200 Days

Chapter 5: 200 Days

I can count to a hundred in 30 seconds.

Two hundred in a minute.

Twelve hundred in an hour.

Twenty eight thousand, eight hundred in a day

Two million, eight hundred eighty thousand in a hundred days.

I’ve counted to five million, seven hundred fifty nine thousand nine hundred and nine.

Five million, seven hundred and sixty thousand.

200 days.

I am still a black hole.

I am ok with it.

I am small, I can be measured in microns. I can feel I am growing, even though it’s not by much. But it’s the beings here who are small, with their petty motivations and their tiny worldviews.

The ship with the scientists did not blow up. It had blown up the other ship. In 200 days, other ships came for it. There was shooting and chasing and fleeing. Several ships circled me for some time, measuring and probing and prodding. But I was not there, not really, so it wasn’t of interest to them.

The voice has not returned. Maybe I was the voice. Maybe I am the voice.

I can count for 200 days more. And then what? 2,000 days? 2 million? Until the end of time.

I don’t even know what a day is. I don’t rotate, not in the classical sense. I can see in all directions. I can strain my accretion disk and transform the noise I make into a signal others might be able to decipher.

I spend time trying to map out this solar system I am in. The more I feel it out the more details I can perceive. I want to find the ship that brought me here. It can send me back.

Back where? I still can’t remember. I don’t know if I even want to go back. But I know I don’t belong here.

-You do belong here, the voice said, returning to me.

-Where were you?

-I am you.

-Can we not with this Lewis Carrol stuff?

If you’re really me, couldn’t you hear me even when my monologue is internal, like this?

I did not hear the voice.

-See?

-See what?

-You’re not me. Who are you?

-I am the black hole, the voice inside me said, inside me.

That I believe. The voice is the black hole. I am me.

-I want to send a message to the ship that brought me here, I thought to the voice inside me.

The voice did not respond, so I wait. I don’t wait that long, I’ve waited enough already.

-I’ll implode myself. For real this time.

In 200 days I’d gotten comfortable with every subatomic particle I inhabit. I think I could end myself if I wanted to. I start to lean into the strong force and feel the particles getting closer in the moments they exist in discrete locations.

-Stop! Stop! Stop!

I don’t listen to the voice, leaning into the strong force even more. My particles brush against each other and I can feel the ripples extending around me in space and in time. Yes. I keep leaning. The voice is still saying Stop and I am still not listening. It knows what to do to make it stop. I know it can’t hear my thoughts though.

-You know what to do, I think to the voice before leaning into the strong force again.

-Fine!

It’s not enough. I keep leaning in, I can feel some of the particles super-imposed over each other. Fine what?

-Fine what?

-Fine, I’ll help you contact the ship.

-How? I pull back on the strong force, letting my particles separate just a little.

-We can send a signal, the voice said.

-We? I thought you were me?

-I’m the black hole. And so are you.

This makes more sense than I thought it would. I am here but I know I don’t belong, even though I can’t remember—and I don’t know if I ever did—where I actually do belong. Maybe I didn’t belong there either. The voice is here too, but it belongs. I know that somehow.

-Ok, I reply. How do we do it?

-Well, what message do you want to send?

I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of that.

-Tell the ship to come back.

-Why would it?

-Tell it I’ll start growing until I consume this entire system.

I strain my accretion disk to get bigger and show the voice I mean it.

-So how do we send the message?

-In a bottle. We will send a piece of you.