End The World, The Right Way

My brother just pointed out to me that there is a Massive Particle Accelerator called the Large Hadron Collider or LHC to be tested tomorrow. This ring of supercooled magnets 17 MILES IN CIRCUMFERENCE and burried 330 feet underground is to be turned on. The first particle collisions are to be tested about a month later. All this to recreate the microseconds after the Big Bang.

The interesting thing about this story is that when LHC begins smashing beams of protons together at high speeds, it will begin to create mini-black holes. The article about the story reads: "One French scientist launched a court battle last week to prevent the switch on, so convinced is he that the black holes will swallow the Earth."

This of course caused a great deal of conversation and speculation between myself and OBSIDIAN. The humor of it all WOULD BE if they turned on the LHC and a big fucking black hole appeared and swallowed up the entire Earth in a soundless gulp. All life and most likely the orbits of the planets, and maybe even the sun would suddenly cease to exist. On October 21, when they start colliding these particles, we could be looking at doomsday.

Personally I would hate for the world to end with a soundless gasp. Just a rush of wind into a tremendous vacuum and little more. Then the lifeless cold of space would be left without even debris or smoke to mark our passing. I personally think that such a finish would be too boring for such a lively species. I would rather something else more dramatic. Something that would bring in the moralistic underpinnings of responsibility and repentance. Of anarchy and malice. Of confusion and panic and terror. I would like people to experience the wildly unimaginable death of a tremendous fireball, or a limb wrenching force boiling across the Earth, kicking up dust and debris like a dustdevil. I would like a real crescendo to fall, where we can all get on our knees, or jump out of windows, or pull the hair from our heads, or to simply just stand there, bug eyed and trembling. I would like to see people on fire, blowing up, pissing their pants, punching themselves against the head with all of their might.

It should be a beautiful finish, with the best and the worst of us coming out. And like Prince, I would be at the party at the Worlds End Cafe. Dancing to a waltz, naked, with brass weights around my balls, weighting them down...why? Because I never had brass weights around my balls weighing them down before. And well, since its the end of the world, why the fuck not? I don't want to die within milliseconds, I want time to think about it. I want the time to think about God, or death, or to be frightened. I want to watch the fireball come forth, the raging wind tear apart trees and homes like an elemental goliath. I want to laugh at the final moments when unspeakable power reaches fragile muscle and bone. When being pulverized into fluid is a rush to the senses, as your soul and spirit are torn from you limb by limb.

Be that as it may, what does science give us? As usual a boring finish. Something less than what we always wanted. A cheap date, a short changed ending, they've given away the climax of the book...again.

I mean, if we must end as a race of beings, as an entire civilization, as a world entity, we should have something more than a vanishing. We should have a party. There should be sex, and alcohol, and good food... maybe even some bad food. Maybe exotic food, like the food a friend of mine showed me from China, or somewhere, where they eat dog liver, and goat's lung, and dung beetles and crickets and scorpions. Shit like that. I would eat that shit if I knew that something worse than a stomach ache or a puking was on its way. I would eat shit like that and then pray to God for forgiveness. I would do everything that I wanted to do in the last seconds of life on Earth.

I mean, think about it. Aren't you being cheated out of something with a Black Hole ending? Isn't there a lack of fun with that kind of humanistic passing?

That's just my take on the end. My brother finds the Black Hole exit so ironic. He finds humor in the ending of all life in such a way that mankind is rendered nothing. All of our accomplishments, all of our self importance in the universe, everything, and we end up nothing in the final accounting. Like wiped chalk from a chalkboard. Less than dust. Just nothing.

I mean, it's an ending right? His is just as justified as mine, as yours. Maybe you would like all of mankind to end with a pleasant dream, like a nerve gas leaking out and killing everyone painlessly, like a Bhopal, THE STAND, Stephen King kind of ending. Everyone just lies down and goes to sleep. OR a virus that runs rampant. But the virus thing comes back to my exciting ending. So does The Stand and Bhopal if you think about it.

Nothing is like the Black Hole ending though. It is unique.

Well, maybe we should have a big LHC party on October 21, the day before they test this fucker. Get ready for the Black Hole beforehand and then party like the world is coming to an end, just in case, you know?

I'll bring the ball weights.

Hb