Many years later, as K found the black hole, he would remember that distant summer night when Aleysha said that the universe is conscious.

Part 1: Conscious

When the fluorescence of my car’s dashboard faded, I found myself finally through the long and dark tunnel, entering a very different world. Thick, gloomy mist and clouds gripped the gilded orange of dusk, continuous mountains slept along the horizon, and an infinite forest of evergreens created a long hall in which the driveway went straight to the far unknown.

More than 500 miles from home, I was on my way to the funeral of my father's second cousin. I was originally not supposed to fulfill this duty, but unfortunately, my father was in the hospital because of a slip on the Himalayan glacier.

This cousin, let me just call him my uncle, was an eccentric, hence lonely, man who lost everyone’s respect except my father’s. My uncle was a millionaire who used to live in his huge villa in the center of New York. He was a successful businessman, very clever and talented in management and innovation. His bio-based artificial intelligence and gene modification company made thousands of billions of dollars a year. However, since his wife had died in an accident 23 years prior, his heart and mind were broken. He sold his company, moved to a small house in a basin, and sank into occultism, becoming increasingly irascible and rude to everyone offering any persuasion. When he again threw his colleagues out of his small house, they all swore not to care any more of him.

Twenty years later, on an ordinary day half a week ago, my father told me my uncle had died.

I turned on the light in my car. As the sky grew dimmer and the mist surrounded me, it became harder to see the road in front of me. In an hour, it would be too dangerous to continue driving.

A spot of light emerged from the haze. Coming closer, there was a lamp and a station, just on the side of the long driveway, over the edge of the forest. Swaying in the wind, the light was an electric one hung primitively by an iron chain on the station. Strange but kind, a man like a butler stood in the light, seemingly waiting for me.

"Welcome, sir," he greeted me as I closed the door of my car. "I'm Smith Roger, your uncle Mr. Mattel's butler." In a few words, I learned that he had served my uncle for the last 20 years and was responsible for this funeral.

Mr. Roger was a tall, middle-aged man. With silver hair and a suit, he looked just like everyone’s idea of a butler.

Going to the village, we had to navigate through a trail in the forest. Along the way, the old butler told me all about the funeral and asked about my tiredness.

The light was not far away, and Roger spoke out of silence: "As you can see, this is quite a remote town. But here people tend to take their leisure activities at night just like in the capital, as you will soon see. "

At 11:00 in the evening, there were still boisterous people on the street. On both sides were bars, clubs, and shops. There were tables with people laughing and playing cards, there were drinkers pointing at favorable wines on the walls, and there were pianists and guitarists singing and audiences dancing together. LED lights decorated the roof, blending with cracks, greasy dirt on the walls, and fancy spray print, creating a mix of industry and party. There was a very large proportion of young people. About nine out of ten people I saw were about the same age as I. They laughed at each other, drank juices and beers, and some of them sang together. It was such a lively and joyful scene that it almost felt like a show. Everyone seemed happy and carefree, except my uncle, who was dead.

Leaving me his phone number, Roger and I parted at the door of my motel room.

With a complicated mood, I walked into a bar. Suddenly, a strange premonition came up in my spine. The light went dimmer, and, although still laughing, singing the out-of-tune folk songs, flying their fingers on the guitar strings, people had turned their attention to my face. They slid aside like soldiers giving way to their general, and I walked to the bar.

Maybe they are afraid of strangers, I thought.

"How can I help you, sir?" said the barkeeper. I studied this man on purpose. About 40, dapper, in a white shirt and apron. Lefty. I noticed his eyes, which told me strangely that he was anxious and worried.

"Good evening. I would like a glass of port; those mists are quite cold along the way."

I turned to look at the customers in the bar. At a glance, they were all in such a happy ambience and reunion. Ordinary people, free. I couldn't help but smile at them. But something made me feel strange.

Behind me, the bartender whispered:

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm afraid we are out of wine tonight. You see, there have been a lot of people here.”

