Transcendental Christmas

This year's Christmas Story.

Transcendental Christmas

 

 

                It began upon a midnight clear.

                Occurring around the world on December 20^th, it sure didn’t go unnoticed. Governments wanted to know what it was, hackers wanted to know who it was, and the public, those of us who witnessed the event, wondered what it might mean.

                On every computer and smart phone around the world, it began as a voiced message, brief and concise in a deep, amicable voice. Afterwards, all devices returned to normal.

                The possibility of it becoming a ‘big news item’ word of it caught fire, spreading like a hurricane-driven wildfire. By sunrise, several billion souls knew of the message because those few millions of us who had witnessed it shared it with everyone we knew. Overnight journalists had witnessed it, though thought it an unimportant local event until they found how widespread it had been. Not to be outdone by other news organizations around the world, ‘Newsmakers’ needed something, anything to broadcast�"truthful or not.  So getting to work as usual, the worldwide internet news service flashed a brief, urgent announcement interrupting its current story.

A female announcer took a deep breath and with a quivering page held before her, she read:  “This just in, an unknown entity has tested an interruption of worldwide internet service. At midnight, last night, the internet went quiet for a little over three seconds and provided the cryptic message, ‘Are you ready?’ Governmental agencies remain mum, refusing to comment on the event, though a few independent theories have arisen. ” She ended with standard fear inducing questions, “Will it happen again? Will it get worse? Stay tuned for updates. Lens Hedtoker reporting.”

 Within minutes, she returned with ‘Newsmakers Sources’ their so-called investigative journalists on the street.  She looks aside cutting to an unknown location with a ‘source’ named Professor Noital, a supposed internet expert.

“I, myself and the government, though they tend to deny these types of things it, have been expecting this sort of attack for some time. Last night’s event lasted only three seconds, but before long this electronic terrorist organization will hold the internet hostage�"for what we have yet to learn, but hear me now�" it will be monumental and irresistible.”

The scene flashed to a wild-eyed, bearded man on a sidewalk. He quickly stepped to the camera and clamped his hand over the lens to hide his face from the news cast. “I’ve warned of this for years and years! It’s an attempt for them to take over! It’s the One World Order keeping us off balance!” He shouted. We see a brief glimpse of him between his splayed fingers. “The OWO is taking over! Don’t give in to their liberal demands!”  

They quickly flash to another journalist with a calm, normal young man.

“It’s just the media trying to manipulate the public in yet another ploy to sway public opinion.” He thumbs down the sidewalk where we see the bearded man running away. “I’m with him in the fact that you shouldn’t pay any attention to all this crap they feed us every day. Tomorrow will be some other so-called ‘factual news story.’” He makes air quotes and with a dismissing gesture, he turns away. Yet again, the newsfeed flashes to a well-dressed young woman outside the State University of Eternal Denial. She appears distressed and frantic.

“You have something to explain what happened last night?”

“Well, what I witnessed, truthfully, is unrelated to the internet glitch, which I know nothing about and can’t lend any insight on.” The journalist looks downcast and signals the camera man to cut the video feed. “But wait!” The woman exclaims reaching for the journalist, “I saw something just as news worthy!” The journalist sighs and coolly gestures to continue. “Okay. I’m an astronomy student and scan the sky every night. Last night, I don’t know what time exactly�"“

“Yes, yes, please go on,” the skeptical journalist said gesturing to hurry up.

“I guess at two AM or so�"I should have noted the time. Anyway, I was scanning the Epsilon sector when I happened to spot something different in the sky with my t-scope�"something that wasn’t supposed to be there. I rechecked my star charts to be sure and verified that nothing was supposed to be where this something appeared. Believe me I saw it and my charts are very current. I tell you here and now, this is a phenomenal discovery.”

“Really? Is this really of any interest what-so-ever to our viewing public in light of the internet intrusion and message?” The journalist said looking bored and annoyed.

“You bet!” The astronomy student exclaimed.

“Why?”

“I tracked it ‘til sunrise. My boyfriend was pissed and went to bed without me, but I tracked it.”

“And?”

“It’s heading toward earth!”

“Are you sure?”

“Ah, yeah, seventy-five percent sure.”
                “So�"what is it you saw?” The journalist asked, finally appearing truly interested. “A spaceship? An earth-killing asteroid?”

“Dunno.” The amateur astronomer shrugged. “My equipment isn’t all that strong. To me it looked like a tiny, far off smudge of light or white.” She shrugs again.

