Appropriately, considering it was the Planck Time, their main hobby was Planking. And so it was that Lord Sirius Gormenghost, the one hundred and thirty seventh Lord in the known and recorded line of Gormenghosts, was lying stiffly, face down upon the castle ramparts, when Berkeley, the court vizier, stepped outside and found him.
Berkeley clapped loudly when he saw Sirius’s display of Planking. “Most impressive my Lord!” he declared.
“Well take a photograph then!” insisted Sirius.
Berkeley quickly produced a camera and took a snapshot of his Planking Lord. Satisfied, Sirius dismounted, and began to brush his ornately designed robes that had been handed down through the generations of Gormenghosts. As he did so, he glanced at the sky, which had suddenly turned purple. “So what have you been up to then?” Sirius asked Berkeley; he was still looking at the sky in a distracted manner as he spoke.
Berkley also glanced at the sky, but then he turned to address Sirius, his expression grave. “I have been in a conference,” he said, “with Cameron, the Court Cosmologist.”
“Not a conference with Cameron the Court Cosmologist!” said Sirius wryly, “Is he causing a commotion again?”
Berkeley’s expression did not flicker, and he regarded Sirius with a stony glance. The head of the Gormenghost family sighed. “Go on”, he said in a resigned voice, “What did old misery guts have to say?”
“The news is grim, my Lord…”
“It always is with him!”
“… it appears the Planck time is coming to an end,” finished Berkeley.
Lord Gormenghost scowled. “What do you mean the Planck Time is coming to an end?” he roared, “The Planck time never comes to an end! There have been one hundred and thirty seven known Gormenghosts that have planked here in the time of Planck, and there’ll be at least one hundred and thirty seven more plankers, you take it from me!”
“There’s no need to shoot the messenger,” said Berkeley in a curt voice. He looked again to the sky and his countenance darkened. “But you should know that Cameron said that a great change is coming – he said that a Universe is to be born; a Universe of infinite variety and of great wonder, and our time will be swept away before it.
“He said that this new Universe would be made of gasses, and of metals and something called water, and he said there would even be sentient creatures to wonder at all of it and reflect upon their place in the great scheme of things.”
“Sentient creatures?” said an aggrieved Lord Gormenghost, “Sentient?! We’re sentient damn you!”
“Apparently we are not,” replied Berkeley, “Cameron claimed that we are merely conceptual illusions that foreshadow what is to come.”
“Foreshadow? Illusion?! I’m no illusion!” spat Gormenghost, his dander rising ever higher. He turned towards the roiling, purple sky and gestured grandly “I think therefore I am!!” he declared.
“That’s just what I said my Lord,” said Berkeley expectantly.
“Oh yes, what did he say?”
“He said that statement is a flawed supposition as it assumes the existence of the thinker.”
“Damn his eyes he’s insufferable!” shouted Sirius in frustration, “I’ve a good mind to -”
Gormenghost never completed his sentence, for at that moment a deep sound issued from the centre of the singularity that was all that was. At the same time, the sky above them turned from purple to black, and back to purple, and they saw a vision – a vision of a spiralling white structure, reaching over them and pointing towards a future which they would never be part of.
Sirius stammered, and forgot his anger. For in that instant he knew that everything he had just been told was about to come true. “Call him,” he told Berkeley, “call him up here now.”
Berkeley took a deep breath and yelled at the top of his voice: “Call Cameron the Court Cosmologist!”
The shout was taken up throughout the castle as the court astronomer was called to be present at his Lord’s behest, and they heard the summons shouted out again and again: “Call Cameron the Court Cosmologist!”
Eventually Cameron appeared, looking dishevelled, his ornate robes golden but untidy, as if he’d just been having a nap. “Can I help you gentlemen?” he asked.
“Yes!” replied Sirius hotly. He pointed to the sky, “you can tell us what that is!”
Cameron looked up and sucked in the air around him with a whistle. “Oooh, it’s started,” He said nodding as he spoke, “yes, this conforms with my calculations all right.
”“What has?! What’s started?”
Cameron folded his arms and looked at his lord sidelong. “The force of gravity separating from the electronuclear force,” he explained, “Yep, this is what I expected. It’s the onset of the Grand Unification Epoch, see.”
