By Richard Mather
בְּרֵאשִׁית
was the command
10 PRINT "Hello Universe"
20 GOTO 10
Unbelievable, breathless, demonic even,
how a singular point could yield space, time,
protons, neutrons, chemicals – a bunch of
ones and zeros, flashing on and off like
little bits of light.
But there it was: an actual
universum, infinite in volume,
brimming with dark energy and matter. And earth!
Circumference forty thousand kilometres;
composition iron, oxygen, silicon, magnesium;
a mean sidereal day of twenty-three hours,
fifty-six minutes and four seconds; complete
with magnetic dipole, one moon and
five co-orbital asteroids.
And at the centre of it all –
Adam – a large creature containing
multitudes.
Incredible how much energy was spent on
eyeballs and arteries and delicate nerve-endings
for an organism so prone to train wrecks and tumours;
or how time was wasted discussing the need for
volition and cognition, when every end-product was
destined to crack-breakdown-expire-decohere-liquefy-
atomise in a shallow grave six thousand kilometres out
from the core of a planet suspended in a cosmic sphere
radiating forty-six billion light years in every direction
back to the beginning of the bang.
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