“Can’t the university verify what you saw with their bigger telescopes?”

“Probably, but they’re not talking and threw me off campus when I aggressively cornered my professor about it.”

“Really. Okay. In your opinion�"should the public worry about�"whatever you saw?”

“HELL YES, we should all worry!”

“For more on this story and the mysterious internet hijack, stay tuned. Lee Welspoken reporting.”

Newsmakers’ feed returned to the story about yet another case of one political party blaming the other for inaction on a social welfare budget patch with the unashamed inaction of the president and congress.

The story of the brief outage and message got little serious attention. As of late, we had grown untrusting of any blatantly ‘big news story.’ The consensus among many stated that this appeared as another example of a simple, albeit widespread, hacking blown out of proportion with another unapologetic , crystal-clear attempt by ‘Newsfakers’ to disrupt normal, everyday life.

On the following night, innumerable people from the US to the UK, from Europe to Africa, from Asia to Australia remained online to experience the strange outage themselves�"if it materialized.  We in a larger audience waited with bated breath. Precisely at midnight, we watched and listened to another brief outage. This one lasted 4.67 seconds with the question, “Are you willing?”

 Government officials didn’t have any explanation telling the news that they would “root out the culprits responsible.”  But they quietly added that the source proved untraceable and stated that no particular feeds, no specific platforms and no central computer systems were immune from this intrusion, yet unbelievably promised all users that no personal information would be compromised.

The conspiracy theorists and doomsayers moved to the forefront with theories seemingly more credible than the authorities’. Rampant circulated rumors guaranteed a total and extended outage. Honestly, we could not imagine living a single hour without internet access let alone a possible long term outage. Finally, when the message and outage was plausibly connected to the approaching “star” as some called it, tensions of the world-wide populace spiked.

 On December 23^rd, the outage lasted 6.28 seconds. The message stated: “Are you able?” It was on this night, where the weather was clear, we saw the approaching object with our naked eyes.

                 When world leaders admitted that they had no clue of the messages’ source and experts could not speculate on what the messages were alluding to, we derived our own ominous possibilities. They only knew for sure that the power transmitting the messages proved irresistible and no firewalls, virus protection, or even disconnection from the internet would halt the messages.

They said their sophisticated equipment for analyzing heavenly objects could not analyze the object approaching earth which only fueled the outrageous conjectures of the crazies and general public alike. We all wanted answers, but there were none forthcoming. A low-ranking scientist stated that with precise measurement, he determined that the measured outages equated precisely to significant numerical constants used in higher mathematical calculations. When asked, he candidly confirmed that this indicated sophisticated intelligent contact from beyond our realm. The news people were impressed by his frankness so asked his hypothesis on the approaching star. He hemmed and hawed with a nervous shift of his eyes. As he was about to speak again, two men in black suits rushed in and began whisking him away. He shook the hand off covering his mouth and shouted: “It’s a white hole!”

                The incident replayed across all continents, countries, and nations. “White hole” became the number one Googled phrase. We found that a white hole was the counterpart of a black hole. Theoretically wherein matter entered into a black hole, said matter exited from a connected white hole. This felt only marginally better than a black hole approaching earth because logically the next question we deduced was what could possibly come out of a white hole? Where could the origin black hole be located? No one anywhere could purpose a logical theory�"and we didn’t dare say what we thought!

December 24^th: The period this time, measured by almost everyone on earth turned out to be five seconds. Shockingly this time, the message proved a stern statement, “You are to be tested.” Five, we found, is considered the perfect number of the human macrocosm. On this Christmas Eve, officials admitted around the world that indeed the object in the night sky, seen by everyone who cared to look, was a white hole and that the outages stemmed from that same object. With shrugged shoulders, they offered no additional explanations. Anxiety and fear grew by the hour.

On Christmas with the white hole the brightest object in the night sky, humankind waited. At midnight with the world again holding its breath, the outage began as usual, but what shocked us was that it did not end and the voice didn’t speak�"at first. Hairs prickled and hands rung as we nervously waited. Doomsayers began yelling in the streets saying they had told us so. Suddenly, out of the empty silence the voice came from every computer, every smart phone. The calm, measured voice came forth in every human language. “Human transcendence is near, but you must past the test.” A unified gasp went up around the world.

“You must adhere to and live by these words�"Peace on earth, good will to man.”