The First Story

A short story about the faraway future

Photo from Pixabay

Mortimer Whitaker’s parents knew their son's generation would be the last, but because they were good parents, they didn't say anything to their only child. 

Why should he worry about something he can’t change? they agreed. They raised Mortimer as if the universe would continue forever, but space, time, and matter were on an inextricable collision with oblivion.

Mortimer’s mother, Melanie, had worked as a stellar cartographer for 1,017 years, mapping the insides of stars. She lost her job last year after the Galactic Society of Stellar Specialists declared that there was nothing left to learn about stars and disbanded. 

Mortimer’s father, Josh, having retired from medicine two millennia ago because nobody got sick anymore, often accompanied Melanie on her work trips, but more recently they stayed home in their house on Vekno in the Uybroq system of the Hopvum galaxy, all day, every day. 

On his eleventh birthday, after eating a forkful of cake, Mortimer announced he wanted to be a writer.

“What do you want to write, son?” Josh asked.

Mortimer stroked his chin for several moments as if engaged in thought, but his eyes revealed that he already knew the answer. He pulled an antique, red, celluloid fountain pen from his pocket; the color resembled the atmosphere of their twin planet, Roxyno. He twirled the pen between his fingers and said, “I want to write science fiction.”

Josh slipped backward, but Melanie caught him before he fell. His heart beat like a drummer soloing at the end of a rock concert. Their house’s medical monitor zapped Josh’s heart, and its rhythm returned to normal. Josh locked eyes with Melanie and mouthed, “Tell him.”

Melanie took Mortimer’s hand and walked him to the couch. “Mort, have you thought about writing romance? Or historical fiction? Maybe crime stories?”

“What’s crime, Mom?”

“Nevermind. What your father and I want to tell you is that for there to be science fiction, there needs to be the potential for discovery. Everything that can be known has been discovered.”

“Is that why the end of the universe is coming, because there’s nothing left to learn?”

Melanie slapped her hand over her mouth, making a loud pop that scared their cat, Luciana, who leaped off the couch and ran under it. She hugged Mortimer. “How do you know the universe is ending?”

“Mom, really? Have you looked out the window lately? Have you noticed the shimmer in the night sky, how it is no longer blue or even violet? The aurora is exclusively in the red because the cosmos is winding down. And Luciana doesn’t zoom around at night anymore. She knows, too. Cats are sensitive.”

“How long have you known?”

Mortimer shrugged. 

Melanie whispered to Josh, “I thought the weird end-of-everything occurrences like random gravity fails and other universes piercing the membrane of ours weren’t going to start for another ten years.”

“Our son is astute. With his observation skills, he’ll make a great writer. It’s a shame that soon nobody will be around to read his stories.”

Mort uncapped his pen and wrote in his notebook. When his father tried to say something, he commanded a sharp, urgent, “Shh.” 

Several minutes later, Melanie said, “Mort, you can’t hide behind your notebook. Now that you know the universe is ending, you need to face reality. We have twenty-two years and seven days until nothingness. Your father and I promise we’ll make the most of the time. We’ll go snowboarding on Europa—”

“I think he’d enjoy Spen more,” Josh argued. There’s no artificial snow there and—”

While his parents debated where to vacation, Mortimer wrote, his pen moving faster and faster over the paper, smoke trailing behind his words. When he reached the end of a page, Mortimer flipped to a new one so quickly that it created a sonic boom. 

His father sighed and said, “Okay, skiing on Janji it is.” 

At the same time, Mortimer shouted, “Done!”

“Done with what?” 

“I’ve finished writing my science fiction story.”

His parents shook their heads. 

“That’s not possible, Mort," Josh said. "We already explained that for science fiction to be written, there has to be something that remains to be learned.”

Mort opened his notebook and dropped it in front of his parents. He tapped the first word of the first sentence. “Read.”

With only thirty seconds left before the universe winked away, Gwen manipulated the black hole located at coordinate 125.297.334 by 97.334.880 into a torus. The small amount of energy required to change the black hole’s topology surprised Gwen—it’s all in the wrist, she thought—but that her idea worked surprised her even more.

Her entire planet shook. Zelkon’s three moons also trembled, as did every planet in the solar system, every object in the galaxy, every galaxy, and through the entire universe.

An enormous, doughnut-shaped object appeared in the sky, at one moment red like lava, at another blue like the coral in the Pastron Sea. Every being in the universe could see it simultaneously. 

The master universe clock spun backward. Thirty seconds, sixty, one thousand, ten thousand, one million, one billion, and the clock's hands whirled until they flew off, shattering the glass covering, sending shards sailing through her laboratory. 

“What is this?” Josh asked.

“It’s my science fiction story.”

“It’s not.”

Melanie grabbed the top of Josh’s head and turned it to the window. “Look,” she said. Their jaws hung slack, and their eyes went wide. “Do you see it?” 

An opalescent, doughnut-shaped object floated over the horizon spinning around its center axis, eclipsing one of Vekno’s two suns. Starlight, which should not have been visible in the middle of the day, coruscated off the doughnut’s surface. 

“What is that?” Josh asked.

“The beginning of a new story,” Mortimer said. 

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If you liked The First Story, I think you’ll also enjoy The Last Person Alive on Earth.