Lambent Allied Bodies

I.

It had been times and times in the making, unavoidable really, and the latest technological advancements had offered no different outcome than the earliest clay-drawn calculus had posited.

The Earth, the whole Milky Way Galaxy really, was going to be swallowed by a giant black hole.

Soon.

We will call the Black Hole Marvin because that’s the name given to it by the LAB in honor of Marvin Kazadi, the Congolese janitor that in the sixties allegedly calculated the Fundamental Variant during one of his late-night shifts.

His proof had stumped all of twelve properly qualified scientists working for LAB at the time, definitively demonstrating both the existence of the black hole and its pull on the Milky Way Galaxy.

In an ever-expanding laboratory, secretly built under tons of rocks somewhere in the Far East, that’s where humanity definitively came to know the approximate date of its extinction, a small group of hand-picked geniuses and a janitor the only witnesses. 

They would later often remark how that had to be the worst breakfast news in the history of Ever.

There are still those who claim it all a legend, of course.

In the following years, people would often say how the mathematical proof had to have taken more than one single night and, many whispered, more than just one janitor. 

Even so, Marvin Kazady story endured, and so did the Black Hole’s name. 

II.

Marvin -the hole- had probably been there a while, long before the Milky Way Galaxy’s spinning shifts had brought the two in range. When they finally did saw each other though, the pull had been undeniable.

The Galaxy had tried to resist, as proper galaxies do, conscious of their duty and aim. 

(They also had their date with the Andromeda galaxy some-time in the future and didn’t want to be late, it was sure to be a big bang, after all.)

Alas, as these things go, Milky way could not stop shifting any more than Marvin could stop smoldering. That’s how they came close enough to really start falling for each other.

In the beginning, the pull had been barely perceptible, nothing more than a hey-friend I-see-you nod from afar.

With time it had become more.

Parts of Milky Way had started to shift and expand in unusual ways to accommodate the new presence at their periphery. 

So that’s what friendship means, they had thought.

They had started noticing him more, obsessing over him, wanting to be closer to him, all the while knowing, knowing from their very center, how bad it could end for them.

A fatal attraction, if they ever saw one.

But haven’t we all experienced something like this, sooner or later? Don’t we all hope to experience something like this, if we have not?

The serendipity of glancing up from our daily routine and oh, there you are, it is you I’ve been waiting for.

Who cares how bad for us they are, the pull it’s there. It feels like destiny.

III.

Destiny can be a toxic bitch, that’s for sure.

Nguyet had always known her destiny would bring her close to the stars, her father had known before anyone else.

‘From the moon’, that’s what he had named her, as he had never tired of repeating to whoever made the mistake of asking.

That name and her father, that’s why there had been no doubt in her mind when LAB had approached her, fresh of doctorate. 

Nguyet had no idea her stars would be miles below the Earth’s surface, and light-years from what she considered basic civility.

As the only female researcher in the LAB, her opinion was ofter discounted. No matter how relevant her qualifications, how respectful her tone, how level-headed her assessments. 

No matter that it was almost the nineties!

It was a common occurrence to be interrupted mid-sentence and dismissed with a metaphorical -but sometimes physical, ugh- pat on the head.

Today, it was shaping to be an uncommon day.

Her male colleagues were completely focused on her words, thirsty for details

“What was it? What did you just say?”

‘It’, in fact, was a slight shift in Neptune’s axis and a deviation of its solar orbit, due to Marvins’ increasing pull on the tailspin of the galaxy.

That she had been the one to calculate it and bring the news to everybody’s attention was promptly dismissed, as all the proper male scientists in the cafeteria abandoned the ruins of their breakfast without a thought.

Maybe not so uncommon a day, after all. 

Her nose was itching, so she knew she was irritated. Men!

“ Depending on..?” 

Marvin -the janitor- broke the silence and prompted her to speak from the other side of the cafeteria, while fighting entropy in his practiced way.

“Well, depending on how much the Milky Way will shift to accommodate the pull. But we will know more in a couple of decades.” 

She shrugged self-deprecating and lifted the corner of her mouth in an almost-smile.

“ My dear girl,” he said, and she wasn’t offended. 

He reminded her of her dad when he called her ‘my dear girl’. 

“Things seem to always follow this pace around here, don’t they? A couple decades here, a couple there.” He got lost in his musings for a couple of seconds.

“A couple decades you say. Well, I won’t be here to see it, I don’t think, but you… It’s a lot of time to spend under this rock, buried under your math and surrounded by, well… It’s a lot of time, girl, think about it. Almost no time at all, considering what we know.”

He was right of course, it was a lot of time. 

Destiny could be a thieving bastard.

IV.

Milky Way had started to change almost without knowing. 

