The Cygnus Virus

by Terry Zakreski

  Cygnus/Einstein pounds his fist on the table, and laughs.

  Anyvay, its presence in zee universe iz hugely important. Most of zee energy in zee universe iz in fact dark energy. It exerts a repulsive effect on zee celestial bodies. Vare gravity draws zem near, dark energy pushes zem away. Zee force exerted iz a cosmological constant. It’s also very very small.

  Einstein goes into fast-motion, writing a decimal point in chalk and filling all three chalkboards with digits.

  However, if it vere fractionally larger, zee universe vould have ripped apart before any galaxies, stars or planets could have formed. If it vere fractionally smaller, gravity vould have caused zee universe to collapse on itself in zee distant past.

  “I get it. Gravity sucks, dark matter blows. Are we going to get to the ending part soon?”

  Cygnus/Einstein puts his hands on his hips.

  Now, aren’t vee zee eager beaver. Vell, Herr Varga, zee ending part iz eizer a freeze, a vrip, or a crunsh.

  Cygnus/Einstein walks over to the side. There are three large levers labeled Big Freeze, Big Rip and Big Crunch.

  Now, vee all know zat zee universe iz shpreading itself out. In zee freeze, it keeps shpreading until entropy reaches a maximum and zer iz no energy left. Nothing but particles and shpent fuel. To quote Eliot, zee world ends in a vimper, not a bang.

  He squeezes the handbrake and pulls the lever labeled Big Freeze.

  Andron falls through a hole.

  Beethoven’s Ode to Joy thunders.

  Andron lives through the birth of the universe, the explosion of matter, the creation of galaxies. He sees the birth of stars, their lives, deaths and afterlives. He drifts through nebulae. He crashes into black holes, around white dwarfs, quasars and super novae. He rides comets and asteroids.

  To the very edge of everything.

  Then the crescendo in the Beatles’ A Day in the Life cuts in.

  He follows the universe as it fans out, breaks down into pieces, slows and then stops on the crescendo’s final note.

  Then he pops back in the black and white classroom, trying to catch his breath, like his head had just been held under water.

  In zee vrip, dark energy’s repulsive force vill cause zee universe to expand at an ever-increasing rate until it all tears apart.

  Cygnus/Einstein pulls the Big Rip lever.

  Andron flies through the wormhole again.

  Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird plays.

  He lives through the birth of the universe again but ends up hovering over Terra. He sees the planet’s birth, life and death. When the song accelerates, everything starts to fly apart with it until it’s all torn to pieces and blasts away.

  Andron pops back in the classroom, gasping for air.

  In zee crunsh, like a ball thrown in zee air, gravity vill eventually reclaims zee universe’s progress and reverse it until everything crunshes into a black hole.

  Cygnus/Einstein has his hands on his hips and his legs spread apart. He looks to one side and shuffles sideways. Then he looks the other way and changes direction. He stops in front of the lever, looks at Andron and waves.

  Auf wiedersehen, Herr Varga.

  He pulls the Crunch lever.

  Andron’s sucked through a hole again. He relives the birth of everything, its growth and expansion to the very edge. Then it reverses and he compresses with it, until he and everything else disappear into a pinhole.

  All to Ode to Joy, Free Bird and A Day in the Life mashed together in deafening sound.

  Then he pops out in his home.

  He tears off the helmet. He’s sweating, gasping for air and has tears running down his cheeks.

  “Fuck, Cygnus, that was a just little too fucking intense, eh.”

  Cygnus smiles.

  You’re velcome, dude. Why don’t you clean up and we’ll chill?

  Andron gets up for the washroom. He’s shaking. His heart’s racing. He blows his nose and splashes water on his face. He presses a towel against his eyelids.

  He returns to the Bridge still rattled.

  He wipes the sweat off on the inside of the TACHY and slips it on again.

  He flies through another hole and they are sitting at a table at a coffee shop with antique furniture.

  “Okay, I’m guessing you’re Friedrich Nietzche, minus the Eden Marks, of course.”

  “Very good, Andi-o.”

  “So where are we?”

  “Caffè Florian in the Plazza San Marco, Venizia 1884.”

  A waiter comes by.

  “Due caffè, per favore.”

  “I don’t recall you mentioning anything about there being a Venice game.”

  “I didn’t. It’s just a place gamers go to chill. Neutral territory, that sort of thing.”

  Andron notices Cygnus/Nietzsche’s mustache moves when he talks. The waiter returns with their espressos. They sip black sludge from tea party cups.

  “So which is it? Freeze, rip or crunch?”

  “None of them.”

  Andron drops his head and looks at Cygnus/Nietzsche.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, see the question has always been what came before the Big Bang? Scientists were finally able to prove that it was a previous universe. So imagine a yo-yo universe where cycles of Big Bangs and Big Crunches cause it to be born, expand, collapse and then be born again in an eternal recurrence.”

  “How were they able to prove that?”

  “They found traces of the previous universe or universes in the current one.”

  Cygnus/Nietzsche sips on his espresso and licks the corners of his mouth.

  “As you can imagine, Eternal Recurrence tremendously influenced the Weltanschauung on Earth.”

  “So everything repeats and we’re all stuck in an endless loop of mistakes and regret? Doesn’t sound like a very cheery worldview to me.”

  “It doesn’t have to repeat exactly the same way.”

