The Melvin Singularity

My mother told us stories of the old world, when everyone lived on the surface of the planet. The oceans had tides, families played outside in the grass, and traveled in airplanes. Moments captured on camera and old movies stored in the archives are all I have of the surface now. Did you ever hear the saying, maybe the universe is telling us something? Well it started speaking, but humans only have a microscopic understanding of its language.

No one paid much attention when they first detected the movement. Mom said back then there were “groundbreaking” discoveries published all the time that were inconsequential to daily life. Salacious disaster movies were huge money makers, and what-if science stories were fun morning show fodder. My parents had just been married, both teaching in their academic arenas when the possible causes and ripple effects of the movement were being theorized. The tendrils of the cosmos had started spinning, but what did that mean? Had it always been moving, or if not, what had changed?

One scientist, a colleague of mom’s at Columbia, said it could make our planet uninhabitable. Dr. Thora Melvin thought we would start feeling repercussions in about a century. Unfortunately, it became apparent after two decades that we were doomed. Her calculations projected the force on our solar system would change the distance between celestial bodies. Discussions were spurned when the scientific community and politicians called it science fiction. I studied all of Dr. Melvin’s interviews and lectures, as well as the countless documentaries stored in the archives. Other students called it obsessive, but she is the reason we understand what’s happening to us, and also the reason I am alive.

My mother’s mission was to make sure we understood our history and the science behind Earth’s collapse. As the former professor, she became our resident teacher, although she preferred Dean. I was six when she explained torque to our underground classroom. That the axis of our cosmic web is whipping around tendrils of galaxies and moving faster than any scientist was calculating. In other words, the thing holding everything together was pulling us with extreme speed. We drew pictures and made 3D renderings of the cosmic web, trying to fathom its power. All the kids laughed when I drew a giant cyclops shaking dozens of bulbous bugs off its legs as my artistic interpretation of the cosmos. Mom ended class early and cried for a while. Adults and children handle doomsday in different ways.

Common sense and survival skills were an essential part of her curriculum, but she also taught us literature, philosophy and debate. Karma and world religions. Other than academics, faith and bibles did not have much of a place with us down here. The community chapel went mostly unused. Although the surface was another story. Ten years ago, the Pope said the moving tendrils were literally the hands of God pulling us toward him. Physical proof. “Science and faith are finally merging,” they proclaimed. Religious leaders all prepared their congregations for the afterlife, telling them to not be afraid. Many ignored evacuation orders because it was time to praise God’s will and embrace the next existence. It’s possible, I suppose, or not. The universe could simply be pulling us to the void of a supermassive black hole, hitting the reset button, or stirring up the next Big Bang. We simply don't know.

Galaxies were already spinning, along with their solar systems and the planets inside those. How could the sudden movement of this giant, ambiguous entity change our reality? No one believed it could. A gargantuan beast awakens while Earth is twisted up in its limbs, but the only scientist who warned us was laughed out of the inner circle, academically ostracized. She was on the cover of tabloids, and a favorite with late night conspiracy theorists. Eventually, her name became synonymous with the end of days. The Melvin Singularity.

Dr. Melvin, instead of saying I told you so, somberly said, “I wish I had been wrong,” while holding her infant son. She predicted the tragic end to our galaxy, to our children and grandchildren, from a ripple effect that would not just move our solar system, but yank and squish and flick it together as if in a pinball machine. Everyone, from news anchors to the president, asked Dr. Melvin to explain the universe to them, which seemed comical. “Even the most brilliant minds cannot explain the mysteries of the universe,” she said. “One of my astrophysical calculations was correct, and only a fraction at that. It does not mean that I have the capacity to understand why our part of the universe suddenly started moving. When things on Earth move, it is usually correcting an anomaly.”

