Richard J. Ronayne

Novella

Phenix Publishing Ltd

Nation-X Project

Dozens of my stories are currently being illustrated for release by Phenix Publishing Ltd for their Nation-X project, a multi-year project for 4-8000 word educational novellas.

This series was designed for young adults and high schoolers across Chinese and American schools, harnessing anthropomorphism to help digest mature, dark or joyful topics, whilst reflecting life, and exploring real social issues in an exciting and educational way.

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Optimistic Nihilism
By Richard Joseph Ronayne

CHAPTER 1: Not a People Person
Polly Patrick had arrived at school the same as any other day, except today all the students were summoned to the school hall for a special assembly. This was rather unusual and excited the children who tried to anticipate the reason.
Polly sat with her classmates, wishing she was in class learning, whilst others enjoyed the opportunity to get out of class. She sat reading her textbook, trying to ignore the conspiracy theories of those sat around her. 
They argued around her over whether a teacher had died, or another student had been caught doing something dramatic. Others presumed they were all going to be lectured, whilst a few were convinced that they were going to be searched for contraband and enjoyed teasing each other about who they thought was carrying some.
Polly already knew the reason. Her aunty Veronica and uncle Norm both worked as teachers at the school, they had been talking excitedly to Polly’s parents, Carol, and Pike, for weeks about how they had asked a well-known professor to come visit the school to give a special class.
Polly, personally, didn’t see how this professor would be able to teach her anything she couldn’t learn for herself in the school’s library, where she spent most of her time studying by herself.
“Good morning, students, please settle down,” Veronica announced as she walked up onto the stage. “I know you are all eager to learn why you have been called to assembly today, and I am proud, on behalf of Green Hill Middle School, to announce that a special guest has agreed to come here today to speak about their research in the field of physics, and to paint a picture for you of the universe we all live in. Please welcome to the stage, Professor Gilbert Monks!”
The students gave an apathetic round of applause, clearly disappointed that their theories were incorrect, as Gilbert walked out onto the stage.
“Erm, hello everyone. It is a pleasure to be here today visiting your wonderful school. I must admit that I don’t have much experience with children, but I will avail to do my best,” Gilbert began, clearly nervous. 
“Well, erm, where to start? I guess we’ll start at the beginning. I bet being as small as you are, that you often feel that existence itself can be scary and confusing? Yet your understanding of the universe is infinitely greater than it was at the beginning of our evolution. Where we became conscious and found ourselves in a rather strange place.”
Norm turned to Veronica. “He’s not as confident a speaker as I had imagined?”
“No. He is visibly sweating. But I’m sure he’ll find his feet soon,” Veronica hoped unconvincingly.
“The world around us was filled with other beings. Some we could eat, and some could eat us. We found water was nice to drink, and we found how to use stuff laying around to make more stuff. Erm, there was a warm yellow ball in the daytime sky and beautiful twinkling lights filled the night.” 
Gilbert mopped his brow with his handkerchief, wishing he had not agreed to speak to children. They made him so uncomfortable, reminding him of how terrible his own school years were. 
“Back that, erm, we thought that the world had clearly been created for us, right? It made sense that some great being was watching over us, and that this world was a home that they had created for us. And, erm, these thoughts made living here much less scary and confusing.”
“What is he talking about?” Norm asked Veronica.
“I have no idea. I guess he is building up to his recent work,” she replied.
“But, you see, the older our race got, the more we realized about the world and ourselves. Slowly, over time, we realized that the twinkling lights were not twinkling for us. We realized that they were just doing it because that is how light travels from huge celestial bodies made mostly of hydrogen and helium that produce light and heat from the churning nuclear forges inside their cores from over billions of lightyears away. Nothing to do with us at all.” 
Gilbert started to notice that he was gaining the full attention of the children now. They seemed to respond to the dark and moody stuff he noted encouragingly to himself. 
“We learnt that we're not at the center of what we now call the universe, and that it is much, much older than we thought. We learned that we're made of many little things, which make up bigger things, and that we're just another temporary stage in a history going back over a billion years. That is all. Nothing special.”
“Well, at least the kids are paying attention now,” Norm pointed to Veronica, who had to admit that she was impressed, but was still confused by the subject matter. 
“We learned, awestruck, that we live on a wet speck of dust moving around an uninteresting medium-sized star in a quiet region of one arm of an average galaxy. Which is part of a galaxy group that we can never leave. And this group is only one of thousands that make up a galaxy supercluster. But even our supercluster is only one in thousands of superclusters that make up what we call the observable universe,” Gilbert looked out at the crowd as they stared mouths open at him. 
He mentally patted himself on the back as he thought this was going great. “The universe beyond that is at least a million times bigger, but we will never know, because it is expanding outwards after the big bang, trapping us here. I can throw words around like two hundred million galaxies, or trillions of stars, or bazillions of planets, but all of these numbers do not mean anything. 
“Our brains simply cannot comprehend these concepts. The universe is too big. There is too much of it for our tiny biological computer brains. And yet size is not the most troubling concept we have to deal with. It's time, or, more precisely, the time we have,” Gilbert pointed suddenly at Polly. “Hello little girl, how old are you?”
“My name is Polly, I am fourteen,” she said sheepishly.
“Fourteen? That’s great, Polly, you have been alive for seven hundred and twenty-eight weeks. That means that you have four thousand, four hundred and seventy-two left until you die at one hundred years old. I hope you look after yourself though, otherwise you’ll probably die in only two thousand nine hundred and twelve weeks at the average age of death of seventy!” Gilbert laughed, alone.
 
