Merlin and Jade stood at the shore of a vast ocean. The two brothers gazed at the bright red sun that throbbed in the burnt orange-blue sky as they stood on a barren and secluded shore filled with course black pebbles. A few wisps of greyish clouds streaked in front of the sun, but for the most part, it was a clear and balmy day. A soothing breeze blew against their face. They felt it was good to be young. The ocean stretched out before them. Its gentle tepid waves lapped against their feet. They could almost hear the ocean speak – beckoning to them, seducing them, inviting them into its luxurious and soothing bosom.
Not that Merlin and Jade needed too much convincing to plunge into the sparkling depths—they had a natural affinity for the ocean, a preternatural, almost primeval, love for it. This evening was no different from any other evening: for as long as they could remember they’d been coming to the beach after school to have a bracing swim which usually turned into a mock competition between the two brothers.
Merlin was seventeen years old. Jade was three years younger. Though there wasn’t much of an age gap between the two, Merlin was physically much bigger than his younger brother. Powerful muscles marked his body as he made his way confidently into the ocean. Jade followed slightly timidly behind.
The two boys succumbed to the delicious sensation of weightlessness, as they floated on the surface. They felt in their element, as if everything was right. All the cares and travails of teenage existence seemed to melt away. Not for the first time did they gaze in wonder at the nourishing and life-giving spectre of the bloated red sun that hovered over the horizon.
“Is it true, Merlin, that way back in the past, the sun wasn’t always so red and so big?” Jade asked, as he flopped about in the waves.
Merlin had a curious mind. He had a scientific bent. He loved to know the answers to things. It annoyed him if he was asked a question and to which he didn’t know the answer. He always made it a point to find out. Jade’s question was an easy one. If fact, that was just what he’d been studying in his science class earlier that year. “Well, Jade, what we know is that our sun is way past its middle age. When it was younger, some five billion years ago, it was much smaller, and glowed with a yellowish-whitish glow. But now, as it approaches old age, it’s getting redder and redder and larger and larger.”
“Is that something for us to be worried about?” Jade asked with a touch of trepidation.
“Not for another few million years at least,” Merlin replied, matter-of-factly. “But we owe the sun a debt of gratitude for swelling up and burning more brightly than it did in the past.”
“Why is that?”
“Well, the increased heat thawed our world and saved it from its long-drawn ice-age. The ice melted and now we have this beautiful ocean to swim in. There was once some ice remnant in the poles, but even that has melted and disappeared.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that,” exclaimed Jade. “I thought the oceans always existed.”
“They did exist in the past,” Merlin explained, “But climate changes—nothing stays the same; and so, based on what the archaeologists tell us, great sheets of ice covered the entire surface. The oceans were all frozen.”
“Good job, the sun decided to swell up then,” remarked Jade, as he lazily paddled past his brother.
Merlin gazed at the red orb. He knew the science behind it. He knew that at the core of the sun, nuclear fusion squeezed hydrogen atoms together to create helium. The outward pressure of this reaction prevented the sun from imploding due to gravity. However, now that the sun was approaching its dying years, the core of carbon, iron, and heavier elements was contractsing and causing nuclear reactions to take place in the upper layers of the sun. This was what was causing the sun to expand and grow in volume.
He remembered how the astronomers of yore had catalogued the fate of another red giant, Betelgeuse that was 40 million times the volume of the sun. It had continued to burn and fuse elements until its core became iron. It finally exploded. There were images of the Betelgeuse type II supernova hanging in his school planetarium. Now, all that was left of Betelgeuse was a collapsed core—it had become a neutron star remnant only about 20 km in diameter. Where once it was a bright red object in the night sky, some 5 billion years ago, now it was invisible to the naked eye; without the most powerful telescopes, there was nothing to indicate it had even existed.
Merlin remembered reading the ancient writings of the people who had observed the Betelgeuse supernova. They said it was the brightest explosion ever recorded in the history of their existence. The renowned historian, Kronean III, mentions in his records, that it was easily visible even during daytime. He chronicled how the gamma ray burst from the exploding star had missed the solar system because the angle of Betelgeuse’s rotational axis was pointed in a different direction. Fortunate for all of them, Merlin thought.