Anomaly was the word that always got me. Humans have been the anomaly on Earth, destroyers, massive consumers. Whether it is punishment from the universe or that we are too minuscule to be noticed, Earth is in the path of change. Every scientist in the world looked at her calculations and tried to hypothesize a countdown. The distance to the sun was shrinking and our moon was migrating out of its orbit. New timelines were announced for when Earth could collide with another object or how long our atmosphere could remain intact, but the only constant was change.

Shifts in the gravitational pull changed the human way of life. Eventually, there were more dark hours than daylight. Violence became a coping tool for many, which quickly put martial law into effect around the globe. Migraines and nausea left millions incapacitated, particularly elders. Thousands committed suicide each day, some alone and others in groups. Vomit and blood flowed through the streets like rain water in the big cities.

No one went underground until the birth law passed. Bringing a child into the world was deemed abusive, too traumatic for young minds to handle. Those pregnant at the time of the new law were forced to abort, others fought, like my dad, or went into hiding, like my mom. A generation looking for refuge developed bunkers and underground sanctuaries to protect the children of the apocalypse. Our community is deep in the mountains, virtually inaccessible unless you know exactly where to go and where to take cover. We call it Haven. Followers of The Melvin Singularity, when it was still a conspiracy theory, built it with the help of a few billionaire eccentrics. We have grown by hundreds since I was a kid. My mom was already pregnant with me when they passed the law, making us one of the first inhabitants of Haven. Thora Melvin sent us here. She told my mom to build a community. Perhaps that connection is the reason for studying her so closely, for knowing everything about her life and family before ever meeting them.

Forty-two years after the movement was detected, I turned seventeen, which is when Dr. Melvin and her son showed up. My mother embraced her and they cried. "I tried," Dr. Melvin said, as though my mom would be disappointed in her.

Steven Melvin and I looked away uncomfortable with their grief, with the vulnerabilities that parents often hide from us. “Olivia, give Steven the tour won’t you? Thora and I will catch up and get their rooms ready.” Gently shooing us away with her hand. There was no need to tell us twice, we quickly obeyed and left the classrooms. I took him through the photosynthesis lab and farm zone, common spaces like the gym, theater, and game room. Steven scrutinized the tech and Haven’s self-sufficiency, but remained mostly speechless until we reached the library.

“This is the only connection you have to the outside world?” He asked in reaction to our media pods. Even when telecomms were down we had access to the archives as long as we had power. My eyes dropped, embarrassed that Haven was all I knew, no real experiences. Steven went to an actual school, saw a hundred planet-sets, probably visited cities and landmarks before they were covered by water or destroyed in the wildfires.

“Perhaps this is not a true connection, but I can’t go up there. I wasn’t meant to exist in the real world.” I defend matter-of-factly, but then imagine what it must feel like to have lived there and then lost it. An underground utopia is all I have ever known.

“What you call the real world isn’t all that great,” Steven admitted. “They don’t want my family to exist either. As if killing my mother will change our reality.”

Extremist groups attempted assassinations and hunted sanctuary communities. They call his mom Dr. Death. If she had not solved the equation, would Earth still be naturally and gloriously spinning at its precise 92 million miles from the sun? Humans were already finding plenty of ways to kill our planet before the universe started whipping us around. My mother always said, if it wasn’t this, it would have been something else.

The last attempt on Dr. Melvin’s life killed Steven’s father, which is why they finally came to Haven. “Humans need a purpose, and others to blame. Psychology 101. My mother is an easy target.” Steven was somehow making peace with these justifications. It made me wonder if there was a complete loss of hope on the surface. He caught me looking at him, evaluating his pensive expression and the wisdom from this young student of psychology. He looked much older than the footage I had seen. The weariness carved into his features made me wonder if he was ever young and playful. If he ever lived without fear or the weight of his mother’s name. One day, I would tell him why I watched the footage of him on repeat, and how I knew he felt trapped. Every day I wished for Steven to be here with me.

“I wish you had come sooner,” I blurted out, much to his surprise. He sized me up and down and we tried to take a temperature on whatever was happening.

“You think you know me?”

