The Blue Bobble

Dear Earthling, 

By the time you receive this, it might be too late. Late for me, not you. I’ve been incriminated for negligence and have been sentenced to the rest of my light years at Triangulum. In Galactic terms, the Australia of the outer space. 

Nevertheless, as Earth’s caretaker for the last 2.5 billion Earth years, I think I owe you an explanation. 

For starters, I won’t call it Earth because that’s just informal and we’ve known each other way too long. Well I’ve known you anyway. Locally we call it the Blue Bobble and that’s what I’ll call it. I mean no disrespect, mind you. Only a sense of comradeship. My name is Universe, by the way. In case I haven’t mentioned that already. It’s just my name. Not my description. Universe is a pretty common name here in Andromeda. Anyway, I’m running out of time, so I better dive right into it. 

On Andromeda, if you’re prodigy level genius, or if you’re related to someone in the System, you can get yourself a job as caretaker. I wasn’t a prodigy, but my father was. And he discovered the Blue Bobble 4 billion Earth Years ago. When he retired, he let me have the Bobble. I was no prodigy, but I was top of my class and sincere. I took the job and utilised my time to write intergalactic novels. The Bobble has a weird spin to it. Some months it tilts sideways and I’d worry that it will fall, but it never did. The other months, it was tilted the other way. This went on for 2.5 billion years, and left me with time to write my novels. They’re called Star Wars. 

Under my supervision, operations were mostly smooth. There were bad days though. On one occasion, I left the window open, and the Bobble had a sheet of white all over it. My Dad had always told me that the Bobble would return to its ways, if left undisturbed. So I didn’t report the slip and let the white sheet melt off on it’s own. It eventually did. The Bobble got bluer after that. 

Once, a fire broke out in my study, I shifted the Bobble just in time, but a few smouldering pieces of debris, hit the Bobble. This was perhaps 65 million Earth years ago. 

After that, however, I was careful. No untoward incidents happened under my watchful eye. Not until 2020, anyway. 

In 2020, at the very start, my nephew came over to visit. I had cordoned off my study but the boy found a way to squeeze into the room from one of the air vents. I wasn’t in my study, that particular afternoon when he trespassed. The boy, as he later confessed, was awestruck by the Bobble but grew bored of its bobbling and decided to inspect some of my drawers. He found my lighter and began to play with it. He tried setting the Bobble ablaze. Thanks to the blueish liquid that envelopes the Bobble, he didn’t do much damage. Except to certain parts of Australia. I must however warn you that the increased amount of sulphur in your atmosphere is making the Bobble more flammable. 

The smoke detectors sounded the alarm. I rushed to the study and knew at once that I’d have to intervene lest the whole of Australia burns down. So I ran the fan over it and allowed the blaze to settle. The nephew watched this charade with amazement. But he betrayed no remorse. 

Parents, in present times, don’t reprimand their children. My sister didn’t scold or express displeasure at what the boy did. She simply told me to secure the air vents. 

So I secured the vents and put up a camera in my study. Later that week, the boy developed a terrible cold and stayed in bed. I saw this as a welcome change and allowed myself the liberty to keep the study door open while I napped on the sofa. It was during that slip, that the boy ventured into the room and sneezed twice into the bobble. Right over Asia. Mostly over China. 

I got up with a start and chased the boy out. I walked over to the Bobble to inspect it. No visible damage on the face of it. I resigned to my desk and watched the Bobble. A gnawing feeling told me that something was wrong. But for the life of me, I didn’t know what it was. 

Later that evening, smoke spirals began to form over mountaintops. My father had told me that this was the Earthling’s way of informing the caretaker that something was wrong. But WHAT was it, damn it? I poured over the innumerable texts and voluminous books. No where could I find the aftereffects of a sneeze.

In due course, however, I began to notice that the blue of the Bobble was getting bluer and the grey clouds were dissipating. The Bobble looked beautiful. I resumed my writing and put the thought out of my head. 

A day later, I noticed something unusual. The table atop which the Bobble revolved had a half finished egg sandwich and was drawing flies by the dozen. That abominable boy!

I cleared up the food. The flies however, continued to swarm over the  Bobble. In an attempt to swat them away, I tried several things - which you’ll see, as I further narrate, resulted in a sequence of events. 

For starters, I upset the table. This caused the Bobble to jerk a little. The blue of the Bobble began to rush into the green parts and I knew I had caused trouble. So I blew air over the Bobble to shoo away the flies. This wasn’t the wisest thing to do. The dryer caused large air whirls to spiral over the blue parts and then move over the green ones. 

Ideally I should have reported this. The Bobble was spiralling (rotating) out of hand. But I didn’t want to bring disrespect to my father. So I stayed quiet about the matter hoping that the mothership wouldn’t notice. After this however, two things happened, that forced all eyes on Earth and on me. 

Firstly, The Bobble sent a couple of people out into space. I noticed this and I had to report it. They didn’t make it too far. Just the outer rim. But it had to be reported nevertheless. Were things so bad on the Bobble, that people were trying to escape in fiery carrots? 

The second thing to happen, is unexplainable. The Bobble is not evenly lit up when I switch off the light in my study. Some parts shine brighter than others. Some parts of the Bobble shine even during the day, when they don’t need the light. I believe that shiny part is called USA. Suddenly, without warning the whole place began to sparkle even more than usual. Not the twinkling kinda sparkle but the the crackling of welding machine kinda sparkle. 

This got noticed by the mothership and I got pulled up. I was incriminated on the grounds of criminal negligence and suppressing facts.

I know the rest of the 2020 Earth year still awaits and I have no idea who will be the next caretaker. Without having to burst your Bobble, I mean bubble, let me tell you this, and I say this from experience. Whoever the next caretaker may be, stop with the bombs, holy books, beads and blood. No one likes that. 

Yours Truly

Universe 

 

Image source: Vector stock