Scientists pore at the surface, taking samples to try and carbon date each square inch. Inexplicably, some pieces are from the future and so are yet to exist.
Physicists fumble at these half-empty spaces that are not really empty, cupping the future, terrified that they will see into its murky depths and witness something that they do not want to witness. And terrified that they might accidentally alter the course of history.
They hear butterfly whispers and disembodied voices calling to them in their sleep.
But what is sleep? people start to ask. And there is silence.
Back on Earth, there are banners, protests, wars to STOP EXAMINING THE HOURS. To leave the planet alone in the cosmos.
Some things, a news reporter says, shivering outside the White House, some things are meant to be left in the dark.
Christian sects declare that The Hours is God. Hunched up and morphing in the depths of Dark Matter.
Some say we should run away. Some say we should go forth.
Some start a petition to bring the planet’s water home to sell as holy water. To bathe in God. To consume him.
The Pope launches an online campaign to send priests into space.
A Seer says he has visited The Hours in a previous life.
The non-religious start converting at an alarming rate.
Celebrities talk about visiting The Hours. They bid to buy land there. The air is breathable in some parts, some of the time, some scientists say.
There are jokes about Time Share, about Moving Into the Future.
Nuclear bunkers are discounted everywhere.
Astrologers band together to form a cult worshipping The Hours. They hold replicas in their hands, strange space-crystal balls that they bought online from an anonymous seller.
Some say The Hours is the Internet in physical form.
They say that it’s a virus and that all of us are infected.
Google’s top one hundred questions no longer relate to anything found on Earth. Anthropologists say we have moved beyond that now.
Some say The Hours is a government conspiracy to distract everyone from ‘problems at home.’ Journalists start asking what the word home means and where its boundaries lie, while governments bicker over who The Hours rightfully belongs to, lining up flags.
PhD students sign up to circumnavigate The Hours: to become human satellites, so that over one thousand television stations and millions of YouTube channels can constantly stream the surface.
#TheHours.
Everyone watches.
Companies flock to advertise on the side of starlit spacesuits.
What does it want, though? a news reporter asks, huddled under an umbrella. Has anyone thought to ask it? Can it understand us at all?
Statistics show that the world’s population is finding it difficult to sleep. People giggle-cry into their coffee. Medication costs skyrocket.
Anti-gravity yoga classes are suddenly all the rage.
T-shirts are being printed by the millions: IT’S WRITTEN IN THE STARS.
The Hours Causes Cancer! headlines shout.
The Hours: Possible Alien Life Forms To Invade?
Some say The Hours is an optical illusion or perhaps a reality TV show.
Some say it’s a hoax.
Scientists sigh and shrug their shoulders, theories running round and round in orbits.
Some say The Hours is us in the future – an us that wants revenge.
Others say it’s an omen – that it’s the devil in disguise.
A black hole that’s going to open its mouth and swallow us down whole.
Bright White Hearts
‘The sky is falling!’ I cried. ‘It’s falling fast!’
‘Where?’
‘It’s falling into the ocean.’
And everyone watched as the sun sank into the sea, and the moon laughed from the clouds, and the people cried until salt water came up to their chins.
‘The water wants our words,’ they said. ‘It can’t have them!’
The alphabet ran rivers from their mouths.
‘Don’t fight it,’ I said, swimming between them. ‘In a past life, we were jellyfish. And just look at us now.
‘You’ll get used to it. Learn to float.
Lie back.
Take steadying breaths.
It’s all going to be OK.’
Welcome to the aquarium.
I work here on Saturdays.
Here, we like the colour blue.
Some scientists argue that ancient civilisations couldn’t see the colour blue because they didn’t have a name for it. Then the Egyptians started to paint the sky on everything. Their blue had a luminescence, a halo. Lighting up under microscopes like fragments of outer space.
Let’s talk about cosmic dust. As much as 40,000 tonnes of it rains down on us every year. Some of it falls from planetary rings, which would explain why I feel like I’m standing inside an orb most of the time. I stretch out my arms and touch all of the things I cannot see.
Other people can’t see them, either. They ignore my galactic rules and invade my personal space.
In the sea, instead of cosmic dust, there is something called marine snow. White flakes of dead fish that trickle down into the darkness to feed those below.
Like standing out in the rain and sticking out your tongue.
The dead skin of stars and the dead skin of Pisces.
Hello, Aquarius.
We are all made of starfish.
Sometimes, people look at me strangely. They are very wary about touching the headsets I hand out to them at work, in case I’ve contaminated them somehow.
I was born with my fingers joined together, but now they are separated. Scars scatter my hands like nets, caught by science. I’m missing some of them, too.
Sometimes I tell people sharks ate my fingers, just to see the looks on their faces.
I was given a written warning at work for saying that, in case customers thought that we’d broken health and safety rules.
‘Welcome to the aquarium, where sharks will not eat your fingers.’
My toes are joined together, too.
I pass a headset to a woman and her two children, and she holds it, gingerly, at arm’s length, glaring. The headphones pincered between two fingers. Like a crab.
Just keep swimming.
Sometimes people get annoyed because David Attenborough doesn’t narrate the audio tour.
They ask me for a refund.
‘I’m afraid we have a no refund policy.’
Sometimes people ask me if we have freed the angry orcas yet, and I have to say: ‘We are not affiliated with SeaWorld.’
But they don’t believe the girl with missing fingers.
I suppose that’s fair enough, considering my lie about the shark.
Sharks are fascinating creatures.