I don’t know what time it is, it does not matter. Matter is something my parents, their friends and families, neighbours, in short, all the like minded people settle down to make happen. I, photon, was born roughly 14 million years prior to now under great duress. For about a time from the beginning, it was chaotic, I could barely go from one corner of the street where my mother, electron, would transit from upstairs balcony to downstairs and leave me outdoors and I was born. The neighbours were so close and the neighbourhood so violent that before I could go to the vast playground on the other end of the street, another mother, electron, from the ground floor of adjoining house would whisk me with force and get upstairs, and I was dead.
It was only after the pressure and temperature dropped, and all the mothers, electrons, began living a little away from each other, it was only then that I found friends. Now mothers were tolerant, they would not whisk away children, for the surroundings were not so packed anymore, we, photons, could slip away through the dark lanes between houses. However, some of us, photons, did find themselves gobbled up by mothers, electrons, on occasions where we darted straight into their houses.
Some time later, pressure eased further, mothers settled down farther and farther from each other. It was at a time like this that some of them got married. They stayed together in imperfect monogamous houses- hydrogen atoms. Father proton lived with his phantasmagoria neutron in the giant hall ‘nucleus’ while mother swathed them with her wave, a probabilistic wave of electron, all around. All the mothers approved of this, and slowly all of them were marrying. Some families attempted to move into duplex houses and live together; but it lasted very briefly before they lived separately again. The community at large did not approve of such relationships yet. However, after a while, they did live together, in helium houses.
By this time, we photons had the entire place for ourselves; we could stray far away from the houses. There was just empty space of blankness and no houses in the horizon. We enjoyed our trips, no one could travel faster than us, and so we were comforted in the fact that wherever we went, we were the first ones to reach there. Soon on our flights, we found that the trend of living together has taken to a frenzy; families were moving in and living together. Sometimes we would find around fifty of them living together in apartments, but they were very rare. Mostly, we found hydrogen and helium houses, others were very rare.
As it happens in every civilization, in ours too, some areas had sparse houses while others were dense. Although we lived just about everywhere, we representing the beginning of time, it is in the densest cities ‘stars’ that we lived to gain our representation status. Some of these cities were so dense that temperature and pressure shot up to create rivalry among the houses. This is how it worked. The city’s architecture was very well organised. All the apartments with over three families living together made up the heart of the city; some of the notable ones being iron apartments with 26 families, carbon with 6 families, nitrogen with 7 families and oxygen with 8 families. The duplex houses ‘helium’ lived around the core of the city surrounded by all the independent houses ‘hydrogen’ on the perimeters.
The apartment families had strange bonding; they distributed themselves into clusters of like minded houses. For instance, a colony of carbon and hydrogen could be found together, a colony of sulphur and oxygen could be found together. The interior of the city bulged and bulged as all the families who drifted with no city would come looking for one and settle down in the city. The drifting families ‘dust cloud of matter’ owing to the inherent nature of the topography ‘space’ over a period of time would settle down in cities making them bigger and bigger. Once inside, they added to the great potential of togetherness, they coalesced to form colonies ‘matter’ and attracted ‘gravitated’ even more families. As the population ‘density’ of the city shot up, the force of attraction ‘gravitation’, with it the temperature and pressure also shot up. After a tipping point, the attraction from the core of the city grew so overpowering that they exacted force ‘gravity’ on the independent houses ‘hydrogen’ living on the perimeters to live together in duplex homes ‘helium’. Fathers ‘protons’ in hydrogen houses had resisted such a move throughout their life, but lived on until now. But the temperature and pressure the force of attraction from the coalesced core ‘matter’ of the city had grown up to such proportions that they had to give up and live in duplex houses with other fathers.
When they eventually did move in together, they had just too much furniture. So every two independent families ‘hydrogen’ moving into a duplex house ‘helium’ threw away the excess furniture ‘energy’, and with it, some of us ‘photons’. All the cities ‘stars’ on an average had 96-98% of independent and duplex houses put together, the rest was the core. Initially only we ‘photons’ were pelted out, it lasted for as long as the number of independent houses dropped to a level where by no amount of coercing could do the trick, for now, the core’s percentage in the city ‘star’ was beyond the tipping point. At this point, the city broke into a pandemonium; the force of attraction ‘gravity’ pulled the core ‘matter’ together to a point that the city was no more stable. Hitherto, the pandemonium was averted, for the force of attraction ‘gravity’ was cancelled out by the force of expulsion of us ‘photons’, but now that our expulsion was meagre, the city ‘star’ gradually descended into pandemonium.
The cosmopolitan cities ‘stars’ witnessed the core shrinking in size due to the force of attraction and the density of the city eventually so huge that the whole city dropped into the ground beneath it making a giant gaping hole ‘black hole’.
Metropolitan cities ‘massive stars’ underwent a slightly different process. In these, the core got denser and denser but the very size of the city rendered it impossible for it to simply drop dead into a dense object. Instead what happened was, the city, after a point of density, blew apart ‘nova explosion’ spewing out the core ‘matter’, houses on the outer ring ‘gas’ , their furniture ‘energy’ and us ‘photons’. It is such an explosion that distributes houses ‘elements’ through the fabric ‘fabric of cosmos’ and makes it possible for a state ‘solar system’ with a city ‘star’ surrounded by districts ‘planets’ and villages ‘asteroids’.
Sometimes two cities ‘stars’ would drift so close together that they would coalesce into each other to form a core so dense that it would rip the houses ‘elements’ in the core apart and spew out core, outer ring, furniture and us, leaving behind, in its remnants, a bungalow ‘neutron star’. It is this event ‘super nova’ that is considered to be the most beautiful of celestial events, also the most dangerous for it is so violent that it would rip matter and elements into shreds with ruthless perversity.
So there you are, that’s my life story so far. You, the reader happen to be observing my entire life story from telescopes powerful enough to peer at the compound wall ‘horizon’ of the universe. Through your telescopes, you will observe us as we are presently, in adulthood of universe closer to you. A little farther away, you will find us in our universe’s teenage life, for you are now peering into the past, and witnessing us as we were in universe’s past. Further back, you can see us in our universe’s precocious young age darting off hither and thither aimlessly.
You have been able to watch us in our past, for we exist throughout the universe from the time it all began until today. We are the source of information to you. We never die and hence, we exist all along the universe, throughout its ages, past, present and future.
You were born as the universe cooled, stars formed, exploded under enormous pressure to create dust storms, coalesce, reform and explode again until a point of equilibrium has attained and a solar system has been established. on one of the heavenly objects created by stardust, you live between the cycles of star's birth and death.
We are the photons. Together, we are called light.
You are all compounds, together, you are called matter. you are all heaps of compounds that make roughly about 2% of every star in this universe. Each of you heaps of compounds exhibit distinguishable properties- some of you undergo radioactive decay, some of you are evanescent, some of you host chemical reactions (like you, the reader)....
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