It was really lonely and depressed. Even though it had others around it in very close vicinity, it felt alone. It wondered what would be world like outside? Life as gluon was not fun. All it did was to help keep quarks together with other gluons. And there were many of them doing exactly the same thing. It wondered about the purpose of existence. For as far back as it can remember, and far away memories can be very vague, but from as early as 14 billions years ago it’s been doing the same thing. Just lying with other gluons so that quarks stick together. One cannot call them really memories but it has vague feeling that moment of birth was very exciting time. It was lot hotter then, way hotter in fact, but life was happening then, unlike never ending monotonity of its current existence. There were many more type of elements all rushing fast and faster, as if they were running away from something. It was fun for a while until they got so far that it lost sight of them. Meanwhile it came along with its neighbours and has been with them since. It is not even sure now that these are its memories or imaginations of bored mind. It wondered if this has an end?
Being surrounded by these sticky gluons was hardly its idea of existence but poor quark couldn’t do much. From as far back as it remembers, it’s been there with same set of gluons along with other quarks of its own kind closely packed in a small proton. It could sense that proton was important, and by analogy, there must be other protons around that, but what are they doing there and what’s point of all this anyway? It wondered where exactly is there in the first place? Its birth was in hot soup of early times and it’s been so cold and boring since then.
“For the quintillionth time I say move out”, it shouted to its neighbour. It was miserable. What a life, to being shoved from and to keep shoving each side forever. It seems forever though it thought that it might have been about 10 billion years or so ago when it was ripped apart from its cousins in Hydrogen and Helium in a hot furnace soup in some far away star and forced to cohabit its current neighbours. It was cozy there, lonely but cozy. Since the very first moment it cannot seem to be at friendly terms with its neighbours. Though all of them had same history, that didn’t help in building rapport any more. All were pushovers but some were worse. It was ashamed that it’s own kind were worse actually. It could manage with neutrons somehow but it just repelled other protons. If not for weak and strong nuclear force of nature which kept it together, it would have escaped right away. What a pathetic life, indeed.
“It must be heavenly up there”, it thought. That’s all it could do anyway, being lone nucleus in wide expanse forever, there was no one to talk to. Since its birth in that violent fusion event about 10 billions ago, it’s been alone ever. Except, of course, for continuous rumbling in its stomach. What on empty space is going on there? Still it gazed at those rapidly flying electrons in far horizon. They were never close to it, in fact, they were so far that it couldn’t even see them properly let alone talk to them. Yet, it felt a strong attraction to them, as if they are made for each other, each one perfectly complementing another. Dreams of romantic reunion were only thing that kept into it from going insane.
Exhausted, it sat and sighed. Trillionth time since its birth 6 billion years ago in some supernova. Another of those everyday ordeals, where some foreign atoms would come for merger proposal. Sometimes they would be nice, and it and its colleagues in molecule would happily collaborate and form new molecule altogether. It was fun to move since as different group they had different roles and different strengths and got to do different things. Other times, it would not be nice. Then it would fight to keep them at bay and maintain its own little molecule community. Thankfully for it, there was no provision for dying in its world. Though what was nice or not depended lot on mood it and its neighbours were in. And being forced to occupy a fixed position with respect to its neighbour, it knew them well by now. Mood depended on lots of thing like how hot the temperature is or how acidic the environment is, and somebody always seems to be tinkering with it, as if playing with them and observing their alliances. Today’s battle is won, but who knows who will be its molecule tomorrow? Only thing that was constant company was buzzing electrons and heavy lump of nucleus in its stomach....NEXT (Part 2) >>