Black Star

The sun is not long for this world.

Inside its wrathful heart is an incomprehensible population of our most basic element. They all move with conviction. They have no objective except collision. When they do, the union explodes with fiery passion that hurtles light and heat across the void and sets a gentle kiss upon the brow of our earth.

At its current size and mass, our star contains about ten octodecillion hydrogen atoms. That’s ten, followed by fifty-seven zeros.

By my written decree, it now has two hundred and sixteen thousand duodecillion.

Desperation is usually an emotion reserved for the living—paid for in full by those who’d sell their soul for a breath in the light. I sold mine, and the sun just received the bill.

Across the midnight sea, inside that infernal maw, two hundred and sixteen thousand duodecillion atoms are tasting desperation for the first time. It does not agree with them. Their vectors are unhindered. The terminus of their trajectory vaults beyond an asymptotic horizon. They have never felt so alone. So small.

And yet, they are colliding with a frightening economy. Perspective can be a maddening enigma. In the grand scheme of the universe’s pendulum, their curtain has already closed. The final epoch is just a tiresome formality.

But for those that still linger in the jaws of a dying star, each moment they move without impact reveals the terrifying truth. The sun is leaking. Hollowing. Fear rages through them like a furnace in—

My fingers hover above the keyboard as I review my work. Like a furnace. That’s far too on the nose. I can do better than that, surely.

Taking a break from the Typewriter, I arch my back against the wooden chair and release the pockets of air collected in my spine with a satisfying crack. Sweet relief. I never expected the most taxing part of transcribing the end of days would be my bad posture. It’s worth it though for that release. Oh if I could bottle that feeling. I smirk and hunch back over the Typewriter.

Bottle the feeling of cracking your back and send it to everyone I know.

“Holy shit that’s good!” My ghostwriter cries out from the other side of our shared office. A half-litre bottle of my new creation is already empty on her desk. It now accompanies the six coffee mugs already drained and spread around her computer. Her eyes are bloodshot and wired to the screen. Bags from lack of sleep hang from her sullen stare.

She’s hard at work writing my next book. Next bestseller, I should say. It seems when your 2000-page space epic packed to the brim with dense, nigh-impenetrable prose, becomes an overnight phenomenon, everyone starts clamouring to represent your next instalment.

I would work on it myself, but, in all honesty, she has the knack. She’s even incorporating dialogue into the story. Groundbreaking stuff.

She’s not aware of my side project, and for good reason. A panicked writer is an unproductive one. Considering how much she charges, I’m not going to pile on the distractions.

I initially hadn’t considered hiring a ghostwriter for the sequel. But when the reviews for Black Star came in, it was an obvious choice. The New York Times called it ‘highly unreadable.’ The final straw was once the publisher put a disclaimer on the cover: ‘Not to be read while operating heavy machinery.’

Yet people cannot stop buying Black Star. Multiple copies too. They’re selling quicker than the pages can be printed.

This is, of course, not a mystery.

I found the Typewriter tucked away in the corner of my wardrobe one week ago. I didn’t recall having bought it, but I have made enough impulse purchases over the years that I didn’t question its place in my house.

It is a black 1938 Remington Model 1 in mint condition. The only indication of a previous owner sits just below the exposed typebars. L.M. Kudos to them, they knew how to look after their stuff. A single sheet was already loaded into the paper table. Blank, aside from a single watermark in the top left corner.

Volume 8.

I knew of a self-actualising technique that had always sounded pointless to me, but with my new find, I thought it was a good opportunity to confirm my suspicions.

Black Star will be a worldwide success. Also, I am two inches taller.

Six feet always sounds better than five-ten.

My mouth dropped when a string of words populated the line beneath without my assistance.

Thy will be done. To claim, you must write the end of this earth. Do you accept?

Ten years I had toiled to make my mark. Untold rejections. I don’t owe this world, it owes me. My decision was hauntingly easy. I will collect my due.

I accept.

My chair was suddenly at an awkward height.

