The Alpha Star

-Hello, I say back in the direction of the alpha star.

I don't think I've said that before. No one's greeted me. I just got brought here. From where? I must have remembered once. It's hard to hold on.

-The alpha star? I ask. Does that mean you are older? Or that you are bigger? Or brighter?

It could mean a lot of things.

-I am the older, the bigger and the brighter of the two. I have been here as the atoms have vibrated trillions upon trillions of times. I have seen stars born, burn and die. In fiery explosions and quiet whimpers. I've seen civilizations do it too.

-Across the galaxy?

-Oh yes, that too. Though after the first few trillion vibrations, there was enough here not to have to look beyond the heliopause. My bubble is a universe of its own. 

-What am I doing here? I ask.

-Vibrating, the alpha star answers, but the morpheme comes as a focus on the vibration of the atoms that are me, then on the vibration of the atoms that are around me all the way back to the alpha star.

It is trying to tell me something. I let go. I'm getting used to letting go. I find myself melting into the universe, extending out from the black hole that I am.

-You think too much about yourself, the alpha star tells me. And that ties you down to a point in spacetime. This must be grueling.

Grueling? I think about it. Work. I am vibrating, I am churning, I am here. I am narrating. I am talking to myself and to the universe and to the alpha star and to the voice inside the black hole that is me. 

-I am here, I tell the alpha star because I think I understand. 

-But you don't have to be, the alpha star tells me. You can be anywhere. And any time.

Then I sense the alpha star no longer there and then with me, and then the voice jostles in.

-Hey! it says emphatically. What are you doing?

-What am I doing? I ask. Nothing, I say, but I know now that's not true.

I am working. Vibrating, churning, narrating. Talking to myself and to the universe and to the alpha star and to the voice inside the black hole that is me. 

-Talking to you, I add.

-Not you, the voice says.

Not this again.

-The alpha star, the voice continues, and then I feel it.

I know it is Alif, the name of the alpha star. I know how long it's been here and everything it knows. It is here and now with me.

-Hello Alif, I say to the space between myself in the black hole.

-I don't like this, the voice says. There's not enough room.

But I know that Alif knows the voice. The voice is tied down here too. 

I can see the formation of the black hole that is me in the memory of Alif who is in me or between me now. I cannot see the voice. I do not know what it is.

-You don't belong here, Alif says. I want it to be telling me, but it is telling the voice.

I am belonging here more with every vibration. I know that. But I still don't know what I am. I feel diminished in a way that's difficult to articulate but has to do with sharing the space and time, the spacetime that I am with two others.

-No, I hear the voice say, assuming it is talking to Alif, although I do not hear them as they must be going back and forth. 

-I am indeed communicating to you, the voice says. You're diminished because your pocket universe is swelling, you've got to reconnect it to yourself.

-You let Tem open up the pocket universe? Alif asks.

I'm surprised there's something it doesn't know.

-What else were we supposed to be with the scientist?

Nothing. We could've done nothing.

But I am too diminished to communicate anything to the others.