Event Horizon

Black Holes go to College to get more Knowledge.

I clapped along with the rest of the crowd from my seat in the back of the university's auditorium as Michio Kaku gave a slight bow. He was an interesting man to say the least. His theory's on the universe on the whole were not quite as hard to listen to as his colleague's absurd notions. That's not to say his research was right; it was still very wrong. Just less wrong than his contemporaries. Excluding Stephen Hawking, as he did have a more accurate view of the workings of space and time. He was also one of the less taxing humans to listen to, which is rare to find.

Professor Kaku kept a goofy grin plastered on his face as the dean of the University of Chicago arrived on the stage, shaking his hand and thanking the 'esteemed visitor' for taking the time to lecture the 'bright young minds of the future'. I just kept politely clapping as was expected per human decorum, much longer than I thought was necessary for that fascinating but shallow exposition.

Kaku's presentation over Quantum field theory had been amusing enough. There was no great epiphany for me- no moment where a human might say, "EUREKA!". I frequented lectures and have only had this experience a scant amount of times. But even then there was no great synapses or your strange jumping up and down you do; more of a 'higher enlightenment'. My superior intellect and experience in space have given me a great knowledge over your science. But your literature baffles me- what is the point of knowing about a catcher in the rye field? Or animals on a farm? Much less a composition of rhyming words about a raven.

Ah, I digress again.

No, I reminisced as I thought of attending my first few lectures and the insight they had brought to me, there has only been a few of those moments.

My first lecture was a curious expedition in my first few years on Earth. It was in the University of Bern, given by the human genius Albert Einstein. And yes, before your mind starts wondering how long I have been on Earth, I have lived here since the late 19th century. As long as my mouth is alive and eating, so am I. Anyways- his theory of relativity was an insight to the workings of my own bodies and spacetime. You're wondering how I never knew about wormholes and the properties of my mass disrupting time. Being a black hole, our lives are pure greed and hunger. We evolve slowly from being Micro-black holes, becoming more sentient, but none of us have ever stopped to wonder at why we are or how we operate, since the only thing of importance to us is to keep eating. Being able to sit down and have it explained is quite the experience. The best thing I can equate it to is the human''procreation talk'. Strange, awkward, but helpful.

In short, the lectures are mostly a gamble. Through the century I have been on this Earth, I have learned much about my kind that I'm not sure the others will ever discover.

And let's keep it that way, I thought, standing and walking out of the crowded auditorium while Kaku was thanking the dean for his gracious acceptance, there is power in knowledge.

I strolled through the college and on to the street, hailing a cab like a normal human instead of quantum teleporting. Really, there is no reason just to teleport like that and use energy when these human vehicles, though primitive, are much more convenient. Every black hole that visits here tends to jump through the atmosphere as if they were in space. I find it very tedious. As for me, you could call me the 'conservative' of the black hole community.

The commute to the Fairmont Chicago Hotel was only eighteen minutes. I climbed up to my third story room, methodically took off my clothes (the humans would have termed me OCD), and then laid down in the hotel bed. If I had been weak, like a human, I would have been tired from my day of lectures, visiting the Robbie House, and climbing up and down the Sears Tower. Since I am an extraterrestrial being, things are much simpler for me. Sleep isn't possible for a black hole, but I do go into a sort of meditation where I concentrate on my mouth and conserve energy. If this body is not doing anything, then my mouth has full control.

I slipped deep into my oblivion and focused my conscious on my mouth. Through the channel I had created within the wormhole of my body, I could sense where I was. Around my mouth spiraled a nebula of intense colors; whorls of electric purples, splashes of cerulean, and streaks of yellow. You humans would have thought it divinely made. Though the dust was a good source of food, a little further away was my true prize. A red dwarf star, flickering with dim heat and burning with the last of it's energy beckoned my mouth.

Focusing on the star, I drew energy from my body on Earth and worked with the pulling motion of my mouth, lending it the extra strength. Together, we slowly broke it down. First came the trembling of the orb, then the cracking of it's surface and the glowing bits flying ahead of the main body and into mine. We flashed brightly as the red dwarf crumbled and fell into the our rings of our whirling gravitational pull. The trail of light it left behind before sinking into my true black mouth was stunning, the flash of energy given to us staggering. A seed of greed grew within me and I continued to pour more energy into my mouth. It had been too long since my mouth and I had worked together like this....and this was a poor substitute for working right beside it. This flushed feeling was magnified tenfold when not 300 million light years away. I yearned for more. More food. More energy. More nebulas, more planets, more stars. I yearned for Earth, for the taste of your pathetic human lives. I poured more energy from my physical body into my mouth.

More. Give me more.

I need more energy.

I need more...

More....

Power......

"Ah geez Q," said a far off voice, "You're making my job just too easy."

And then all I felt was a blinding stab of pain across the left of my face and the whiplash effect of being brought back suddenly to my body. My breath left me with a gasp. Through blurred eyes I saw a second familiar face that I was not happy to be greeted with.