“Yeah. I think I do.” When he smiled, we saw each other and our two worlds converging. I knew with certainty that we would be together when the end finally comes.

“Does that conclude our tour, Olivia?”

“Oh, please, only my mom calls me that. Everybody calls me Liv.” His smile turned into a delightful smirk. “The cafeteria is on the way back to the classrooms. They usually make something special when newbies move to Haven.” I started to lead the way, but he grabbed my hand.

“Not that way. How about a less conspicuous way to the surface?” My first instinct was to argue the idea, but why not? I felt obligated for seventeen years to follow the rules because my mom was a Haven leader. Of course I knew the way, other kids snuck out all the time, but I always stayed behind. We were not prisoners, just secret. The likelihood of extremists finding us was close to impossible in our remote sanctuary.

I returned his smile with a mischievous nod and headed to the equipment room where I slipped my gear pack over my shoulder. “It’s a trek without the elevator. Can you handle it?” Steven only laughed and took the flashlights out of my hand. I led him up the emergency stairs and explained the safe light at the door. Green was safe in darkness, red was sizzle in the sun like an old vampire movie. We walked through a cave that we called the moon room. There were openings in the rocks like small windows to the universe. It was the farthest some of us had ever gone, but I knew there was a tunnel that opened to a trail around the side of the mountain. I stood at the dark hole many times wanting to be fearless, and with Steven I was.

We switched off our flashlights as the tunnel’s mouth spit us into the light of Venus. I had seen pieces from the moon room and footage in the safety of a pod, but nothing could do this justice. The sheer magnitude of the planet above us almost sent me into shock, gulping for air and my entire body shaking. As I reached for the the oxygen can in my pack, Steven stayed completely calm. “Shhh. You can settle yourself,” he whispered and pulled my hand to his chest. “Match my rhythm, slow breath and pulse.” I controlled my vitals, just like we trained in the gym, and wrapped my fingers around my necklace. “What’s that?”

“My father gave it to me, or gave it to my mom to give to me. I’ve never met him.” I clicked open the round cover that was once a small pocket watch to show the arms pulsing inside. Even though Venus was bright as hell, Steven could not quite make out the inscription. “It says, Time will tell.”

“Your father didn’t make it to Haven?”

I shrugged, “He stayed behind to fight the birth law, and all the other decisions that were prematurely killing the planet. My mom said he was always an activist getting riled up for just about anything the government was doing. I hold it sometimes to feel the ticking in my hand, as if it’s him thinking about me, or talking to me. That probably sounds childish.”

“No it doesn’t,” he assured me. I slid my arm around his waist and his across my shoulders as we looked up at the sky from the edge of the world. “Maybe your dad is also staring up at Venus, or depending on where he’s at, he could already be watching Mars rise.” I loved him for saying that, even though my father was probably gone, dissolved into elements of the universe.

Far into the dark horizon we saw strings of light shooting through the sky. Like Steven said, humans need a purpose. They called it the Earth Capsule Project. Proof of our planet’s evolution and intelligent life were rocketing into space, from seeds to digitized collections from the Library of Congress and museums. It may get whipped around in the pinball machine with the rest of us, or just maybe, it will crash-land lightyears away to spark new life.

“Maybe the universe is God,” I wondered aloud.

“Sorry?”

“Maybe it’s conscious, I mean. The cosmic web and the tendrils that have a hold of us resemble our brain stems and nervous system. Are we portraying it as an infinite neural pathway, or has all life evolved in its image?” It may have been something harbored inside my dreams until I finally found the words with infinity staring down at me.

“My mother is going to love you,” he said before our first kiss.

~

The Earth’s surface is mostly uninhabitable now. Children of the apocalypse are grown, which used to be Haven’s purpose. Steven and I lead the community with the goal of staying connected until the end. We communicate with other sanctuaries, and we send daily transmissions into deep space carrying music and our stories. Maybe for that sense of immortality, or maybe for the universe to notice us. Time will tell, but we are still here.