The four of us, Al, Fred and Carl-that’s Albert Einstein, Fred Hoyle and Carl Sagan-started out early this morning, long before the sun came up, the night sky was alive with stars, and headed to the top of Mount Kahili. It was a long, brisk, refreshing walk. I was a bit winded, silent actually, overwhelmed by such splendid companions. Sarve, that’s Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, met us by the Alexander Dam. Sarve, I must say, was a pleasant surprise and a welcome addition.
When we reached the stretch of road that borders the cliff, way at the top, we kept on going. Hand over hand we clung to the rope and climbed to the very tip of the mountain. I went first. They followed.
Stunned by the glorious Kauai sunrise, Al was the first to speak. “I believe in the mystery of the universe. See it here.”
“Awesome,” said Fred. “Imagine now, if we were to look around 360 degrees and all we could see, as far as we could see, were bees, each of them would be a galaxy.”
“Billions and billions of”em,” Carl grinned.
“All of them moving away from each other. Strange,” Al said, shaking his famous gray locks.
Carl nodded. “The red shift. I wish we’d never seen it.”
“Worse. If we ever looked out and saw it shift back, the universe, the entire universe,” Fred said, “would collapse back on itself in thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes! I won’t even have time to grab my hat and I ain’t goin’ without my hat,” which, by the way, because the wind had come up with the sun, was trying to escape my head.
“Imagine that immense pool of energy collapsing to a core of pure energy the size of a period at the end of a sentence.”
“Some now think it won’t collapse. All those bee galaxies will just keep flying apart and the sky’ll go black.”
“I don’t like to think of a sky with no stars,” Carl whispered.
“it certainly would be the end of man…” Fred sighed. I sighed with him.
“Of everything,” Al sniffed.
“So sad,” said Carl.
“Ah, come on fellas,” Sarve spoke for the first time, “That won’t happen. All that energy’ll go off again. Kaboom. And we’ll have a whole new game.” The four of us turned. “We call it the breath of God,” he grinned.
“Do you think man’ll play a part?”
“Who knows?”
Their voices rising, busy considering a mathematical answer to this complex question, they forgot about me, typical men, and soared off leaving me standing there all alone. I grabbed my hat which was flapping up a storm and woke up clinging to my pillow. Such a pleasant dream.
bettejo 
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