Back in the kitchen, I turned on a gas burner. I cracked an egg into a bowl and heated up the frying pan. I took a slice of bread, cut a hole in the middle, and plopped the yolk inside. It sizzled.

My eyes glazed over as I watched the egg cook. My mind must have been playing tricks on me, for I could have sworn I was looking at the Andromeda Galaxy. The yolk resembled the central core, the albumen the spiral arms. The bread represented the fabric of space. And the steam rising from the frying pan was nothing less than cosmic energy.

It was then I noticed the note next to the phone on the kitchen counter. “Dearest,” it began. “Have to leave in a hurry. Palomar called. Something big has come up. Love, Alice.”

On a whim, I picked up the phone and dialed the airport. Alice always used Delta. The woman on the other end of the line told me there was one daily flight to Los Angeles and that it left at 11 P. M.

That was ten hours from now.

And that was when it hit me.

Alice told me more than once that I wasn’t the brightest star in the sky, and though I’d always laughed, I realize now that she wasn’t kidding. I’d been duped, to put it bluntly, though what she wanted from me I could only guess (I could think of one-disturbing-possibility, but quickly put it out of my mind.) The oversized image of the Andromeda galaxy on her bedroom ceiling, her frequent absences where she was mysteriously out of touch, her sudden and unexplained reappearances. And that elusive black hole, around which her life seemed to revolve. No, she wasn’t smuggling endangered species, but she was acquiring them. And the reason why was terrifying. “Andromeda is her home!” I cried, to no one but myself, for I was alone in my bedroom. It was an exclamation of triumph, I suppose, for I had finally reasoned it

out. I rushed up the stairs, charged across the bedroom-nearly tripping in my haste-and threw open the closet door.

What had my mind imagined I would see? A portal to another world? Another space? Or to another time? What I saw was something quite different. Something so strange and horrifying I shudder even as I write these words. Astrophysics be damned!

It was pitch-black, just as I’d remembered, an endless, yawning abyss. The light from the bedroom reached the threshold and then abruptly vanished. It was as if the closet was walled off from the rest of the room by an unseen, unknown, or unknowable force.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, a moan escaped my lips. There was a blinding point of light within the closet. The black hole. Nothing alarming there. It was what surroundedthe hole that held me hostage and quaking like a child. Wrapped around the hole was the image of my beloved Alice, her body stretched to the point of absurdity.

I backed away, sobbing hysterically, and slammed the closet door. And then I fled the apartment in terror, without bothering to collect my things. I hailed a cab, which, as luck would have it, was just passing by. “Get me out of here!” I cried to the bewildered cabby. “Anyplace at all. Just go!” Looking back, I’m surprised he threw open the door to let a wild man enter, much less drive him to a place of safety.

***

Addendum. The details of the subsequent years are not important. Suffice it to say that I was eventually able to collect my wits, re-enroll at Columbia, and obtain my linguistics degree. Unfortunately, no job offers were forthcoming and I found myself back home with my parents. I returned to school for an MBA at the urging of my father who was a banker on Wall Street. Six months after I graduated, I found employment as a commodities broker in London. I worked in the smoky city a number of years and acquired a reputation as a man who was both honest and fair. As luck would have it, I found myself in New York City one day negotiating an important deal. On a whim I looked up Alice’s apartment. I expected the dilapidated building to have been razed long ago and was surprised to find it still standing. Our old room was even available. I rang up the landlord and pretended to have an interest in renting the place. He showed me the apartment the following afternoon, leading me through dusty rooms I knew all too well. I talked of financial deals in London and other places, trying to maintain a calm demeanor. When we entered the bedroom, I could restrain myself no longer. I rushed across the musty floor and yanked open the closet door. Alas, the closet was empty; I spied only a bare bulb hanging loosely from the ceiling.

“Must take care of that,” the landlord muttered as we withdrew.

I left town the next day, returning to London where I reside in Notting Hill. I’ve always retained an interest in astronomy and have recently thrown myself into the study of relativity. The laws governing the relative motion of one object with respect to another. I learned that time and space are subject to the same laws. And I nodded knowingly when I read that inside a black hole our physical laws no longer apply, but othersdo.

So what did happen to Alice? Has she returned to Earth? If not, will she ever? I sigh, realizing that even if she were to return one day, and emerge from the black hole like a golden phoenix with the knowledge of the ages, it will be far too late for me.

My mind is porous, I struggle not to forget. Even as I write these words the passage of time distorts, and will ultimately displace, the memory of the subtle features that once composed my beloved’s face.

The distant stars

BILL HOLT RUSHED INTO the starship’s meeting room thirty minutes late and set his banjo down on the metal conference table. “Sorry to keep y’all waiting,” he panted to the half dozen people. “Earl didn’t show up today.”

Skaggs, the top official from Galactic Mining, took a long slow sip of coffee. “Who’s Earl?”

Bill adjusted a couple of strings. Banjos were temperamental and had to be tuned constantly especially in the constant heat and humidity of this alien world.

“Earl Scruggs. Greatest banjo player of all time. Bluegrass legend. Flatt and Scruggs.”

Skaggs responded with a blank stare.

Captain Beth McNeil had been listening. “That’s what Bill named the alien who comes to see him every once in a while.”

“Every day,” Bill said, not looking up from the instrument. “Until today. Doesn’t make any sense.”

“You’re late,” Skaggs snorted.

Bill was weary of the contempt company men like Skaggs showed him. Even though the U. N. was supposedly running this mission the entire crew knew that Galactic pulled the strings.

“I hope y’all didn’t wait for me.”

“Don’t worry. We didn’t,” Skaggs grunted. He turned to the Captain.

“Continue. I’m sure the professor will figure out what he missed.”

Beth was the only one present who showed concern about Earl. “I’m sorry you can’t find Earl, Bill. I know he’s a friend of yours.”