Out of wine? I looked up at the walls of the wine cellar.

[Olive Oil, 1986]

Why would a bar store olive oil? Why would olive oil be produced in 1986? It was like the world was making a mistake. I tried to ask the barkeeper.

I found him nowhere.

I found the bar nowhere. I was facing a white wall. When I turned my head, the tables, the piano, the drinking bottles, the cards, the cigarettes, the guitars, the chairs, the paintings on the wall, and the potted plants, they had all disappeared.

And then there was nothing. No one, not even the wind. I was just in an empty white space. And I found out how heavy the fog was, even in the bar.

At that instant, the light went off.

Part 2: Preconscious

What is real? And what isn't? Just a few moments before, I was in a noisy and happy street. But now?

Now, in pure darkness, without a sound, I reached to touch my hand but felt nothing.

“I'm losing my sense,” I thought. I put my foot forward, tentatively. I remembered my young memory of running into the tall, thick, hard pillar of the factory.

I remember watching TV alone at night. When I turned it off, when all the flashy music and figures were gone, all that was left was loneliness, was dirty dishes in the sink, was my last glimpse of my pet dog before putting it under the ground, was how my parents divorced, was my lost hair tangled in the sewer, was the monotonous factory work tomorrow, was blood from my nose, was scars, was screams, was half Aleysha's face.

Now, when it seemed that the real world had been separated from me, all that came into my mind made sorrow swell, and all that left my eyes made me gain peace.

I was standing by my apartment window at night. My room was dark, and outside there were silhouettes of buildings. Raising my head, in the distant sky above, there was the light of rich people, of money and prosperity, of well-being and filth.

Then the light shrunk, becoming stars.

Part 3: Subconscious

At that time, everything was still harmless, like a baby in the cradle. One afternoon Aleysha found the ladder adults had left in the garage. She and K decided to use it to get onto the roof and count stars that night.

When everyone else hid their eyes behind their eyelids, the world belonged to only the two children. The evergreen forest around their house sank into the dark mist. Without light, the world seemed to have only stars and themselves, floating in nothing like astronauts in space. Stars of that age were as dense as snowflakes on winter windows, but K noticed an empty spot that appeared to be covered by a black patch.

"It's a black hole," Aleysha said. "The universe uses it to eat when it's hungry."

In Aleysha's mind, the universe was a sleeping giant lying across nihilism. It expanded when it inhaled, and shrunk when it exhaled. Civilizations rose and civilizations died, all in one breath.

"The universe is conscious, and we are not even a cell in its body," Aleysha said.

“When I grow up, I want to be an explorer. Explorer of the universe,” K murmured.

"Yo! Ambitious! Then I will be the queen of the universe, waiting for you to find me," Aleysha laughed, looking at K.

That night passed as never before, and technology developed: AI, bio-tech, neuroscience, hydrogen power… Growing opportunities attracted huge companies to come and fight. Sometimes one had the advantage and went bankrupt the next month, and then another took over. Soon there were only a few behemoths monopolizing the market on which everyone depended. Prices rose, hierarchy solidified, and corporations overruled governments with money and power. The rich built heavenly cities in the sky, threw money like ashes; poor people lived in a garbage hell at the bottom, selling blood and flesh for food.

K's dream had broken. His father killed himself when all his stock became paper; his mother died in a car accident. He and Aleysha dropped out of school, dragged their lives into a civilian cave, working in huge factories to survive.

On a stormy day, K returned home all wet, but Aleysha did not return that night. He watched the old TV, and news reports that the army of a large company marched into District 9 and suppressed the uprising, executing hundreds of suspected people. Its gate was then closed.

District 9 was where Aleysha worked.

In the early morning of the following day, an ordinary September day, K blended into District 9 with numb workers. On the main street in the haze and smoke, K found Aleysha lying with dead risers in her blood, half of her face shattered, shell casings all over the ground. On the wall behind, "Rebels = Die" was printed with bleeding red paint.