“Speak words we can understand damn you!” demanded Sirius, “what’s going to happen now?”
“Well,” said Cameron with a sniff, “nothing we’d like.”
At that point in time they heard another voice calling out in another part of the castle. It was a woman’s voice, and Sirius recognised it is that of his wife, the lady Gertrude Gormenghost.
“Yes! Yes!” she screamed “Yes! Oh… big boy! Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Accompanying the Lady Gormenghost’s voice the squeak of bedsprings could clearly be heard.
For an instant the three men were silent, their mouths hanging open in surprise at this new intrusion.“What in the singularity is that?!” decried Sirius, his voice reaching new levels of disbelief. “Is that the Lady Gertrude? My Lady Gertrude?”
“Ah,” said Berkeley awkwardly.
“Ah,” echoed Cameron.
The court vizier and cosmologist exchanged furtive glances – a glance that was not missed by Sirius.
“What do you know?! What’s going on?” he roared. “Out with it or you’ll both be beheaded!”
“I’m sorry my Lord…” began Berkeley.
“Oooohhh yes!!” screamed the Lady Gertrude.
“It’s the Lady Gertrude. She’s become ‘friendly’ with the court gardner…” began Cameron.
“She has been showing him….”
“Her potted plants…”
“For a while now…”
“Yes! Oh yes!!”
Sirius just starred at them. And the indescribable hum from the heart of singularity increased in volume. The sky flickered as if it were aflame, and great orbs were shown there, and coloured lights, and forks of coruscating violence.
Lord Gormenghost’s shoulders slumped. “And I was in such a good mood, too.” He said sorrowfully.
“Do not despair,” recited Cameron in a bored mechanical tone, “this is not the end this is not the beginning of the end rather this is the end of the beginning.”
“I’m nearly there!” called out Gertrude.
“At least someone’s enjoying the Big Bang,” muttered Berkeley.
“Oh… fuck off, the lot of you.” concluded Sirius sullenly. He turned away from the others and shook his head in despair.
One hundred and thirty seven Gormenghosts, Sirius thought to himself. One hundred and thirty seven - that were known of. Generation after generation of plankers; living safe upon the singularity that was everything – and this is what it came to: trapped here with a traitorous wife, a cranky cosmologist and a po-faced vizier.
He looked again at the vivid sky, but this time his sight alighted on a signpost, high above the castle ramparts, that warned people not to trespass in the kitchens when a meal was being cooked.
“Look at that sign,” he said to the vizier and the cosmologist.
“What about it?” asked Berkeley as he and Cameron studied the object.
“What do you think?” said Sirius in a pointed tone.
He waited as they considered his words, and around them the thunder of cosmic birth rolled and blasted out. It was not long before they understood his intentions.
“No way…” intoned Berkeley.
“Yes way!” said Sirius gleefully.
“You’re crazy!” said Cameron.
“Maybe,” Sirius agreed, “but if this is the end of the Planck time then I’m going to go out Planking!”
With that he began to shin up the support struts that held up the sign, climbing towards the sky, which was now composed of purple concentric circles of infinite complexity that resonated with the hum of power that spread out of the singularity.
With open mouths, Berkeley and Cameron watched him climb, until with yells of delight, they celebrated as they watched him lying stiffly atop the sign.
“Not bad eh?” Sirius called down.
“Fantastic planking!” cheered Berkeley.
“The man’s a planking marvel!” declared Cameron.
“Photograph!” demanded Sirius.
Berkeley fumbled for his camera, but then he paused and frowned, looking around as if trying to locate something or someone. “Did anybody hear that?” he called out.
“Hear what?” shouted down Sirius.
“That voice,” said Berkeley.
“Voice?” shouted Sirius, his voice partially obscured by the edge of the sign.
“Yes, a voice,” called Berkeley, “As if issued from some vast and mighty omnipresent being that was making a pronouncement that would echo through eternity.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“What did the voice say?” asked Cameron.
“’Let there be light,’” answered Berkeley.
“Damn silly thing to say,” Shouted out Sirius, “where’s that photograph?!”
“Sorry my Lord!” Berkeley produced his camera and aimed it at his prostrate, planking lord. But even as he pressed down the shutter, his conceptual existence was ended.
Thus reality was born.