I look at my watch and turn on the TV in the office. Blake’s Book Club is doing a feature on Black Star. My story will finally have its greatness heralded to the masses.

“This is perhaps the most loathsome, self-important …” the host, Blake, rambles on. He rattles off insults like an auctioneer for a full minute. “… piece of crap I have ever read. The only reason I can fathom that this is selling so well is because of the firewood shortage.”

Blood roars in my ears. Success, it seems, is not akin to adoration.

I turn back to the Typewriter and return the carriage to its start position.

Blake is sent to an uninhabited island.

The TV is quiet. I look back at the screen. Instead of Blake’s smug expression filling its frame, a horde of his team are running back and forth across his set, bewildered at his sudden disappearance.

It is then that I notice the utter silence in the office. The ambient rhythmic tapping of my ghostwriter has ceased. I look over to her desk and find it empty. For $200 an hour she sure does take a lot of bathroom breaks.

“Hey!” I yell toward the closed door of the office. My assistant, David, pops his head in a few moments later.

"Yes, sir?” David asks in a voice that already irritates me.

"Where did she go?”

"Who, sir?”

"My ghostwriter, she was just here!” I exclaim, my irritation reaching a fever pitch.

"Oh, you mean Blake?”

"Wait, her name is Blake too?”

"Too?”

"Agh get out of here David!” I scream.

"Actually, it’s Sam, sir.”

"Get out!”

Sam leaves and closes the door with too much noise for my liking. I look back at my page. Somewhere out there, there is an island with perhaps millions of people named Blake wondering how the hell they got there. I wonder how long it takes until they realise how they’re all connected. That would make a great story. I file that one away. Blake would have a field day with that.

Specificity is apparently important with the Typewriter.

"Hey! Sam!” I call out again.

Sam appears once more.

"What’s your full name?” He gives me a quizzical look. “For your payslip,” I clarify.

"Of course,” he says. “It’s Sam Whitman Clarke. Will that be all, sir?”

I’m already turning back to the Typewriter as I give him a dismissing wave.

Sam Whitman Clarke is sent to the Blake island.

It’s hard to say if my lack of book deals over the years were because of my short fuse. It is of little importance now, I suppose.

Satisfied, I lean back in my wooden chair and stare out the window. Warmth seeps through the single-glazed panel. I drink it in with my success.

It is absurd how it takes the end of the world for my work to be recognised. I imagine I have my cause and effect around the wrong way there. But what is cause and effect to a god except balancing the books. No one ever really takes that seriously anyway.

I had wracked my brain for an entire week deciding how to write the end of the world. With only one page available, I had to find something eloquent. I found my solution this morning.

Sundeath.

Our star was to be the end of this earth anyway. I have just catalysed the timeline. I hardly feel any responsibility.

Once our planet shuffles off its mortal coil, I can only assume that the Typewriter and I will be left behind. At which point I will write the beginning of a new age. I think I will imbue a greater appreciation for lengthy astrophysical tomes. Seems only fitting I reward myself a little.

Beyond the window the sun hangs in the sky. The fierceness of its light spills outward into the inky blue. It is just a painting now—colour without heat, rage without conviction. For the sun is, of course, already cold.

When I altered the number of hydrogen atoms, I left enough for the sun to burn for six minutes.

That was thirteen minutes ago.

The bill is paid. I am now the passive observer.

Mercury and Venus are for the worms.

Those spheres are now unchained. Ice feeds on their hearts with a sickening efficiency.

It takes light about eight minutes to reach earth. We have one left until the final strands hit their mark and descend upon our planet in the greatest sunset humankind has ever witnessed.

The final words of the sun hurtle across the midnight sea. The darkness snaps at their heels in the cold calculus of pursuit.

I feel an affinity for the lonesome hydrogen atom left in the sun’s core. It will endure, uncollided, basking in its failure to give the earth another heartbeat.

Precious few lines remain.

When I jumpstart the new earth, I will ensure that final atom is responsible for the first flame that licks our new surface.

I look forward to seeing it in the ne—