“That reminds me of a question I had earlier,” I said. “The black hole in your closet is a point of light. I didn’t think they emitted light.”
Alice smiled. “You’re correct. The gravitational attraction of a black hole is so strong not even light can escape, that is, once light rays have crossed the event horizon they’re gone forever. What you may not realize is that to you, as an observer, the light approaching a black hole never crosses inside. You observe it get closer and closer, witness an ever-increasing halo of light that seems to surround the hole, a blinding white light that has, in reality, long-since vanished.”
“The black hole becomes a white one?”
“To the observer, yes. It’s a consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: the amount of disorder in a closed system must remain constant. Since information is a measure of the disorder of a system, the amount of information in a closed system remains constant. The universe is a closed system. A black hole removes information from the universe. If the light a black hole captured disappeared from the observer’s sight, the information content of the universe would decrease, violating the law.”
“Doesn’t that imply that the black hole is effectively a seconduniverse, or possibly a portal to such a place?”
Alice smiled. “It’s late and I’m tired,” she said. “We can talk more about this later.” She drew me to her and kissed me. “Wait,” I said, attempting to remove her arms that encircled my waist. “Since the universe is expanding, at some point the light from a distant section of the cosmos will no longer be able to reach us. In other words, the object which emitted the light will disappear from the universe, reducing its disorder in violation of the second law. And that means we’re living insidea black hole.”
In response, Alice pulled me to her and kissed me once again, passionately this time. And, this time, I did not resist.
When I awoke the next morning, Alice was nowhere to be seen. I dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen. No Alice.
I looked at the clock on the walclass="underline" 9:15 a. m. I remembered Alice telling me she had an eight o’clock class that morning. The topic: exoplanets. She’d beamed when she told me she’d assembled half-a-dozen film clips to illustrate the topic. Shot in lavish detail-she laughed when she told me she’d filmed on location-they were sure to be a hit with her students.
Just then I spied a note on the counter. She’d written that she wouldn’t return until six, that I was to make myself at home, and not to worry about dinner for she’d be bringing home
Chinese. It certainly seemed an invitation to stay.
Which I did.
***
A week later I moved in. Alice made it clear it was her apartment and she was allowing me to stay only on a trial basis. She would be up at the crack of dawn and wouldn’t return until evening so it would be my responsibility to have dinner prepared. Further, I was to do the grocery shopping and the laundry once a week. I wasn’t working, so I had nothing against this arrangement. She laughed when she added she was lucky to have found me. But she always had a mischievous look about her and I never knew whether to take her seriously.
During the day I spent my time reading and taking care of the apartment as Alice had instructed. I also enjoyed watching the fish tank for long periods of time. Another unusual fish soon joined the speculated goldfish and the salamander-like creature. This creature was eel-like, long and slender, with wide dorsal fins and green-and-blue pectoral fins. It was covered with downy-white cilia which undulated as it moved across the tank. I’d never seen anything like it. When I asked Alice about it she told me she’d acquired it on one of her recent travels and that its mate would be arriving soon. She didn’t tell me the name of the species nor where the purchase had been made and I didn’t ask. I had a hunch as to what was going on and to tell the truth I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. The importation of exotic specimens was illegal in this day and age.
Most evenings our discussions extended late into the night. They usually involved astronomical topics, and her knowledge about that subject seemed limitless. But she had questions as well. For all her scientific knowledge, she seemed ignorant about human history and was constantly peppering me with questions about culture and politics. Questions I often found amusing.
One conversation in particular sticks in my mind. It was a Friday evening in early December. The wind was howling, the naked branches of the elm trees grating against the windows. We’d just finished dinner, when I popped the question that had been bothering me for weeks:
“The universe is expanding,” I said. “That I know and understand. But doesn’t that imply that weare expanding as well?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Space is expanding, correct?”
“Yes.”
“The atoms which make us up are part of space-exist in space, do they not?”
“Of course.”
“Then the distance between the atoms must be expanding, that is, we ourselves are expanding.”
She laughed-how I loved her childish laugh-“First you say we’re shrinking because the cosmos is expanding, now you say we’re expanding because the cosmos is expanding. Which do you mean?”
“I guess I really don’t know,” I said, gazing at her quizzically. “I’m thoroughly confused!”
“I’ll tell you how it is,” she said, “though I don’t think my explanation will satisfy you.”
She took my hand and led me to the couch in her living room. I heard the tick-tock of the grandfather clock in the hall. The timepiece was encased in a cabinet made from stained cherry that had been etched with an intricate design depicting the planets and the stars.
“From the point of view of the universe we are expanding,” she explained. “From our point of view, we’re contracting. In other words, we’re both expanding and contracting and at the same rate. The effects cancel each other out, but they arehappening.”
“Wouldn’t that mean we’d be dizzy all the time?” I meant it in jest, but she didn’t laugh.
“We aren’t. And that’s because we don’t notice what’s happening. The effect is rather small.”
I frowned. “What you say might be true,” I said. “Nevertheless, I don’t like it.”
“I didn’t think you would.” She smiled. The candlelight danced across her pretty green eyes.
I looked over at the fish tank and saw that the axolotl seemed to be watching us, or me.
Alice continued, “Have you considered the possibility that it’s not the universe you’re preoccupied with, it’s something else, something within this universe and around which you revolve?”