Probably my first foray into "heavy" science fiction storytelling.
When Foolish Words Are, For The Sake of A Friend
by Samuel Garcia
In the bubbles which are not bubbles between the universes (universi?), the foam of the Void, the multiform of dimensions, which are, in a way, mini universes (universi definitely sounds cooler) themselves, a stray bubble which was not a bubble touched upon another bubble, and that both bubbles went POP!
Except that it was not POP, it was more like both universes crunched and entropied and shifted to a zero energy state, BUT THERE WAS NO POPPING SOUND, FOR THERE ARE NO SOUNDS IN SPACE WITHIN THE UNIVERSE, AT LEAST MOST OF THEM, in accordance to each of their laws of physics. Howbeit, the point is, both were annihilated, because each of their personal bubbles intruded upon the privacy of each other.
I kid, for what was beside the point is actually important. If you recall, the sword does not cut always with its point, but its blade. Their annihilation were in accordance to the laws of physics of the universi (multiverse? Or is that too technical?). This led to a variety of doomsday apocalypses.
The most common laws of Universi Annihilation included that in the common tongue, a Universal Big Crunch, in which all stars, asteroids, planets, cheese, your grandma's mailbox, and multitudes of alien civilizations and their colonies and hermits outside of those, crunched into a single point of singularity. And not the cybertechnical singularity, but the event horizon one. I think. A cousin to this Universal Death is the Universal Big Quack, in which the universe is squashed, not into a singularity, but a singular all-encompassing duck. When it quacks, it croaks.
Alternatively, if the variables and constants were correct, instead the Universal Heat Death would happen, in which all stars, asteroids, planets, cheese (melted by entropy), your parallel universe grandma's mailbox, and multitudes of alien civilizations and their colonies and hermits outside of those, lose all heat and energy and atomic movement and probably subatomic and Planck motion as well, plunging everything to absolute zero and even colder.
Even less common was the Universal Death through Integalactical Bureaucratical and Brutal Tax Auditry, in which the laws of physics of that universe send it to its graveyard by a rapid exponential growth of desk jobs and paper work and deterministic desk workers that encompass the universe. Any conceivable and inconceivable and aconceivable subatomic movement and photonic energy and any quantum fluctuations are heavily regulated, taxed, accounted, interviewed, mortgaged, sent for coffee, shredded, made redundant copies, passed on to the next call representative, and legislated. This slows down the universe afflicted with this death to near zero time relativity, in which the speed of light is simply, practically zero miles per hour. If light decides to speed, then whoa, whoa, whoa, it will get ticketed. The call tree of this universe is in the degree of septillions, so much so that the music of the spheres literally is call music that you hear when you are rerouted to India. When that bubble finally bursts, it is seen by the relatively smaller void dwellers (and yet the void does not have nor recognize the concept of size!) as a shower of paper trail confetti.
Yet an even rarer Universal Death is through Universal Death through Hologram Spam. Think of a universe where your spam came to life as holographic characters, no, persons and races. There would be phishing spam, insurance spam, random spam, chain letter spam, creepypasta spam, canned spam, all represented as ghostly embodiments, rightly called hologram spam. Schroedinger's Cat is viral Nyan of the lengths of stochachistic numerals of rainbow super strings. This is fine and dandy, but when trillions of spam are spawned,there are only so many cans to go around, and the universe that fills up with the spam afterlife disintegrates like an email going to the Trash Folder. Luckily, most universes have spam filters and firewalls.
I've gotten carried away, haven't I? Well, it just brings me to a universe, that is probably not our own, or rather quadrillions of centuries in to the future, or some other distant conjecture through time and space and inbetween and nowhere and nowhen. In this universe, the apocalypse was of the constant, eternal invasion of shadow hyperspace entities that are closest shaped to puppies. Except they were beings of pure vacuum darkness. Not an evil darkness, but simply darkness that drains the light into its bowels. Instead of a common Big Crunch however, the pups of annihilation invade the edges of this universe, expanding space at dangerous planar lengths that are equal to imaginary radical numbers and letters of the alphabet. In doing so,
In the awareness of this Pupocalypse, the Spanning Imperial Omnidemocradoms of the Constellation Stovansglow, residing in the edge of the universe, almost to thesoapy surface of said bubble not bubble, grew restless.
