Pandemonium

“… the furthest regions of the observable universe are also the oldest, since peeking into objects millions of light years away is peeking those years into the past. Large areas of the universe contain things we are absolutely clueless about, matter energetically influences the surrounding regions and the overall system in unexplainable ways. Huge objects of incomprehensible size and weight, millions and billions of solar masses are a fairly common occurence^[1]. The universe is a strange place, always out of reach of human understanding in some way or the other. All of this seemingly originating quite randomly, chaotically, from a single dense point a few billion years ago.

Huge clouds of gas birth stars and their swirling remnants form planets. Such star systems exist in billions just within a single galaxy - of which there again exist again billions. These numbers just exist as some large number in our minds. It is incredibly difficult to comprehend how large a billion even is. Counting to a million at the rate of one number a second continuously without breaks would take around 12 days, while counting to a billion takes 31 years!… ”, the non-obscured part of a sampled human report reads, on a large table littered with a multitude of printouts, charts and books. A laboratory of sorts.

Another text, obscuring the former, reads, “Here lies a somewhat unremarkable spiral galaxy, and near its outer reaches, a star system formed when this universe was about two-thirds of its current age. One of its planets has a faintly noticeable bluish hue when viewed with the right equipment. This blue dot has a lot of activity going on since a little while ago. A bunch of self-replicating entities, fairly complex systems within themselves, have been proliferating. These little beings on that minuscule speck of dust have driven other similar forms away. "Humans", they call themselves. Most of these do not have knowledge of much outside of the blue dot, aside from their life-giving star and a little rocky satellite which always faces them, perhaps similarly intrigued. Aside from a few privileged ones, a majority of their existence goes into indentured servitude, just so they can pay the price of existence. They're relieved from servitude only when they start to wither and fade away. Lately more and more extinguish themselves long before their servitude ends, either by indirect means, wilfully, or by accident. These humans, ever since running out of entities to drive extinct, now prey on themselves - the privileged ones preying on the rest^[2]…”

A printout on a chair, “… their existence is such a miracle, completely unplanned, uncalculated; what they experience is the universe itself. Few realize this, they worry a lot, want one thing after another, chase imaginary dreams, pursue delusions. Experience takes a backseat to their strange little desires. And the kind of things they do for their desires! To themselves, to each other, spreading pain and suffering through their cruelty and insecurity…”.

“… observed their accidental existence in this simulation through most of their brief history, and though the beings have moved from uncouth barbarian hordes to a perhaps more civilized bunch, it is peculiar how patterns from their history continue to repeat themselves over time, how the suffering continues while love and kindness take a back seat, how they see demons where none exist, hardly realizing that the "other" is just another experience like themselves, that it is the same dust that forms both, and the same dust into which both shall go. A different note of the same piece, an inversion of the same chord, a different string on the same instrument…”

“… their brain has naturally evolved to an incredible complexity, to give form to emptiness, order to chaos, when it allows them to experience their universe. But this is the extent of their evolution right now; this evolved order and complexity somehow ceases to exist beyond that level. An object as complex as this, which allows them to experience it in myriad ways: the smell of a freshly blossomed flower in the morning, the laughter and ecstasy in the eyes of their children, the turbulent palpitations of love, the music of the birds, the rustling of the leaves announcing a breeze, along with hands that allow them to perform miracles when joined as one, seem throughly disrespected and underutilized. It is strange that these gifts would be bequeathed onto beings that quite clearly, reside in Pandemonium.”