Five years later, K walked into the bar. As he entered, pianists and guitarists were silent, people put down their cards, drinkers rose from their sleep. People slid aside like soldiers giving way to their general. K ordered a drink from the counter. It was "port," a fake and cheap imitation of the real port wine.

"We shall start tonight," he turned around and told everyone.

Part 4: Truth

As a psychologist, the biggest joke I've ever heard in my life was my duty.

I was appointed by Mr. Mattel himself to investigate why the leaders of these rebels dare to stand up against their invincible antagonist – Mr. Mattel's company.

I obtained the newest technique to delve into those prisoners’ minds. Once we calm the prisoner down to his dreaming stage, the AI will extract what the brain’s normal associations, often things in his reachable (not subconscious) important past, integrate those fragments of thought, and create a simulated world that makes the man believe he is in the ordinary and ideal scenario to accomplish a mission. The longer he stays in the world, the more his brain will relax, and in a suitable moment we will poke through his preconscious, tragic and traumatic things from his subconscious blocked from disturbing his conscious mind, and finally to his subconscious, where his childhood, his trauma, and his will and primitive motives hide. Once we get there and extract all the information, the man becomes a completely stripped onion that has no value to us and is disposed of at his time.

Hundreds of uprisings happen and fail every year, and I can have hundreds of prisoners a year, each for two to three days, all with death sentences. Among them, K is really an ordinary one.

Many things can be induced from his conscious stage already. K wanted Mr. Mattel dead, so he attended his funeral in the conscious stage. The memory of dusk in his happy childhood was gripped by the later memory in the haze of industry and factory, so there comes the sky and the mist. He was an adventurous man, dreaming of exploring space and the earth, so he projected his father climbing the glacier. The evergreen forest was in his most peaceful and happy childhood, so there came some to relax him. The old butler and the station came because he desired to be cared for by his father and have a place to rest. The bar and the streets stand for his wishes for the poor, his comrades. The way he was greeted as a leader, his favorite "port," and the way people laughed and smiled were also manifested. The strange feeling he got was because of his repression of his sadness and the lack of his sister Aleysha, who was so important to him that even banishing the truth of her death from his mind made him feel insecure and sad.

Ah, about Aleysha. She was his soul in life. Early in their childhood, he and she had their dreams, and even when they failed to achieve them, they were each other's most important ones. In K's subconscious, once Aleysha dies, there is nothing left but revenge, empty and dry revenge, revenge without emotion.

People gather here for so many reasons. In essence, they have experienced tragedy, and they want revenge. K is no more than an ordinary little individual here. And his emotions, his love, his hate, are so simple. His living or death, reunion or sorrow, nobody cares.

Ha! See everyone, every emotion is just that simple. There is no love, no attachment. There are hormones, natural selection, and cellular interactions. Humans are animals. When you break down their minds and souls, you will find they are all the same! Humans are just like that. They are ultimately only a ghost lingering in this world with an empty body and a mechanical soul.

Ending: Goodbye

“Number 5134202, code name—K. You have been charged with murder, destruction of public property and rebellion. You will now be executed in accordance with the law!”

K knelt down in the center of the square. The firing squad stood a few steps away from him. After the sound of loading, there came the long silence.

It was again a summer night. Down on the ground, tunnels and chimneys of the poor thrust up like the forest of evergreen. Up in the sky, lights from the heavenly city were small but shiny, just like thousands of stars.

Lying on the roof, K raised his head and saw a black patch in the sky where light went out.

A black hole. That's where the universe eats.

The universe is conscious, and we tiny creatures are not even cells in its body.

Without light, the world seemed to have only stars and itself, floating in nothing like astronauts in space.

"Aleysha, do you think everything is worth it? Do you think humans are humans?”

Far away, a star exploded, and the guns fired.

K fell into infinite sleep.