Random

by

Shalene Dawn Simon
 

The creature sat there, seemingly not noticing me. It was the colour of faded blue egg-shell and made a faint clacking sound when it moved as though it were made entirely of bone... or, indeed, egg-shell. It was watching something... something I could not see, that threw light patterns onto the dark curving walls.
I walked slowly toward it, hoping for a better look, and it hissed quietly,
'Be careful where you walk.'
Startled, I looked at the ground and noticed a faintly glowing line, seemingly painted, that ran in a circle all around the creature. 'What is it?'
The creature turned and looked at me, tiny black eyes stared out from an elongated skull, 'It is a sealed-off space,' a hideous toothy smile split across its face, ‘what ventures in will never leave.’
I glimpsed a corner of the object in its arms, and my curiosity rose, despite the threat, ‘I am not afraid of you’.
It clacked its teeth in some unknown gesture, ‘I know what you are… and if you are not afraid, come in and I will learn you.’ ‘Learn me?’ I moved within the boundary, but remained at the edge.
It raised its arm, moved a bony finger toward its skull, ‘clack, clack’ the finger tapped twice against its temple, ‘what makes you tick.’ And it grinned again, as though pleased with some joke.
I frowned ‘There is no answer to that.’
‘Isn’t there?’ The creature looked away as though troubled, and stroked the hidden object in its arms, ‘5th of the 2nd of the 73rd’
‘What is that?’
‘The date of your start.’
‘I was born in November,’ I said, ‘not February’
The creature clacked its teeth again, ‘It is the date of your start. And the 8th of the 4th of the 12th was the date of your finish.
I frowned, ‘Why do you say that?’
‘No reason really,’ a cold gleam lit in its eye, ‘it was truth until you stepped in here.’
‘How do you know anything about me?’
It leant back toward me as though to whisper something private, ‘Your code is not very long.’
I smiled as some amusing thought entered my head, then shook it away, ‘And that dictates the length of my life?’
‘No… your level of complexity.’ The creature sighed, ‘Come closer and I will tell you a great secret.’
I moved closer, until I could see my own breath condense on its skeletal shoulder. The object in its lap, now clearly glass, was covered by two gigantic spider-like hands. The creature hissed, and I looked up to meet its eyes.
‘Before your world was born, I became a reader of codes, ‘It paused and sucked in a deep breath, ‘… some long, some short, but in the end each and every one predictable. The universe is one of order, you see. Nothing is random…. Nothing, except for one thing.’
‘One thing,’ I echoed to myself, aware that this very thing was the one it so protectively held.
‘I found one code, an impossible, tiny glitch in the very fabric of the universe At the start of its 1st I removed it, and brought it here, into this sealed space.’ It smiled to itself, as though remembering, ‘much as you would stitch around a piece of frayed fabric… to prevent it fraying any further.
Silence settled for a moment as I pondered the illustration, ‘What would happen if it did?’
The creature’s skull creaked as though it were trying to frown, ‘Order would collapse, the universe would revert to chaos… and our entire cycle of existance would begin again.’ ‘So,’ I said, leaning closer, ‘What is this code?’
‘You might wish you’d never asked,’ the creature said quietly, and began to lift its hands, ‘after all, you will spend the rest of indefinite time watching it with me,’
Its hands moved away, and a glass jar sat before me, light reflecting off the water inside. A tiny goldfish within stared at me blankly, and flexed its gills in a decidedly random way.