"Always metaphysical. Can we just stay with the practical stuff for now?"
"Sure. Just thought I'd bring it up."
"Anybody got a name suggestion?"
"Well, since the whole thing is so sudden it could all kind of go bang."
"Sounds reasonable. So we call it a 'bang.'"
"You mean, 'The Bang.'"
"Right."
"That’s it? Something this big?"
"OK, OK, how about 'The Big Bang'?"
"Very workable. But I don’t know if it captures the romance of it all."
"Only a scientist could think of such a clunky name for such a grand event."
"You’re the literary person. Give us a little help here."
"Sure, sure. Well, it’s really kind of like a birth, right?"
"Yeah. A birth. Go on."
"So that’s what we call it. 'The Birth.'"
"Much better than 'The Bang' if you ask me. But can’t we give it some appropriate magnitude, like the way we put 'big' into 'The Bang'?"
"How about this? We call it 'The Birth of the Universe.'"
"Wow, that knocks me out."
"OK, it’s settled. 'The Birth of the Universe' it is. I’m making an executive decision on that. Now, here we have this matter, flying out in all directions. What happens next?"
"What else has to happen?"
"Are we going to invent creatures or aren’t we?"
"Yes, we agreed on that."
"So where are they supposed to walk. On the dust?"
"You’ve got a point there."
"Don’t tell me."
"What?"
"No sooner do we send the dust flying – sorry, I mean the matter – than we have to get it to come back together again."
"No, no, we’re past just a redo. We need to work it out so that now the matter agglomerates in a whole lot of disparate places."
"Aggloma – what?"
" – erates, as in clumps up."
"Oh, fancy word for the same thing if you ask me. But go ahead."
"OK, so it agglomerates into really big things that creatures can actually walk on."
"That big, hunh?"
"Only other choice is to make their feet really tiny."
"Right again. You’ve got an incredible understanding of this."
"Thanks. I’ve thought about it a lot."
"So now it sits there, and we have what part of the plan in place."
"Space."
"What?"
"In space. Remember, we renamed 'place'?"
"Oh, right."
"Well, it's a very basic part of things. After all, no agglomerations, no places for much of anything else."
"Solid thinking. So these agglomerations are really 'it?'"
"Well, fundamentally speaking. Hey, I have it. Why don’t we put the word 'plan' together with the word 'it'? So we call each one of the agglomerations a 'planit.'"
"Way too transparent. We can be more subtle than that, can’t we?"
"OK, OK, let me think. What’s the most artful way to get the job done?"
"What else? We change only one letter in the name."
"Same old, same old."
"But it works. So let’s stay with that. Now, we don’t want to mess with the word 'plan,' do we?"
"Too essential to the entire process. After all, what can you do without a plan except make a mishmash?"
"So then we’re down to 'it.'"
“'It' it is. And I like the way it ends, with that very definite 't' sound at the end."
"Me, too. So that leaves only the 'i' to work with. What do we know about it?"
"You mean, about the 'i' in 'it'?"
"What else?"
"We decided way back when to call the thing a vowel, right?"
Right."
"So let’s just work with the available variations."
"Why don't I write them out on the easel, boss?"
"Good idea. Go for it."
I got up and went to the easel. I picked up a Cosmic Marker and went to work.
"We have, in the usual order of the vowels, 'planat,' 'planet,' 'planit,' which we already nixed, 'planot,' and “'planut,' which sounds a little dicey to me."
"I see two contenders – 'planet' and 'planot.' What do you think?"
"I think it would be really counterproductive to name something that we’ve worked so hard on with one out of only two syllables being a big fat “not,” staring everybody right in the face for a long, long time."
"You’re right. So what if just we go with 'planet'? Everybody in favor of calling the balls of dust – excuse me – the agglomerations of matter 'planets,' raise your hands."
All present except one raised their hands.
"Why the abstention?"
"I don’t know, boss, I kind of like the crazy sound of a 'planut.'"
"Well, you always were a bit of a nut. 'Planet' carries by a majority vote."
"OK, so now we have a planet."
"Correction. Planets. Remember, the whole thing, as planned, is going to be huge."
"You’re right. We have planets. What else?"
"What does the land look like? Is it bumpy, like an agglomeration often is, or is it smooth in places?"
"Do we want the creatures on it to have to walk around on bumps all the time?"
"Would that make them happy?"
"No way. We can do better for them than that."
"Hey, what if we go all the way and make the whole thing flat as a pancake? Then they could walk for miles and miles."
"Then it wouldn’t be an agglomeration."
"Excess. You always become excessive."
"Sorry, boss, it was just a thought."
"OK, then, how about we keep it round but it's smooth as a cue ball?"
"Can you please keep your mind out of the pool hall for a few minutes longer? We’ll be done soon enough."
"I think all smooth is really boring myself. I don't care whether you call it a pancake or a cue ball."
"Me, too."
"I think it’s time to remember our variety principle."
"Agreed. So this is it. We have bumps and smooth places."
"Excellent. But, as long as we’re talking about variety, how about hard and soft?"
"And, hey, what about all kinds of colors?"
"OK! Wow, this planet thing is starting to sound really interesting."
"Do you think your atoms and molecules can manage all those variations?"
"No problem. I worked out the mathematics. The matter is ready to be as perfectly responsive to whatever conditions it winds up in as water tumbling down a hillside."
"Water? Did you say water?"
"Yeah?"
"What’s that?"
"Something else we’ve been working on in the lab."
"Really? What’s it do?"
"What? All you want is land? Think about it. Shouldn’t there be something else, just to even things out?"
"Interesting but –"
" – I agree."
"Sure, boss."
"I also had this nagging feeling that we might be missing something."
"Hey, you just gave me a flash."
"What?"
"The concept behind it. Duality! Land longs for something else to complete it, like left-right, up-down, boy-girl?"
"Good observation. So let’s all think about it. We reconvene tomorrow morning, same time, same place."
So we brought the invention of land to a successful completion. But what else would we need for a planet to be a planet? I mean, something really gorgeous. Hmm, I went home thinking about that. The more I did, the more I became convinced that water had a place.
Tom Attea, humorist and creator of NewsLaugh.com, has had six shows produced Off-Broadway. Critics have called his writing "delightfully funny," "witty," with "great humor and ebullience" and "good, genuine laughs." |
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