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The Big Bang happened on a Thursday and it was an accident.
Thursday afternoon and it’s only me and Lucifer playing. The others are resting before we all get together this evening. He’s going to tell us about His plans for the black hole and He says He’s going to need our help.
I’m on fire. The universe had never looked so good. They’re all going down – red dwarfs, white giants, even binary stars and they’re the hardest to pot.
“Give me a break!” says Lucifer. He’s got a way with words, cracks me up sometimes. “Stop a minute, Mikey – there’s something I’ve got to ask you.”
Only one to go and I’ll have the perfect break but I stop; he’s usually worth listening to.
“Why do you think we can’t pot down that black hole? What’s so special about it?”
Lucifer’s the one who asks questions at meetings and you get the feeling he’s not always satisfied with the answers. The Boss says Lucifer keeps Him on His toes and that’s good.
“Dunno”, I say. “Does it matter? He knows what He’s doing.”
“Of course it matters. We’re supposed to help Him and we can’t do that properly if we don’t understand.”
I wasn’t really interested; I wanted to get on with the game. It wasn’t just about getting the perfect break - every game we played shaped the universe. When a star went down a black hole, you never knew where it would come up again or what it would look like. But they always did come back – in different places with different colours and shapes but they came back.
“I mean, Mikey, what’s the big deal about the cue star?”
Ah, the cue star! It’s bigger and more beautiful than the rest and when it hits another star the colours at the moment of impact are quite something. And it always runs true, perfectly weighted – it’s almost impossible to miss a shot.
Lucifer’s kneeling down, eyeing it up as if he’s going to pot the next star.
“It’s my shot,” I say. “C’mon, I’m only one away. We’ll talk after.”
So, I’m lining up for the last shot – not hard, a middle of the road ordinary yellow star – much like your own, in fact – into a black hole roughly in the middle of the Universe. I’m not even thinking about the shot, just anticipating telling everyone at the meeting about my perfect break.
But just before I connect, something knocks my arm. I hit the shot far too hard and at the wrong angle and the cue star cannons away in the direction of the forbidden black hole. I reach out but too late; it seems to gather speed as if it’s being sucked in. The black hole is definitely smaller than that cue star but it swallows it whole – I’d never seen anything like it before. There’s a massive explosion and then the black hole and my cue star disappear – winked out as if they’d never been.
Lucifer’s gone too. It must have been him that bumped me but there’s no sign of him anywhere. And I looked, I searched the heavens for him and the cue star.
He was very good about it at first. He never let on it was me which I’m grateful for. He cancelled the meeting, saying there had been a change of plans. I was really nervous. I knew I had to tell Him and I knew He’d know anyway but that didn’t make the telling any the easier.
“I can’t interfere directly now,” He said, “and that might be for the best. I think there will be life and I think a lot of it will be good but with Lucifer there it might not turn out that way. There are so many possibilities now.”
”What’s happened to Lucifer?” I asked. “I know it was my fault and I’m sorry but I’ve always rather liked him.”
“If you like him so much, do you want to go where he’s gone? I can arrange it.”
Each word burned in my brain and I knew that I had to make things right.
He asked me to write this down in the stars – your stars - but He told me to wait a while to see how things panned out.
So, I’ve seen your star, nothing much to write home about there, and I’ve seen your planet. Tiny but very beautiful – I’ve always liked blue.
He told me what to write and how to write it and He told me that by the time you could read it, you’d have developed enough to be able to cope with the knowledge. I hope He’s right. We all want to know why we’re here but to find out it’s as a result of a miscue could be pretty hard to take.
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