You see, in the Omnidemocradoms, which only was truly a democradom by false pretense, and not by any solid or relevant nature, like the misnaming People's Republics of the communists of here yonder universe, had the High Imperial and Only Ever Powerful Servant of the Omnidemocradom and its Rightful Heir of its Manifest Destiny Beyond the Constellations and Even Beyond That declared an infinite eulogy to be sung in his name. The civilizations of this universe prized eulogies, for the longer the eulogy, the more immortal one is, a goal in many universes. So there was this hope of immortalizing the narcisstic ruler in the end of time (and space).
A call was heard throughout the stars, and the stars covered their ears as the bellowing signal rang for the best singers, poets, drama artists, pantomimes, radio announcers, and even beeping melodious doorbells and electronic card musical silicon chips. The logic is, that the sound would attract the narcissm of the ones who ply the trade of performance so that they can correct it. Thus many planets lost their Grand Poet Laureate, and galaxies their great Oratorious Maximus. Even the long dead alternate universe counterpart of Shakespeare and Lincoln was raised from the dead, and those who were time traveling and had a lick of singing ability was plucked out of the 4 dimensional time vortices by the bellowing signal.
And thus the High Imperial and Only Ever.... oh, you know who it is was pleased to see the best of the best performers eulogize his deeds and misdeeds (and mostly because the horrible signal was psychostatic in their brains, meaning that they have to sing and sing and sing to block it out of their minds). Verses rang out in the auditorium that is the space between the stars.
Oh, Mighty Servant of the Cosmos.
Ruling guiding hands we all feed on.
You invented the coffee thermos!
He who bites you be cast to the sun!
Each atom is pleased by your humility,
The quarks, and Higgs boson, too.
You make Stovansglow tranquility.
With your aid the cows go moo.
Though the darkness bark,
Literally.
You will make your mark,
Eternally!
The Andrimedia, woman of the seven nebulae, who sang to swirl the plasmic gases in a harmony, beautiful in face, heart, spirit, and song, was taken from her place, to the sadness of her prince and her people.
Resist, my love, the bellowing!
But she could not, for the treble the universe was in was disharmonious. The seven nebulae held what basically was a funeral procession for their Lady.
Even the best of the best could not hold entropy at bay, the traitorous pups of of annihilating doom. They babbled and grumbled and foamed and fell, for they were tired, and the High Imperial you-know-what didn't really have that much to be proud about, even made up redenkulous ones. (In that universe, that is how ridiculous is spelled, don't ask how this universe English can be translated otherwise)
Even the Andrimedia was muted, vocal chords strained. She lost her identity in a song, not of her own praise, but to one who did not deserve so. And she ebbed away and faded into vibration... she dissolved into a song! A pretentious song indeed!
Off with their heads! the ruler cried. Find me more performers! I shall live beyond the death of the universe! A lone pup started barking.
Oh, but what is this?
A hunched, hooded figure stopped the people's fuming autocrat. With a raspy voice, he cried, Sir, o sire, do not cut off their heads, for it is their heads that sing. If they cannot sing, they cannot turn the canine tide and make thee live beyond the inevitable death.
Go on, the skeptical Servant of the Constellation raised after declaring a proxy war against the canes of his empire. Apparently, the canes were conspiring to make old people fall in nursing homes by failing their structural integrity, thus making the grown children amass huge lawsuits against the ones responsible for making the canes, that is, the cane megafactories, and thus collapsing the Imperial Omnidemocradom's economy. A whole department of spies, called the Cane Intelligence Agency, sprung up from the declaration (that is, they literally grew and stepped out of the paper of the declaration of war the Servant just signed), and arrested all canes within the palace premises about, and three star systems away. Never mind that when they did the arrests, the old people who were holding on their canes fell and broke their bones. Thus the canespiracy theorists point that out this very day.