It had begun the first time they noticed noticing Marvin -even though they didn’t know that was his name yet, and would not know for a while still-.

It was strange, feeling a pull for an unknown entity, something they didn’t think they had ever experienced before.

It had started with small things, as it often does.

Trying to keep him in their sight, always.

Knowing exactly where he was at any given time. They would swear, it was uncanny how he had this sort of ‘presence’ to him.

Starting to move towards him, wanting to be noticed, but not like the Others. Never like the others.

Because, you see, Marvin was popular.

Extremely popular. His magnetism was incredible. 

Every-body wanted to be close, interact with him, be noticed. He was circled constantly and Milky Way knew they had to do something special to stand out from the Masses.

At the same time, they could see how Marvin, surrounded by all the attention, bored by all the attention, would need to be challenged for his interest to be aroused.

That’s when they really started to change when they decided to resist his pull, make it so to be visible only some of the time, while other times keeping hidden on the far side of some-body else. 

Always keeping him in sight, always feeling his pull, always in his range but not quite.

Granted, it was not easy. 

It had taken the best part of a Time to push and prop themselves ‘just so’, and keeping a straight head around him was harder and harder. 

Milky Way wasn’t about to give up though, they knew how to keep his interest high, after all, they had some experience.

It was another Time before Marvin gave any sign of interest.

Bodies had come and gone, attracted for a hot second but never able to keep up with him, and during all of that Milky way had kept their lazy spin, never too far, never too close. One eye open to survey the situation, but out of Marvin’s sight most of the time.

Until, finally, they were formally introduced.

V.

Alex luxuriated in this kind of kisses, it was the best part of his mornings -and afternoons, and evenings-. 

Not that he was an ungrateful-lazy-brat. Not at all. He worked hard, harder than almost anyone there at LAB! 

Ungrateful. Lazy. Brat.

His mother always said it like that, ungratefullazybrat, all in one breath, when she wanted him to study longer, practice harder, be more appreciative of everything, anything he had.

She said it frowning and smiling at the same time, Alex had never seen anyone able to make quite the same expression. 

Except maybe Grandpa Marvin, his was even better than hers, and the only one his mother heeled to.

His grandfather knew Alex was fast, faster than his friends most of the time. He knew Alex studied more than anyone, even if it wasn’t always for his lessons, that wake up at night to watch the stars and solve equations far above his age.

His grandfather knew he was appreciative of everything, any single opportunity his family had given him, that’s why he had brought him to LAB the moment a research position had been available.

“Ungratefullazybrat” Nguyet breathed on his neck between light bites. It sounded nothing like his mothers’, still, he really should learn to keep some secrets.

“I hope your work is not at a critical stage, because I need you today”.

Watching the floor numbers roll lower and lower on the main elevator’s screen, Alex reflected on his good fortune and sent a prayer and his thanks to grandpa Marvin.

She would work him to the bone that day -that month, if their joined trial gave viable results- but it would be worth it. 

The milky Way’s trajectory projection data had started presenting more and more peculiar results these past years and now, as current Department Head, Nguyet was the one to follow the ‘Marvin project’, as they affectionately called it around the LAB.

Months ago, when a random progress check-in had given unexpected results, it had been posited that the first calculation was wrong.

Grandpa would have probably decked the pompous ass who had suggested as much, had he still been there.

As things were, The newly minted Department Head had simply stared said pompous ass down and suggested, in the most polite end earnest tone, that of course, that was a possibility, and who best to review the minutia of the calculations and the systems’ programs than the pompous ass himself! By the way, thank you for volunteering Gerald.

Sixty-two days, fourteen hours and a handful of seconds later, the LAB was officially informed that no, there was no error in the original math, the Galaxy was just behaving strangely.

Instead of closing in on the black hole in a tighter and tighter orbit, the Galaxy seemed to be exploiting the gravitational power of other-bodies faster attracted to the black hole to ‘push itself away’, for a lack of a better term, from it. Resisting its pull. 

Always dangerously close, but constantly shifting its axis a-way.

Never truly free of the hole’s grasp -and very much still on course for annihilation- but buoying instead of hurdling on Marvin’s orbit waves.

This left everybody in the LAB baffled for a whole of three minutes and change.

Based on the new data they made short work of recalculating the galaxy’s estimated journey, based on the other-bodies known to be crossing its path in the future.

Humanity -and whatever other forms of sentient life might have been inhabiting the Milky Way’s myriad of planets- had just scraped off an incredible amount of time to form a new Plan, if things kept moving this pace.

 Things, of course, did not.

VI.

This became abundantly clear when, one day, the sun rose in the West and set in the East.

Milky Way was pissed.

