WORLDS LIKE OURS

Present Day

“Look at all the stars…  I wonder if any of them have worlds like ours…  What do you think, Derek?”  Propping her head up in one hand, Sky rolls toward him, while the other hand brushes her straight brunette hair back and out of the way.

And Derek, “I don’t know…  maybe…”

A sigh, a smirk, and, rolling again onto her back, “You never know anything…”

A few silent moments pass.

“I do know one thing though…  There is an unfathomable beauty and purpose I sense in the Universe… yet I sense that same beauty and depth when I look into your eyes, as if, there it is, look no further…”

Sky smiles.  It’s not uncommon to hear such things coming from Derek.  Turning once more, she wraps her arm around him and lays her head on his chest,

“Oh you big sap…”

She never thinks he’s serious.  About her?  He couldn’t possibly be.  She goes on,

“I don’t know…  We just come here and I remember…  I remember how life is so much bigger than I can imagine.  My life starts to feel like it has been just a series of meaningless events – accidents of sorts… thinking like this starts to make me feel worthless, but I can’t help it.  I try to fight it, but seeing the vastness of everything in the open skies, it reminds me of how small we really are…  I mean, is there a meaning to any of it?  Can there be a meaning?”

“I think there is…  If you’re not satisfied then follow through with it.  Keep searching and you will find what you’re looking for.”

“But it’s just, why us here on this planet, we’re just worthless specks in the grand scheme of things. Just look, all those stars burning up there, we really don’t mean anything at all, do we?…”

“Yes we do… You see, you’re not following through with it. You will drive yourself mad with that kind of thinking, because you can always take a number and make it bigger. Maybe even we and all these stars we see are just part of a stable subatomic particle that is part of a verse many times bigger than this one that we can observe here… and maybe there are even verses inside the subatomic particles that make up your body… entire worlds inside you, just like I said, in your eyes…”

“But how could that be?…”

“Just think about it, if dealing strictly with numbers, let’s say you are the value 1. Can you split that value?”

“Yeah, you would have two halves.”

“And then can you split that?”

“Of course, now you have 1/4th.”

“And then you can split that, right? You can’t stop splitting that number. There is no limit to the size, but the only thing that dictates what that size is is its comparison to the original value 1. If you say 1 trillionth of you is the value of 1, then your value becomes 1 trillion. Little and big are just relative concepts, there is really no limit to them. If you can accept this then you can at least relax from trying to find limits, because there can’t be limits, our existence is both infinitely large and small at the same time. It just is what it is… See, that’s why us mathematicians never know anything, because the knowledge is infinite, by definition… ”

Silence reigns for a few brief moments before Sky interjects, “Derek… don’t ever leave me, okay?”

Derek couldn’t help but chuckle a little, “Where did that come from?”

“Just please, don’t ever leave me…”

“Umm…  okay? … … Don’t worry.  I made a promise, didn’t I?”

Sky didn’t respond.  The cold night air invited silence as the two lovers lay motionless, the sound of the ocean lulling them to sleep.

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