“We’re off!” Tara cried excitedly.
“At last we’re going home!”
There was a sudden bright flash of light. A huge
funnel formed below us and we fell downwards, spinning like spiders
swept into a plughole. We span faster and faster and I felt as though I
was being stretched like an elastic band. I held on tightly to Sparky
with one hand and griped one of the tubes with the other.
Enclosed in the bright yellow pyramid we floated in
cold dark space. As we span and turned I noticed one of the tubes was
glowing less brightly than the rest. It flickered momentarily and then
returned to full strength. Tara must have seen the tube flicker too,
because she shouted something to me. I saw her yellow lips move and her
anxious expression, but no words reached me – there was no sound at all.
I tried to shout a reply but again no sound came out from my mouth.
The tube flickered again and died completely. The
time machine spun violently and I cried out as I lost my grip on the
tube. Sparky burrowed his head into my T-shirt and put his paws over his
ears.
Suddenly, all of the tubes went out and we were
plunged into darkness. The only light came from the faint glow of the
computer screen. I glanced at the screen and saw the message Program
error. Divide by zero encountered. Automatic steering is now off.
Underneath the message I read the date. It said –150,000,000 years
and then quickly changed to -150,000,001 years.
“No!” I tried to yell. We were going the wrong way!
We were going backwards in time!”
As I looked at the date, hundred of years passed and
then thousands flicked by at an ever increasing rate. We watched the
screen in horror as the date spun backwards, taking us further and
further from home.
I looked up from the screen and noticed pinpoints of
light appeared all around us. Below us was a blue-green ball, spinning
rapidly with another smaller white ball whizzing round it. It looked
like the Earth and the Moon.
We shot upwards and away from the big blue-green ball
and saw the whole solar system before us. Nine shining planets circled
the sun, the inner ones flying round so fast they looked like coloured
rings. We moved away from the solar system until the planets disappeared
and only the sun remained. Then, it too became lost in a sea of
spiralling, swirling stars.
A message flashed onto the screen Warning. You are
now approaching the beginning of the universe.
Thousands of pinpoints of light surrounded us. They
swirled in complex and beautiful spiral patterns, all moving together
towards a central point.
Stars, I thought.
All the stars in all the galaxies were coming
together and I realised we were seeing the beginning of the universe. It
was the big bang, being played backwards. The spirals unwound and the
stars began to blink out. Now we could see to the edge of the universe,
a bright burning sphere rapidly falling in on itself. The sphere shrank
to the size of a football and then the size of a pea. Finally it was
gone completely. The universe was no more.
I felt terrified. I started out at the blankness of
space. There was absolutely nothing there. We had come back to time
before the universe existed.
A message flashed up on the computer screen If
automatic control fails the time machine can be operated on manual. Use
the arrow keys to move in the lower four dimensions and the shift key
and arrow keys to move in the higher four dimensions.
Tara looked at me questioningly. I reached out and
pressed one of the arrow keys. The time machine spun round wildly.
Patterns of colour appeared on the screen and changed
as I pressed the key. I pressed another one and the patterns vibrated
and shimmered.
Suddenly I noticed something happening outside. It
was getting brighter. The darkness of space had gone. A grey swirling
mist surrounded us. It grew brighter and we were soon engulfed in a sea
of brilliant white light. The light was intensely bright, but it did not
hurt my eyes, it felt soft and comforting and filled my whole body with
warmth.
A message flashed onto the screen Warning. You are
now approaching the beginning of the meta-universe! The brightness
increased and the light felt almost solid, as though I could reach out
and touch it with my fingers. Lines began to appear in the light, tiny
hairline cracks that spread outward from a central point. It was like a
solid sheet of glass that had been hit and was breaking into countless
tiny crystals, each a perfectly regular geometric shape. It was like a
crystal honeycomb, going on forever in all directions.
Inside the crystals I could see tiny points of light
and as I looked closer I realised what I was seeing. Stars! Inside each
of the crystals there were galaxies of stars. Each crystal was a whole
universe!
