Lady Gem both asked the question and decided the answer. And she mixed the drinks herself out of Russian vodka and Canadian juice. As a result of several sips of the drink, she began in a most authoritative tone:
“I know that he prefers to speak about the beginning and the end of the cosmos, about its expansion because of the Big Bang, about black holes and about dwarf stars. In his books, Stephen talks about this as if he’s telling a fairy-tale, effortlessly, with lots of imagination, but it is scientifically convincing. On the other hand, he was prepared for other topics too … He stressed that, while he is a first-class mathematician and physicist, he does not hate any branch of science, as they are all from one enormous orchard that is full of rich realities mixed with intuitive imagination.”
She reached out to stroke Mine, but when she saw that the dog had placed its head on my lap and was sleeping, she leisurely withdrew her hand, not wishing to disturb the sleep of her favorite.
“Perhaps it seems crazy to you, but you know my theory is that Hawking cannot be simply a human being and that his beginning came from genes which arrived from somewhere in space, from some abundantly well-developed civilization. And not just his. After all, you are familiar with my thoughts about the great minds of the world,” I tried to hurry her along.
“I didn’t have the courage to tell him that. Put better, we met for a moment in the courtyard of the building in which the Conference was being held, and Hawking had, it seemed, a very full program of formal official and private engagements. Then, too, that which is human in him has its limits. I would have liked it if you could have met him yourself, in an environment favorable to Stephen, so that there would have been the time and conditions necessary for you to satisfy your curiosity. If I had begun as though I were speaking to someone who associates with extraterrestrials – he might have become angry. If Stephen has the intellect of a being from some other civilization, it is possible that he may not realize it. We, generally, think that we know more about ourselves than others know about us. I told him that those discoveries of his about black holes were disappointing you. He was silent as if he thought that this was in no way a surprise, but that it was completely normal for those who follow his courageous movement along the roads of science to be disappointed. I explained to him: his theory of black holes is disappointing because following that theory leads to the understanding that there are only black holes – ‘The older it is, the more powerful it is.’ If so the rest of the cosmic body has a life similar to that on Earth: Be born, grow, flower and create something new, then fall under the process that leads to death, and die. How this happens is not important. In an explosion, or in infinite minimalization. Stephen responded in his metallic voice, which emerged from somewhere inside his digital equipment. He said something like this.” She mimicked Hawking’s computer-enhanced voice:
s. hawking: Don’t you think, dear lady, that each life carries within itself the beginning of that which will end it? If you, like an astrophysicist, become intimately familiar with the processes in space, you will easily see that they are like a comprehensive life system. And every life has a beginning and an ending and, I’ll put it this way, a reincarnation. And the cosmos is born in a painful white-hot explosion of violently compacted matter, and then it pulsates. If you ignore time, because one cosmic pulsation is infinite for us, then you will understand that something born of an explosion stretches an elastic membrane around itself, to the extent that the membrane can stretch, and to the extent that pressure can be exerted on it, and then, when the power of the beginning explosion becomes weaker than the strength of the elastic power of the membrane, this membrane, as it is elastic, compresses back that which the explosion had expanded. And then it happens all over again, because time and space are infinite. Behind every unit of time stands the next, and behind every enclosure in space there exists another.
“So what, then, about life, and living material in the cosmos?” I asked.
So you think that the Earth is a cosmic peculiarity?! he said, looking like a surprised teacher. Then he went on:
s. hawking: The cosmos is composed of a definite number of chemical elements. And in the cosmos, as within us, hydrogen dominates, but it would not mean anything in the formation of life without the processes with which other elements are formed. Temperature, pressures and explosions are the greatest creators in the cosmos. In the explosion of mega stars, for instance, life begins. In this process, light metals such as carbon and oxygen are created. There, where the temperatures and concentrations of elements provide good conditions for the formation of cells and molecules, is where life is born and grows. Just as up to now in our civilization, from huge catastrophes, such as wars, a period of unprecedented development of new things is emerging. For us neighbors in the cosmos are hugely remote from each other, so it is impossible to throw a rock from one courtyard into another. Because of that, the majority of people believe that we are alone in the universe.
“And are we alone?” I asked him as a student would ask a teacher.
s. hawking: Today many people know that we are not alone. Not long ago, scientists at Berkley University in California proved that organic molecules that travel about the universe in comets can survive their contact with the Earth and sow various forms of life upon our planet. And they arrive from some universal oases of life. My friends Wickramasingh and Hoyle have scientifically proven that clouds between stars within our galaxy are full of bacteria cells that carry within themselves the genetic information necessary for the formation of various types of living organisms. From these clouds, stars, planets and comets are formed. Comets transport this living material around the cosmos. To planets, for instance, such as Earth. Every day, approximately one hundred tons of debris from comets falls on the Earth. This cosmic detritus brings us various types of bacteria, which have a substantial influence on life on our planet. In 1996, NASA confirmed that fossilized bacteria had been found in a piece of a meteorite from Mars.