The ocean they were in was still and the waves rippled and crashed lazily against the shore. In the distance, orangish-grey clouds were beginning to obscure the horizon. The weather on their world had changed dramatically over the aeons and the landscape, flora, and fauna was radically different to what had existed in the past. Millions of life forms had gone extinct. And millions had evolved to take their place.
As he swam deeper into the ocean, Merlin wondered about the fate of his species and reflected on where they were all headed. There was still time, several million years at least, before things would come to a head. The sun was already radically affecting weather patterns and one day, millions of years in the future it would go nova. But the scientists and all the best minds were working frenetically to try and find a way to transport the entire population to another planet in the system. There was one faction even contemplating permanent bases in interstellar space.
Merlin had little fear of death. He knew where death was he was not. Yet, he longed for the continued existence of his mind. Though he did not fear death, he did not welcome the prospect of not existing either. He hoped there would be some way for him to live forever. There was a wealth of knowledge, an avalanche of information that existed out there in the universe waiting to be discovered—and he wanted to see it all, learn it all, absorb and understand it all. Death was an encumbrance he could do without.
He knew that the spectre of death was something he and everyone alike had to confront at some point in their life. Death was intractable and inevitable and no matter how hard they had tried, they had not been able to overcome it. In such a state of affairs, Merlin realised that it would be wise to take a broad, mature, and rational approach to death.
He told himself that he first needed to realise that death was inevitable. All creatures die and he would die too. Probably the only thing they could be sure about life was that death followed. Once he was rationally and cognitively assured of his mortality he was better placed to deal with the death of a loved one.
There were some who still believed death was just the beginning. Merlin figured that perhaps that knowledge brought them comfort and helped them deal with the idea of death. However, he had very little faith in an after-life.
He believed when they died, brain matter starts to decompose. Memory is lost. The body rots. This has been happening for the billions of years since primitive life first appeared and will continue to happen as long as life exists.
Ideas of an afterlife may help hide the harsh truth and help cope with death, but Merlin believed that it was the stronger person who could accept the cold fact that when they died they died; there was nothing out there—or at least nothing out there that they in the mortal world could know of. It was better to accept this fact, celebrate life to the fullest, and die in the knowledge that with death comes perhaps the deepest sleep of all.
Jade, however, was not plagued by such existential thoughts. He did, however, have a curious mind for his age. “Merlin, is it true, that we all evolved from the sea?”
“Well, that’s what the fossil records tell us,” replied Merlin. “Millions and millions of years ago, we were once creatures that lived in the sea, and over painfully slow geological aeons, the twin processes of natural selection and survival of the fittest led to the diversity of species that we see around us.”
“That probably explains why we have this love for the ocean, it almost feels like home—nothing seems to matter when I’m floating on these gentle waves… I feel alive, at ease, the rest of the world seems not to exist!”
Merlin nodded knowingly. He felt the same. The nourishing liquid around him was responsible for the existence of the plethora of life he saw around him.
The giant red orb was low on the horizon. The sky overhead was an ominous burnt-orange blanket of thick clouds. The first thick droplets of rain dropped on their faces. Jade squealed with delight.
“Merlin, it’s the first rains of the season!”
Merlin smiled. He was thankful for his existence. He knew that the rocky inner planets had once harboured life. But they had all been consumed up by the ever-expanding sun. Earth, once described by early astronomers as a beautiful blue star in the night sky, was now no more. He wondered if there ever had been any intelligent life on that planet… perhaps millions of years ago—certainly not now.
Merlin realised it was time to head out. His powerful muscular body waddled across the ocean floor and as he stepped out, his long tail trailed behind him. He looked up and opened his mouth to guzzle in the first rain drops of methanol that fell from the sky. Behind him, the ocean of methane stretched far into the distance. As the red sun fell below the horizon, Saturn rose majestically with its festivity of moons and celebration of rings. Night had fallen on Titan, as it always had for the nine billion years of its existence.