They had been following their plans for a while now and had gotten to know Marvin much better than before.

The attraction was still there, even stronger now than in the past, and they knew it was the same for him. He had said!

 They were only too ready to start something serious, but He still kept stringing along any-body that passed him close enough to experience his ascendant.

It was infuriating. Couldn’t every-body see he was taken?

Milky Way had tried reasoning with him, seducing him. If they were here, what need would he have for others? Couldn’t he focus just on them? Wouldn’t he give this attraction a fair shot?

Showing him their best side had not worked, and Milky Way had become bitter. 

Giving him the cold shoulder had been a miscalculation though, they had felt desolate and cold for who knows how long. It seemed one or two forever at least. 

The situation had to change soon.

In answer to their unvoiced thought, or maybe because in their distraction they had missed the last whatever many occasions of keeping their distance, they suddenly felt him approach way too fast and his pull become inescapable. They turned.

All of his attention was finally, finally on them alone.

Well, they thought, shit.

VI. 

That day, the sun rose in the West and set in the East. 

It was a long afternoon in Chile, or so people say. 

It was actually pretty cloudy, so most people never even knew the sun had stopped moving until the news appeared on the internet and scientists started to woke each other up from the wrong side of the planet first, calling to know what was what, everybody equally baffled.

Well, not quite everybody.

The LAB was in on the scoop of course and shared what information they could with the public.

They were summarily dismissed, their version of the facts outranked in social media’s polls by ‘mass mirage’ and ‘terrorist plot’. Because.

For weeks the news was filled with suppositions, speculations, interviews of whoever had an original opinion on the matter. Everybody seemed to have an opinion then.

Religious Zoroastrian sects knew a rebirth. 

The Mayan horoscopes were all the rage. 

More than anyone else, Doomsday preachers felt vindicated.

An enterprising Italian grandmother named Maria started a youtube channel offering Tarot predictions based on red stars’ influences.

It reached 10 million subscribers on the first day alone.

As it became the new norm though, the hubbub slowly trickled to a stop.

The Italian grandmother started to offer recipes and life advice to her followers.

Nobody was ready when the first fire storms light up the Australian forests.

It’s possible the French were the first to notice, but nobody ever listens to the French, and to this day people maintain they lied.

 The first official report reached the LAB from South East Asians’ satellites, but it was the tarot-cooking youtube grandma to share the news with the world.

Now situated behind the far side of the Milky Way -the Earth-centric Maria informed her public in her no-nonsense way-, a gigantic black hole had attracted the whole Galaxy in its orbit, and the-World-was-Going-to-End.

 Soon.

The private tarot reading for her Patreon’s followers was unsurprisingly bleak that week, but everybody following her channel had a second serving of her delicious homemade ravioli after she shared her family recipe on Sunday.

Diet was an outdated concept at that point.

“Which goes to show, as grandpa Marvin always said, that there are more important things in life than what people think of our outer shell precious!” said Alex gaily, serving ravioli to his four years old twins.

“Never let anybody tell you differently love, life it’s too short to listen to imbeciles. That’s what he would say.” 

He stared hard, trying to sear the image of the chubby hands working the small fork in his mind, as he had with every moment, from the instant he first knew he would be a father.

VII.

Monogamy is not all that’s hailed up to be. Really.

After the shift, Milky Way had tried keeping their distance but Marvin’s prepossessing nature was taking its toll. 

The fact that now he was giving them exactly what they asked for, all his attention and a real chance at seeing where this could be going, was not helping at all.

Milky Way was conflicted.

They had known from the start how he would be, no point for second thoughts and self-recrimination -although it seemed to them that the relationship was moving too hard too fast, and they had the right to point that out at least-.

It was destined to endure though, of this Milky Way was sure.

No matter how many fiery arguments on the shape of their relationship they would have to weather -and they knew there would be many-, and no matter how sometimes they felt pushed and pulled by his high-handed ways, or how they felt like something was breaking and dying inside of them every time both their tempers flared.

No matter, it would be worth it. 

If only Milky Way could be sure, somehow, that Marvin was as affected as they were.

 His energy tempered as theirs were roused.

They could feel his influence in every part of their life now and wanted to be an equally encompassing force in his existence. 

It is Beautiful, they think, it is Meant to Be, but it is not enough.

Yet.

Milky way is consumed by him, and so Marvin must be consumed by Them. Milky way cannot contemplate it any other way.

Some Time more, Milky Way knows, and the moment will be just right for the two of them, and all the strain, the feverish hunger, the exhausting detours will come to an end.

And it will be blissful.

And it will be worth the wait.

VIII.

The last day of Earth there is no sunrise, but countless stars cradled in darkness.

Nobody is there to see It happen. It is.