My solution, sire, is that I will build thee a great singing machine in the model of thyself, for who other than thou, knowest what you have done of all infinity? Then that yonder statue machine likeness will be set in the point of relativity where the center of this universe is, for then all the universe shall hear of thy greatness, and the Cerebus dogs of the hades would stop in their tracks and flee to nether regions unknowable.
The High Imperial Servant stroked his chin, and muttered, yes, yes, splendid idea! Thus his highness commissioned that nothing shall be withdrawn from the hunched-back man's requests, and gave his word.
O Ruling Servant, I beg of thee only a few things, that all the canes you have arrested become part of my workforce to build said statue, and all those that are performing here shall lend their vocalistic trembelutions and throaty sonic shrills and poeticrastic cerebellums.
Go! Go! Said the proud ruler. May his immortality ring throughout the bubble bath multiverse.
The hooded man went away as mysteriously as he came, like a singular quantum fluctuation in the sea of chaotic random-pseudorandom generation. Except that there were a flotilla of battleships and transports and space galleys full of canes and performing artists traversing to the CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE!
The CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE was boring, only filled with boolean alien civilization hive mind who held its consciousness in a neural net of celestial bodies like neurons, who were decimated quickly with death rays to make room for the statue.
What is it to me, an annihilation of a civilization, a species, the greatest supercomputer of all, for the memory of myself woven in the fabric of infinity and beyond!
In another universe, a certain toy spaceman felt a disturbance in the force.
In what seemed to be no time at all, but in reality, a very 7ZIP compressed recursive time/chrono loop with a terminating program, a colossal statue of (fool) gold, (glass) diamond, and other (fake) precious stone of the Servant was erected by the cane workforce. The cane workforce feudalized, democratized, unionized, communistized, splintered, outsourced, WAHed*, and globalized within the compressed centuries time loop.
In a separate subroutine within the time loop, a great tubular musical instrument was being assembled. The statue's mechanical arms were to play the flute to memorialize him!
So it was done after the program terminated and set into a self-sustaining orbit.
The end was nigh. The dogs were nibbling the edges and cutting swaths with their paws!
With no time to lose, the hooded figure invited the Ruling Servant inside the instrument. It was explained that all the performers voices and speeches and playing were in record here and perfectly amplified. All the Servant had to do was to enter this chamber, complete with a throne magnificent, think happy thoughts about himself, and the telepathic circuits would translate it into a universe shaking song.
Happily, the Servant sat himself down. The figure left the throne room, along with a parade of canes in ships to bunker down.
But it was all pretense, for you see, it was not an amplification chamber for a song. But for something else.
Neither was it exactly a musical instrument.
The time loop inside the instrument was restarted as the High Imperial Servant whistled, trapping him.
And the puppies of the universal darkness heard the eternal canine whistle, and rushed back to the CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE. Colliding and barking and colluding and scratching and chasing tails, their gravitational spin increased.
It became what is known today as the Dog Star. And the orbiting statue with the trapped Servant keeps the Pup-ocalypse contained to this very day.
For you, Andrimedia, and our people, and the universe.
Thus the mysterious hooded figure raised his mysterious figure hood, and revealed the prince of the seven nebulae underneath with eyes of sadness.
And the high pitched whistles in the air and space had a tinge of melancholy, when foolish are words of the proud, but vengeance will come for the sake of a friend.
(The prince resurrects Andrimedia and they marry in the far, far future, using a string, a epigenetic recreation machine, timeline disperser, sound bounce container, and some cheese, but that is yet another, entirely different story)
*WAHed is the process in which outside work is completely turned into a house activity. It is an abbreviated form of "Work-At-Home - ed"