“And intellectual life in space? I tried to provoke him. Today this is being written about more than ever before, I tried to direct him towards that which interests us more than anything else. I was unsuccessful. He avoided answering, perhaps because many of the Conference participants were seeking to have him speak about this. He said only that, so far, Kepler, Galileo, Newton and Darwin had maintained that life is not a phenomenon unique to Earth. For his part, Darwin had developed his understanding of biophysics to a cosmic extent in which the human being is a part of a much larger chain of life, not simply the top of a chain of human-like monkeys on Earth. I was interested in Stephen’s thoughts about Tesla, so I mentioned that even a hundred years ago that Croatian Serb physicist was sure other intelligent beings exist in the cosmos, and that he had created a radio-system for communicating with extraterrestrial civilizations. Hawking looked more and more nervous, though sitting so still in his wheelchair. He reminded me that my late husband had harboured thoughts of sending TV pictures into space with information about life on Earth and with welcoming greetings to members of other civilizations.”
“Why are you asking me about what you already know?” he said in the end. “I have not met anyone who was not from our civilization. But, at this Conference, there are many people who have. Either beings or their flying craft. Try to talk about that with American presidents, with the Pope and his cardinals …”
“I noticed that somebody was looking intently at us, or more to the point, at Stephen – a man dressed in clothing that you could say was traditionally English. He came up to us and wiped beads of sweat from Stephen’s forehead. Hawking looked into my eyes, nodded his head as a sign that the interview was ended and turned his small, moveable table towards a corner of the auditorium that was dominated by coconut palms. Jeanne was charmed by my story when I spoke to her about Stephen later, in the Honolulu Airport. John and Ron, too.”
Lady Gem once again made her version of the well-known drink, with
a lot more vodka and less juice, and pulled her armchair closer to me and Mine. It was as if the alcoholic flavor was agitating intimacy in her.
“You’re the one who is responsible for my feeling that this cosmic enigma presses heavily on me like a frozen wind from Alaska. Pat Quinn helped your argument with his talk of balls of light that followed him across the plains of Ontario; they weren’t helicopters, cars or lights in people’s hands. But you infected me with your news of unidentified flying objects in the skies of Ukraine, Bosnia and over Vancouver. Now, it is amazing to me that I did not know earlier about the drawings, thousands of years old, of cosmic people with antennas on their heads, that were found on the walls of Australian caves. I didn’t know that over six thousand years ago the Sumerians wrote of extraterrestrials who came from Mars, others from the Pleiades, and still others from planets of Sirius, so long ago, and they knew what the Solar system looks like! And then, like the Sumerians, even though contact with Sumer was impossible, four thousand years ago the members of the Inca civilization in South America wrote that they knew that the world is round and that gods came from the Pleiades.”
Lady Gem paused and looked at me so suggestively that I knew that it was necessary for me to say something on this theme, whether it was something new or something repeated for the umpteenth time. No matter how many times I talked to her about my knowledge of extraterrestrials, she reacted as if she was listening to it for the first time.
“You haven’t forgotten about the scrivener of the pharaoh Tutankhamen the Third, who wrote that in the 22nd year in the third month of winter, a fiery ball arrived from the sky, that the pharaoh in a panic ordered soldiers to surround him, but that the ball took again back up to the sky. Then, the troops of Alexander the Great, 329 years before the modern era, were attacked by two flying objects. And there is much other written evidence proving visits by extraterrestrials to Earth. In 1716, the British astronomer Halley announced that he had seen a series of unexplainable flying objects, and in 1947 an extraterrestrial craft crash landed in America, at Roswell, New Mexico. That same year a businessman and pilot from Idaho in America reported that in the vicinity of Mount Rainier, just below Seattle in the northwestern United States, he saw a formation of nine silver-colored objects flying at tremendous speed,” was my short report of some facts regarding extraterrestrials’ presence on our planet.
“It amazes me why the Americans have not reported their state secrets about UFOs,” Lady Gem reflected out loud.
“Their secrets have begun to escape,” I said. “You know, the US Air Force Academy confirmed that our planet is visited by extraterrestrials, and that they are from three, or four different civilizations at various stages of development. The former American president Jimmy Carter promised his voters that he would open the government secret files connected with UFOs, but that he was forbidden to do so by the then director of the CIA, George H.W. Bush, Junior’s father.”
“I have read your series of poems ‘I Know That We Are Not Alone’ ten times. This is the first poetry that talks about relations with extraterrestrials that I have read. They don’t even give you peace in poetry!”
