Day 203 - Jar Story

Jar Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Randall was sure he could feel a universe collapse somewhere inside him. It was infinitesimally small, hidden somewhere in the spaces between atoms. There was no proof that it had existed, except for Randall’s overwhelming confidence that it had.

The funeral was held at sunset on a Sunday afternoon in Lancaster Park, near the open field where a group of teenage boys played football. Randall wore a conservative black suit with a solid grey tie. The service was small. He was the only one in attendance.

Randall had prepared a few words to be read and planned to bury a copy along with a peanut butter jar he had emptied and filled with the ashes of a notebook he burnt. The notebook had contained images he had sketched of what he thought the people living in the universe looked like. He had written out hundreds of names and places and planets, knowing that this was but a small percentage of what had been lost. There was no way of knowing just how many people or things died in that moment, but he was sure it was a lot.

Randall had read a theory about the energy that was lost inside a black hole and how it came out through a white hole, sometimes as an entire new universe. Randall was sure that he had millions and millions of other universes within him at any given time. They were always being created or destroyed or something in between. The loss of this one universe was not the end of things, he told himself; it was only the beginning. As that one universe collapsed on itself, the energy was transferred somewhere else. He wondered if he came in contact with it again if he would recognize it. Maybe it was in another person somewhere. Maybe he could meet them and they would feel an intense and immediate connection. It would seem inexplicable, and yet they would know and would be drawn together.

Randall poked his finger with a push pin and squeezed until a drop of blood formed. He dripped one drop onto the paper with the poem, and one drop into the ashes in the jar. He felt it appropriate to give part of himself to honor those that had fallen and had given their energies to him. Perhaps in some small way, some of the spirit and life force energy within him would be transferred and help spawn something new and tremendous.

Randall buried the jar and then spent the afternoon watching the football game. Later he crossed the street to a nearby diner and ate a club sandwich. He felt full and began to forget the pain the loss of life had brought him. Previously he had believed the universe was an essential part of him. Now he began to wonder. He seemed fine. The world he existed in seemed fine. Time kept going. Perhaps he had misjudged the importance and what he believed he had experienced. He had no way of knowing. This made him feel lonely. He had felt connected to an infinite amount of life, but in the end that connection meant nothing. His existence was a solitary one.

Later Randall returned to the park to find that someone had dug his jar up and taken it. He had come to dig it up himself in hopes that he could feel a connection again. Somehow knowing someone else took his jar made him feel even better. Perhaps someone had watched his funeral service. Perhaps they had just been curious, or took the jar maliciously, or perhaps they had truly felt something. Perhaps this person had a connection with the contents, with Randall himself and with the universe that had been within. Maybe it was his blood. Maybe the energy had grown into something new. Perhaps it lived again.