Zooming Out

I live in Norway, and I enjoy viewing things under my microscope. The ability to see things so small and far from human reach intrigues me. Yesterday I was looking at the plant cells from a leaf I found on the street. Within the cells of the leaf I could see the vacuoles, the chloroplasts, the cell wall, and at the centre, the nucleus.

It was like the centre of its own little universe. I zoomed out to check on another cell, but suddenly zoomed out way too far, it was like the sensitivity of the dial was turned up to max. I was looking at myself through the microscope. I looked above me to see if there was a camera video taping me as if this was some sort of prank, but found none. I looked back through the microscope and still saw myself sitting in my chair, in my home, in real time. My breathing was synchronised with the image of me in the microscope.

Usually the microscope I use stops zooming in or out after 5 or 6 rotations of the dial, but I zoomed out and dial kept rotating until first I saw my neighbourhood, then the country, and shortly after that, the entire Scandinavia.

I am at this point perplexed, more than I have ever been or ever will be in my life, but I’m only human, my curiosity gets the better of me, so I keep rotating the dial. I see the earth first after the first rotation, then I see the solar system after another rotation, the milky way, another and another and another until I reach the galaxy cluster. I keep zooming out into the cosmos and now find myself viewing a cluster of galaxy clusters. Half a rotation of the dial brings me millions of light years more than science will be able to see, and the speed of zoom is rising exponentially.

My journey through the universe felt so short, but when I looked up to see my clock, 30 minutes had already passed. I begrudgingly looked back into my microscope, hoping my scientific breakthrough was not simply any illusion, however when my eyes finally adjusted to the lighting inside the microscope I notice something, out of place. I saw a line, a border impossibly big that it surrounded our entire universe like wall. I turn the dial another half rotation. I now see many rectangles huddled together. they all look the same, like cells in a leaf, but there are some other circular blobs displayed in the microscope. As one of these blobs moved towards a dimension like ours. It ate the dimension like a defensive cell eats an invading bacteria or fungi, or parasite.

My eye, glued to the microscope, I suddenly realise of our universe’s fate. It motivates me to get this cosmic journey over with. I keep zooming out. The dial stops turning and I am once again zoomed in on the familiar leaf that I picked up on the road earlier that day.

Credit: Myself