Writing for Fun
November 2018
The Pulse - Jan Norman
The Stygian black monolith tumbled end over end through the endless inky void of space; barely visible; silent and impassive to its surroundings. Locked on a trajectory only to be deviated from if something appeared before it on its endless journey. Aeons passed.
Pinpoints of light appeared in the darkness growing over time until the monolith entered its first galaxy; a flattened disk with huge spiral arms comprising suns; some being born, some in their prime and some dying and a myriad planets and moons orbiting those suns. All intermingled with star nurseries and huge gas clouds trillions of miles wide.
Still the monolith ploughed relentlessly on, diverted only occasionally when massive gravity pulls of nearby stellar objects caused it to be flung as the sling shot effect fired it off in another direction.
Soon the suns with orbiting planets became few and far between until a small solar system appeared ahead. A yellow sun with numerous planets orbiting. Third from the sun was a blue, watery planet luminous in the rays of its sun.
Incredibly the monolith slowed and rotated thirty degrees to face the planet. An opening appeared and a pulse of energy was directed at the planet’s surface. Minutes later its atmosphere began to roil; huge swirls of grey and yellow gas engulfed the world obscuring the beautiful blue of the surface.
Noiselessly the monolith descended and began the first of many orbits just above the angry storm ridden atmosphere.
Slowly the skies below cleared and once again became the calm blue and white of before. The monolith’s final orbit released a carpet of bombs that air burst just above the planet’s surface releasing fine showers of green pellets in a golden liquid.
Satisfied the monolith turned around to face back towards whence it had come and sent out strong radio waves in pulses; a message.
‘Planet life destroyed leaving only simple multi celled organisms. Atmosphere adjusted. Genes seeded and programmed to eventually, through natural evolution, produce a race of humanoids in our own image. Our race will not die.’