As I looked closer I could see more detail inside the
crystals. Then as I stared at one of the crystal universes it seemed to
become larger and I felt myself being pulled towards it. I could see
everything inside it so clearly that it was almost as if I was actually
inside the universe and surrounded by millions of stars. I flew towards
a spiral galaxy and then felt myself drawn towards a star at its outer
edges. I could see its nine planets glistening like brightly coloured
jewels. I recognised the green blue planet with its large white moon.
It was the earth!
I zoomed in closer and could see the village where we
lived. There on the beach was Tara, Sparky and myself, collecting
fossils. I could see the scene clearly now. I was kneeling on the rocks
with the hammer in my hand, about to break open a stone, and Tara was
sitting on the rocks beside me with Sparky on her lap.
But nothing moved. The scene was frozen. Everything
was still, even the waves in the sea, like glass.
Then suddenly my attention was pulled away from that
crystal universe and drawn to another. It was as though someone was
guiding me there, trying to show me something. The crystal universe I
was now looking at was almost the same as the other. Everything was
frozen too, but in this one my arm had moved, I had almost hit the stone
now.
Again I was drawn to another crystal universe. In
this one I had hit the stone and inside I could see a golden ammonite.
Once more I was drawn to another crystal universe. It
was exactly the same as the last one except that this time there was no
fossil inside.
“Now do you understand, Peter?” I could hear a
faint voice inside my head.
Understand? I felt so confused. What was I looking
at?
“Each of the crystal universes is a single frame
in a movie, a snapshot in time. But there isn’t just one movie, Peter,
there are an infinite number and each one is different. They show us
everything that has happened, everything that will happen and everything
that could happen.”
But why was everything frozen? I wondered.
“There no time in any of these universes, they are
completely still. It is you who creates time, Peter. It comes from your
mind. Your mind moves from one universe to the next and so makes things
seem to move. You choose our own path through the universes. You make
our own journey.”
The crystal universes began to fade and merge
together until only a brilliant pure white light remained. I do not know
how long Tara and I remained, bathed in that light, gently and softly
warmed and comforted by it. The light seemed to be full of goodness,
almost as if it were alive and aware of our presence.
“It’s all a dream, Peter. Everything that has
happened to you, you life so far, everything you thought was real. You
dreamed it all.”
I nodded. At last I understood.
I looked up at Tara and she smiled back at me with
wisdom and understanding in her eyes.
“Nothing is real except the light. We dreamed it
all.”
I glance down at the computer screen and saw that
another message had appeared Final warning. You are now approaching
the creation of the unified field.
The light had now become so bright that I could see
nothing else. The time machine disappeared, Tara faded away and my body
was absorbed into the sea of energy. I was losing myself, becoming a
tiny shrinking bubble in a sea of brilliant light.
At first I felt terrified. Nothing was real, I
realised. The world that I had believed in was a dream. I was not real
either, my thoughts and my feelings were all a dream too, a dream that
was shortly going to be washed away in the sea of light.
“Who am I?” I wondered. “What is this thing called
I?”
I knew I was going to die. I knew that the essence of
myself, that which I call I, was going to be destroyed in this light. I
tried to hold onto myself, to fight the waves of infinite light that
swept over me.
“There is no need to be afraid,” came the
gentle voice inside my mind. “Do not try to fight it.”
I gave up the struggle. How could a tiny bubble
struggle against an infinite ocean of light? I let the bubble burst.
It is difficult to explain what happened next. No
words can ever describe that experience. I did not die. I did not lose
myself. I did not lose any part of myself. Rather, I became the sea of
light. I became infinity. I became everything that was and is and will
be and could be. There was nothing that was not me. I felt so amazing,
so wonderful – words cannot express what it was like.
Then, in an instant, it was over and I was myself
again, looking out through my own eyes, feeling my own body again, but
forever changed by what had happened.
I looked at Tara. She gazed back at me and I knew
that she had experienced the same. I could see it in her eyes – they
shone with the pure light of peace, goodness and knowing.
I felt Sparky moving on my lap and glanced down at
him. His eyes were like Tara’s too, windows into the infinite ocean of
love.
We had all been changed. Forever changed.