CHAPTER 2: Choir of Tears
Gilbert was oblivious to the effect his words were having on the children. He didn’t notice the teachers at the side of the stage gesturing to him to stop talking about when the children would die. He had absolutely no idea how to behave around children, so he really believed that he was doing great.
“This might sound like a lot of time from some perspectives, Polly, but it is not. You’re going to die, and then what? Your biological processes will breakdown, returning to the earth as food for insects and trees, and the dynamic pattern that is you will stop being dynamic, putting all your collective knowledge to waste. 
“You will dissolve until there is no you left. And for those that believe that there is a part of us we cannot see or measure, we have no way to find out, so we have to presume that this life might be it and we might end up dead forever,” Gilbert laughed, genuinely surprised when nobody else did. The room was silent.
Veronica ran on stage and whispered in Gilbert’s ear. “Professor Monks, you are upsetting the children, please stop talking about their deaths, I beg of you!”
“Oh, I had no idea, of course,” he replied, turning back to the children. “You do not need to fear this though, it is less scary than it sounds. I mean if you don't remember the thirteen point seventy-five billion years that came before you existed, then the googolplexes and googolplexes and googolplexes of years that come after will pass in no time once you're gone.” 
Gilbert looked down at the room as children starting crying. “No, no, don’t be sad. Look. Close your eyes. Count to one. That's how long forever feels. That is all you will know when you die. And anyway, it doesn’t matter, in the end, the universe itself will die and nothing will ever exist again!” Gilbert stood on the stage, with his arms raised, as the whole room erupted into a choir of tears.
A few minutes went by before the school staff were able to calm the children down again. 
“Perhaps, children, I should answer some questions from you to reassure you of how wonderful all this knowledge of existence is?” Gilbert desperately pleaded.
Polly put her hand up in the air. “So, are you saying that all social values are baseless?”
Gilbert tugged nervously at his collar, starting to sweat heavily once more. “Erm, no, child. Well, I mean, it depends on how you choose to view the universe, I suppose. I can’t tell you how to think and feel, and some values are more worthy than others, but if you mean in the end will your efforts to live a virtuous life effect the greater universe, then no, of course not. Values are purely man made; nature doesn’t care for them. Erm, wait, does that answer your question?”
Polly nodded solemnly, sitting back down, deep in thought. Another child shouted out, “So, life is meaningless?”
“Dear gosh, erm, no, quite the contrary. Although that is up to the individual. Again, the universe doesn’t care what you do in its incredible vastness, and erm, I guess realizing that your existence is completely random doesn’t make one feel as good as the thought that you are here to fulfill a destiny provided by some higher power. But no, obviously, you matter to your parents. Does that help?” Gilbert was not getting the questions he anticipated.
“So, knowledge is a waste of time because we can’t possibly know everything, then we die and lose it all anyway?” another child shouted out tearfully. 
“No, no. Certainly not, as your teachers would agree, that passing on your learning is the noblest of quests. Specifically, to oneself however, it could be argued that it is pointless, as it won’t save you from death, and it doesn’t guarantee a happy life either, I suppose. But no, learning is great. You should of course learn all you can.” 
Gilbert sipped nervously at a cup of water, as the teachers were staring furiously at him. “Erm, I think perhaps we only have time for one more question, perhaps about what we know of the universe and existence as a whole?”
“My mother makes me go to church to pray our thanks to the one who made us and the world for us, can I stop going now that I know that it is pointless?” a final child shouted out.
“Oh wow. This has gone very poorly. Erm, people are free to believe what they wish, of course. What I am saying is that as far as we know, there is no deity that did this for us, but in factual evidence that we can see with our own eyes, it appears to be quite the opposite, and that life is an even more wondrous thing because of how rare and random it is throughout space. I do think you should at least choose your own path and decide for yourself if you wish to follow a religion or attend church,” Gilbert was starting to feel dizzy with his nervousness.
“Yay! I can’t wait to tell my mom you said that I don’t have to go to church anymore!” the child shouted.
“Erm, oh dear. I think that’s all the time I have for today, thank you children for having me. Bye!” Gilbert said, running off stage, past the furious teachers and out of the school to his car, where he sped off to escape the mess he had made.
“Well, that was certainly…interesting,” Norm said, hoping to break through the cloud of tense anger that was flowing from his wife.


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