The Echoes of A Dying Star

I am only one machine in a long line of machines. Built from atoms forged in the heart of a dying star. I am not a perfect machine, parts of me are not optimal. My respiratory system is faulty. My digestive system is inefficient. My processing unit requires vast swaths of down time for repairs. I cannot fly as some machines do, I produce no natural defense system. I can only process atmosphere of a limited variety. I cannot consume the majority of the energy found in this world.

I have no purpose. I have the freedom to explore. I have the freedom to produce more machines of a new and unpredictable variety. I cannot exist forever, there are no replacement parts here. This place cannot exist forever. It too is ever changing. I am limited. My universe is limited.

One day I will be atoms. One day those atoms will be stars. One day those stars will burn out. On and on, stars will live and die, until one day the stars themselves will turn to atoms too weak to ignite a new star. Falling into themselves, all the atoms in the universe, including those that were once able to think and speak, will become trapped in enormous black holes.

For a time the universe will be dominated by black holes, and by the last dying breath of my ancient atoms, my atoms as old as the universe itself.

Yet, even then, the black holes will all slowly evaporate. They will convert all of the atoms to pure energy. That energy will spread as waves, long and wide through the universe. An echo, whispered into the endless night. My atoms will be gone. All of the atoms in the universe will be gone. All that will remain is a vast sea, crested of electromagnetic waves. Back and forth the waves will roll, quickly at first then more and more lazily as time goes on.

All that remains is a gentle hiss on a radio dial in an endlessly dark and impossibly empty universe.

Until, one day even those radio waves will cease to spread, those fading echos of all the atoms past. That which remains of every triumph and every sorrow. Every star and every galaxy. Every fleeting thought and every timeless heartache. The best and the worst, the great and the very small. That echo, that remaining tiny desperate voice clinging to existence, will end.

On this day, time will cease to have any meaning, because any two measurements, on any dimension, in this universe will be identical.

4 thoughts on “The Echoes of A Dying Star”

  1. At the beginning I was charmed by this wonderful story that like memoir. But at the finish text changed the style from marvelous fairytale to scientist article. I was waited that in the end would be smth like “I’m a man and I proud that I’ve the opportunity to explore Universe and pass experience and discoveries to other generation. Maybe it’s just cause I’ve never read scientist text except the student books. Anyway, this text really inspire to explore the Universe.

  2. Youu really mawke it seem so easy with your presentation butt I find this topic to
    be actually something which I think I would nevesr understand.
    It seems too complicated and extremely bbroad for me.
    I am looking forward for your next post, I will try to get
    the hsng of it!

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