  “So we don’t come back, what a relief.”

  “That’s not right, either. Dude, you need to open your mind. If it’s a process that repeats infinitely, then the unique set of circumstances that led to the birth of our galaxy, sun and planets will reoccur.”

  “I get it, it’s a stuck record, but we’re not playing.”

  “Dude, you’re not listening. If it all repeats, then so do the ingredients needed for life, for civilizations to rise, for our parents to meet, and for certain of their DNA to be exchanged. It infinitely reoccurs, in fact.”

  “Okay, we come back billions of years later. Wouldn’t the time between our reoccurrences make that rather meaningless?”

  “Not meaningless.”

  Cygnus/Nietzsche pauses to stroke his large mustache. His eyes narrow in thought.

  “Have you ever been on a long boring drive before, dude?”

  “Many times.”

  “Imagine you’re on one now. You’re between places. The road is empty and everything is flat.”

  “Driven that road many times.”

  “You pass by a sign that says how far your destination is. You look down at your speedometer, your fuel gauge, and over at your clock and then you do the calculus on how much time it will take you drive the rest of the way, and it’s like hours.”

  “Yup, exactly how it is.”

  “So you drive what seems to be a long time, then look down only to see that only minutes have gone by and a few kilometers have passed and it seems like the drive will take forever.”

  “I can picture it.”

  “But then you arrive and it doesn’t feel like it took so long after all, even though as you lived it, it dragged and dragged.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now take all those trips. All of them. Hold them in your mind. In fact, take every moment you have lived and hold that too. Now how many seconds long is your thought that holds all this time?”

  “The question doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s because you’re holding large blocks of time toget
her divorced from the present, from the now. It works the same with the future.”

  Cygnus/Nietzsche licks the corners of his mouth again. Looks at him with his piercing dark eyes.

  “Without now, there is no feeling of time. We only experience now because we have developed the perception of it as an evolutionary adaptation to the rotation of our planet and its journey around its star.”

  “I’ve never thought about the perception of time as an evolutionary adaptation before.”

  “Yes, only the living have a now. Without consciousness and with our bodies dismembered, there is no now. So while the time between our recurrences might be enormous, without being stuck in now, a millisecond, a year, a billion years — it’s all the same.

  Cygnus/Nietzsche smiles.

  “Look at me. I traveled for fifteen hundred years, and they went by just like that.”

  Cygnus/Nietzsche snaps his fingers.

  Andron snaps out of the alternate reality.

  He sees Cygnus’ pleading eyes and smile on the screen.

  So perhaps we will meet again, my friend. You know, next time around.

  “I hope so, Cyg. That was awesome. I learned a lot. Thanks.”

  Don’t mention it.

  “Now I’m dead tired. I think I’m going to turn in. Goodnight, Cyg.”

  Goodnight, dude.

  Andron puts his empty glass in the sink, turns the out the lights and readies for bed.

  He feels opened by his conversations with Cygnus as Einstein and Nietzsche, and the alternate realities to which the TACHY has exposed him.

  He has the music from the night reverberating in his head.

  His bedroom has a skylight that he’s looking through. It’s dim but it gives him a view of the stars. He imagines Cygnus’ planet up there, and others like it. He feels part of it all.

  He sees the constellation he and Astrid looked at so long ago and yet so near.

  The same fucking stars.

  He falls into a deeper state.

  He’s in a subsequent universe.

  He’s back at the Starchild Bar & Grill with Astrid. He picks up the ring. Only this time, the echo from his former life tells him what to do just as the meteorite strikes.

  Instead of pushing back, he lurches forward and tackles Astrid to the ground, saving them both from its destructive path.

  With her safely beneath him and chaos around them, he kisses her more fully than ever.

  Their kisses cross a void and reach us.

  More fully than ever.

  There’s no need for a ring after all. They are bound by something greater than gravity, dark matter, and time.

  Their baskets are full of it, in fact.

  He hears hospital beeping and breathing apparatuses.

  …look, his eyes are open…

  …can you hear me sir?…

  …what did he say?…

  …I thought it sounded like Astrid…

  ……we’re losing him.

  The crescendo echoes its last note.

  Its one, perfect, final note.

  Acknowledgments

  Carl Jung: “Hitler on the Couch” (Omnibook Magazine, 1942), http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/carl_jung_studied_hitler#.VzUjusc0k9c, was my source for Jung’s ideas about Hitler.

  I am deeply indebted to all who helped me with this book. I am especially indebted to my editors in chief, Dan Zakreski and Val Nicholson. Dan, for putting me through writer’s boot camp and being my spirit animal and Val, for putting up a valiant defence of the English language and her usual erudite comments. They made me feel as though I submitted my feeble writing to a race of superior, benevolent and mirthful beings.

  The cover art and layout was provided by bookstylings.com. A special shout out to Nikki and Meredith. I highly recommend their services. Thanks also goes out to Stephanie Gleisberg and her mother, Andrea, who helped with the editing and German-checking. Thanks also to Sonya Lalli for her early encouragement.

  I dedicate this book to the women in my life. To my Mother, Elaine, who instilled in me enough of her moxie to dare something like this. To my sisters, Laurie and Lynn, who always support me. To my wife, Cynthia, who is the glue that holds everything together. My mother-in-law, May, who inspired Ruth. And, especially, to my daughter, Ali, whose love of books exceeds my own.