Originally there was very little going on in the universe, the gaps joined together in solidarity. Mostly darkness, a few lost photons doing a sort of screen saver dance and some incidental music. A limp medley of inoffensive jazz classics arranged almost out of existence, to call it lift music would have been a stretch. The darkness wandered off in every direction except one, which had a direct communication line with the management committee, who were in adjournment.
At a given signal, specific time unknown, as there were no clocks, watches or egg timers available, the blue touch paper was lit using the ceremonial lighting crew and the whole thing sprang into life, molecules all over the place, zipping about in an apparently random fashion. The music became more classical and was joined by celestial choirs who stood in rows above the orchestra.
It was hard to gauge the scale of the event as there was nothing to compare, the molecules may have been mountainous or molehillic. The bang may in fact have been a tiny click of the fingers or an all-consuming concussion of an ear-splitting nature. As we were not there, I think it is best characterised it as a Medium Bang so that we do not feel overwhelmed.
Anyway, now that the light had been switched on, things were much easier. The trees spread their leaves, the stars exploded and re-exploded time after time, wandering around the universe in great swirling eddies, always clockwise. It was still hard to read at night, as electricity was at the very back of the invention book and we all had to go to bed at sundown.
In effect, as time itself began at that very moment, everything that came later, from garlic crushers to sewing machines, was already there, predicted at the commence of the medium bang. All these things that we use and talk to each morning are just very interesting arrangements of particles of particles that. One begins to wonder if all these wondrous options, the ratchet spanner and the giraffe, for instance, were somehow written into the preprograming narrative by the management committee when the spark was lit.
The management committee, by the by, was made up of several experts from the relevant disciplines, plus seven lay people, whose opinions were of little consequence as they only kept saying that they were very angry about something.
It must have been a really complex and detailed series of instructions that came down the line from the management committee. I mean you can quote Darwin when holding up a bat, but who wrote his software?
I am imagining that it required a series of diagrams detailing the details. So that the octopus would not get confused with the proboscis monkey and the moon would not be made of cheese by mistake.
The info might have flowed down the line as a series of consecutive numbered poems, art works and recipes, encrypted and firewalled, with rhyming couplet and verses ordered, several colour illustrations and a magnificent reference section at the back. Also numbers.
It might go something like this (picture of the universe).
There may, of course, have been more than one bang. Lighting a universe is always tricky and the first click may not have produced enough spark. There were probably a series of clicks and sparks, like lighting a barbeque or a gas hob or a candle. A series of smaller bangs and sparkles, before the universe finally catches light and prospers. I expect that there is a special gas lighting thing like the one that lights the gas hob when the automatic clicker has failed. It has a garish plastic handle and only lasts a couple of months, so be quick. Who is to say that we are not contained in one of the false starts? Perhaps the dark matter will stifle the first sparking universe before it can really get going and the management team will have to have another go. Or maybe they bend down and blow on the embers of the stars to bring them all back to life.
Each spark would be different, some big but in the wrong direction and some too small and some clicks with no spark at all.
Anyway, if there were multiple attempts, then the odds dictate that we are probably wandering about within one of the minor sparking events, which I am going to call the Smaller Bangs. Even so, great, isn’t it? If this is just a test or ‘get going’ bang, imagine what the real thing is going to be like. Epic, I expect.
The Guardians of the Cave 