sort of comfort food. Even so, everything flies by in a blur of absolutely everything that ever existed.
It’s been only a few millennia since the last universe ended, and your tiny mind has already tired of the silence. You sniff, looking around — and then, realizing that there isn’t much to look around for, you pipe up again: “How did the universe end?”
I realize, bitterly, that there is no escaping your endless inquisition. “The same way it always does. Maximum entropy. Everything evaporates or gets eaten.”
“Eaten?” You puzzle over my words. Then you ask something new. “Are you God?”
“Only insofar as you are a giraffe.”
You frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
And then, hearing the word “giraffe” — finally, something familiar to you — you circle back around to the beginning of our conversation. “If I were born yesterday, then how do I remember Earth? And grilled cheese? And giraffes? And how do you remember giraffes?”
“You’re still a human. Just not a human who lives in the universe. We’re in spacetimematterenergy right now. It doesn’t really . . . exist.” I sigh. “It’s hard to explain exactly where we are in relation to anything else. But me, I remember the universe because I have been in all of them.”
You scrunch up your face, confused. “So there is more than one universe?”
“No. The same one, over and over again. The universe begins with maximum entropy, and then minimum entropy, and then giraffes and the cosmos and spacetime, and then maximum entropy again.”
“So . . .” You nod slowly, comprehension dawning. “When the universe ends in maximum entropy, the new one starts in the same state?”
“Exactly!” I grab a hunk of spacetimematterenergy and shove it into my mouth. I chew and swallow, the golden textures of infinity coating my throat. “I think some guy even came up with a name for it,” I say, with my mouth full. “Conformal Cyclic Cosmology. Roger Penrose.”
Now you sit quiet for a bit, temporarily satiated. I don’t think you can see spacetimematterenergy, but you know that I’m eating something. You put a hand to your stomach, as if wishing you could consume food vicariously. And, of course, you’re right back to bludgeoning my sanity with dim-witted observations.
“You’re not God,” you declare.
I look over at you. “And you’re not a giraffe.”
“You talk to me as if I were born yesterday.”
“You were.”
“You were.” I grin.
“How can you know that?” You fold your arms.
“I was there.”
You snort, flustered by my stonewalling of your independent thoughts. Playing with your annoying little mind is a somewhat guilty pleasure of mine.
You try with reason again. “Why am I here?”
I consider this for a moment. “The universe ended.”
“Why are you here?” you ask.
“I live here.”
“Where is here?” You look around, realizing that “here” isn’t a very good description of your current location. You shrug your shoulders, finally content with solitude.
I look up into the melted mess of nothing, different shades of absence undulating slowly, like strands of tangled hair underwater. I am waiting for it to reassemble itself. It always does.
Having nothing better to do, I dip my hand up to my forearm in spacetimematterenergy. I like the feel of new universes when they begin to unfold, but the exciting parts go by so fast. So I always make sure to keep a little bit of reserve spacetimematterenergy, as a sort of comfort food. Even so, everything flies by in a blur of absolutely everything that ever existed.
It’s been only a few millennia since the last universe ended, and your tiny mind has already tired of the silence. You sniff, looking around — and then, realizing that there isn’t much to look around for, you pipe up again: “How did the universe end?”
I realize, bitterly, that there is no escaping your endless inquisition. “The same way it always does. Maximum entropy. Everything evaporates or gets eaten.”
“Eaten?” You puzzle over my words. Then you ask something new. “Are you God?”
“Only insofar as you are a giraffe.”
You frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
And then, hearing the word “giraffe” — finally, something familiar to you — you circle back around to the beginning of our conversation. “If I were born yesterday, then how do I remember Earth? And grilled cheese? And giraffes? And how do you remember giraffes?”
“You’re still a human. Just not a human who lives in the universe. We’re in spacetimematterenergy right now. It doesn’t really . . . exist.” I sigh. “It’s hard to explain exactly where we are in relation to anything else. But me, I remember the universe because I have been in all of them.”
You scrunch up your face, confused. “So there is more than one universe?”
“No. The same one, over and over again. The universe begins with maximum entropy, and then minimum entropy, and then giraffes and the cosmos and spacetime, and then maximum entropy again.”
“So . . .” You nod slowly, comprehension dawning. “When the universe ends in maximum entropy, the new one starts in the same state?”
“Exactly!” I grab a hunk of spacetimematterenergy and shove it into my mouth. I chew and swallow, the golden textures of infinity coating my throat. “I think some guy even came up with a name for it,” I say, with my mouth full. “Conformal Cyclic Cosmology. Roger Penrose.”
Now you sit quiet for a bit, temporarily satiated. I don’t think you can see spacetimematterenergy, but you know that I’m eating something. You put a hand to your stomach, as if wishing you could consume food vicariously. And, of course, you’re right back to bludgeoning my sanity with dim-witted observations.
“You’re not God,” you declare.
I look over at you. “And you’re not a giraffe.”
“You talk to me as if I were born yesterday.”
“You were.”