#1: And in the end...

“To dream anything that you want to dream. That's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed.”

- Bernard Edmonds

I was looking at the clear blue sky. My elder brother was at my side, and he was talking to my dad. It was a perfectly clear blue sky, with seemingly no clouds in vicinity. But the sunlight was not very intense, and I could only feel the warmth, I could feel the gentle breeze, and not the blistering heat. It was morning.


According to some news, Jupiter was the closest to our planet Earth in human history. So close that without the help of telescope, one can actually see it, almost as large as our Moon, maybe even bigger. It was a hazy, fading image, something like if you go outside in the morning and look at the fading Moon, almost hidden behind the blue curtain of sky. It was a beautiful sight, albeit a little too odd.


The Jupiter had a blue contour line - it had atmosphere. The surface looked eerily same with our planet Earth, and I could make out its fading moons in front and behind it. It was as if I was staring at our own Earth! Or staring at another planet Earth. Gliese 581 maybe, but I was certain it was Jupiter. My elder brother was talking to my dad about a cool software used to determine the position of galaxies, when suddenly there came a loud thundering boom! from the horizon. It was deafening, and then I saw it.


The orangy outline of blast waves radiated outwards from a point in the horizon and streaked across the calm blue sky in every directions. It looked like the blue curtain was burned, slowly, astoundingly, and exposing the black outer space behind it. It was yet another eerily beautiful sight, and in a few moment, I knew what it was. It was the Big Bang.


My sight was quickly averted to my brother's laptop. He was still showing us the new software he obtained. The screen of his laptop was showing some kind of Cartesian coordinates system, and tiny dots were scatter around the coordinates. Some dots were big, while some were small. He moved the cursor and pointed at one of the dots. It was written Andromeda Galaxy. I was told that the origin point in the Cartesian systems was where the Big Bang started, and I saw some dots were close to the origin. Maybe they had just been born, I thought to myself. Then he asked me to find the Alpha Centauri Galaxy.


As I explored the Cartesian coordinates, I was very concentrated. It was as if I was literally sucked into the universe and frantically swimming around looking for a dot called Alpha Centauri. With so many big and tiny spots, searching a small dot was like finding a pin in a haystack. I became anxious, I felt disturbed. I panicked. Because I was actually swimming in the universe, and somehow I felt like I was lost. In the middle of nowhere!


Most of the galaxies were alien to me. I had never heard of them. And then I found it. A dot named Alpha Centauri. I breathed a sigh of relief, and everything started to fade away.The universe, the galaxies, the dots, my brother, my dad, the Jupiter, the clear blue sky, the blast waves... Slowly devoured by my opening eyes. Slowly replaced by the sight of a big bone right in front of me!


But phew! it was my bone-shaped pillow. Nothing to be afraid of. It took me a while to realize, and regained my control of my mind. And in the end, it was nothing...


...but a dream.