“I have always wanted contact with intellectual beings outside our civilization. I never doubted that they exist. Even when I was young, I asked them to show me if they could help so that people would change and become peaceful beings. There, from where I came from, in the Balkans, there isn’t a generation that hasn’t been befallen by war, killings of people, and the destruction of that which people have built between wars. At night, stretched out under a quilt, I would beg them to produce a virus that would expel aggression and egoism from people, but my mother would pull the quilt off my head and ask what I was whispering underneath it. I would hide behind the stable and with my hands send signals to the sky. I waited for years for an answer. I asked them to help me so that we could guarantee a noble galactic descent for human beings, insisted on our right to have a much better and equal position of friendship, for the severance of our social and cultural isolation, and for the elimination of barriers which hold back our possibilities, interests and responsibilities within the Earth’s borders. Perpetually burdened by the bloody history of human beings, their aggressiveness which goes all the way to cannibalism, their lustfulness that goes all the way to tyranny, exploitation and incest, their preference for their own interests to the detriment of society’s, I begged those in the cosmos who are not burdened by this to help us so that we could resolve this evil within ourselves. And today I believe that civilization would become more coherent if extraterrestrial civilizations were accepted as fact by everyone. When I began writing, I began to make contact with extraterrestrials real in my work. I am unsure if this instinct to make contact announced itself spontaneously in order that I could help people and save my family and my friends from being killed in some new war, or if something outside the Earth’s borders influenced me so that my invitations extended into the cosmos were bringing replies. It was then, when I felt my mind’s maturity had arrived, just as in the mountains as soon as the snow melts we feel in the air that it is springtime already behind the first southern peaks, that was when I started to see their flying craft and to feel their presence.”
“I know that they exist,” Lady Gem said to me in a tone of confession. “Lately I have begun to feel their presence. It seems to me that this contact can be felt by those who believe in them. If I met them, I would beg them to show me if reincarnation is possible. I love life and am happiest when I catch myself dreaming that life has no ending. I’m sorry that I didn’t ask Stephen Hawking if, perhaps, black holes are only funnels through which our spirits pass on the way to some other world. Your poem ‘Earth’s Slaves’ encouraged me. If you are to be believed, if our life on this planet is simply a serving out of certain obligations, or punishments, and if we are to return to where we came from, then I am happy in this ending of obligations and punishment. I am not joking and am not under the influence of your poetic creations. I would like to meet them so that I could ask them . They have to know.” Lady Gem divulged her belief sincerely as she opened the door with the apparent intention of going up to her bedroom.
I know her well. I know that for her the two glasses of vodka and juice could not have caused her to become confused. And I know that during her entire life, she has behaved completely differently from the way poets do in their poetical worlds. I was genuinely happy with my meeting with Lady Gem that night, and as she walked off up the stairs, I called after her:
“You still have lots of time. You will live for sure for at least another twelve years, and by that time the mission of the huge spaceship from Alpha Centauri into our Solar System will have been completed.”
I put the little poodle Mine into her sleeping basket and went into the basement, where my family was living. Norma and Blanca were sleeping on Blanca’s bed, and Irmin was in his room in front of a slightly opened window. My oldest son Minko and his family were sinking into night time high up in the north of British Columbia, and the younger one, Iris, was still, certainly being beamed upon by the morning sun, far away on the Balkan Peninsula. My brother Hajro and sisters Semira and Jasna were in America; brothers Fehro and Avdo, and my 88 year old father, in Sweden; sister Selveta in Germany, our legendary Rasid in Bosnia … Lady Gem, I am sure, could not fall asleep for a long time. She, a famous Canadian Lady, a Vancouver legend, rich and pampered, had given shelter to us, Bosnian war refugees, under the roof of her residence in the best city in the world.
I could not fall asleep for a long time myself that night. I was tormented by my poem “Failing to Describe Pain”, which I hade been altering for days, searching for adequate words to describe this state of the human psyche. The world is, in addition to other things, a planet of pain. If there existed a measurement of pain, as could be named Bosnia or Iraq, it would be difficult to find the mathematical capabilities to measure the collective world pain compacted into one small unit of tim
e. All the pain of those who die, or of those who are heartlessly tortured or killed by others, or of those who know that someone is torturing one of their loved ones, the pain of anyone of the human race, the pain in general existing in nature on this planet. Regardless of the faith that you belong to, it is difficult to grasp the thought that such relations on Earth as devour or be devoured, or kill to profit, could have been devised by a Creator who has charitable feelings, a Creator who wears a halo of goodness. Therefore I often find myself with the blasphemous thought that I cannot thank such a Creator. I would be happier to extol people if they were to organize their feelings and minds to do only good. I become alarmed when I find myself thinking that the world is just one tiny part of the cosmos and that she is ruled by cosmic rules. Because, in this boundless movement of matter from one empty space into another, this creation by violent explosion, and on the basis of the destruction of what went before, there exist other civilizations. Do “Earthly” relations exist there, relations full of pain? Hopefully, they do not. Perhaps those beings, they who have developed a much greater degree of perception than ours, have thrown away the process of devour or be devoured, and perhaps they really could help us so that each human being would adopt responsibility for all of civilization, for human coherence, so that in human feelings, compassion would become the ruler.
The Sun is one of the young stars in our galaxy, and so too is life in our system younger than those that have developed within the framework of older solar systems. Perhaps this Earthly youthfulness, which is always unruly and unmanageable, will give way to a mature period, when reason will become more rational, and aggressiveness and greed will be tamed. For that to happen, it would be good if some excellent teachers arrived from somewhere to teach us life and behavior worthy of highly intelligent beings in the universe.
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