Star Tail, ricercar a 6

Imagine a star* shining brightly in the sky.  A star is just a plasma-based hot soup of celestial stew combining all the flavours of the universe in a hearty mess.  Just like a regular stew over the fire, this hot sloppy mess burbles and spits out hot matter, flinging it hither and thither across the empty void.  If the cook is standing too close, it will get burned as the solidifying goo congeals and cools.

When just such a splash of coronal mass ejection hits any debris in orbit, and if the mass is long and dense, we might call it a tail.  Strictly, the star does not have a head, nor arms, nor feet, nor buttocks so the term tail is ill-advised.  However, if a comet can have a tail pointing away from its fiery snow head then surely we can ascribe a tail to a star.  This tail, or splash as we'll call it, can deposit rich nutrients of heavy elements.  These heavy elements include oxygen, nitrogen and carbon that are all vital to the possibility of a crazy invention called life.

Life is a term for the chaotic riot that is created by competing elements of creation and destruction.  The forces and exchanges of the teeming riot run through the figurative streets seeking a cause upon which to throw themselves.  Often these elements vie for victory against each other.  Their vicious battle over territory and resources is what compels the intricate forms of cells and organisms to seek out energy and love.  Even the most basic cellular organism needs to feel love or hate, acceptance or rejection.  Without the continual tossing and turning of the tides of imbalance, the organism would wither and die without chaos.

The random flipping of coins and rolling of roulette balls informs the organism of its surroundings and allows interaction between elements.  For example, the hydrogen and oxygen mix in a flash of combustion which then settles down to collect with like-minded Mickey Mouse ear molecules.  These molecules form bonds almost immediately and wouldn't allow anything else to intrude on their collusion.  However, a wandering sodium chloride ion might happen by and mix pleasantly in the right quantities.  A cellular organism looking for love and having only a few strands of fibrous protein might be lulled into the mixture with the correct pH balance and then allow some salt water into his cells.  Thus fortified, he randomly floats away subject to the vagaries of Brownian motion.

The push and pull of this bellows contraption is what allows the whole chaotic roulette riot to occur.  The original tail from the star was the starting point, but this is unknown to the tip of the bellows.  It only knows that breath is pulled in with expansion and breath is pushed out with contraction.  When and whence these proceed none know or can fathom.  There is no entity pulling or pushing on the handles of the bellows, only the vibration of the big bang's reverberations echoing across the scenery.

At the neck of these giant accordion movements is the most enticing location to look for any signs of activity. Just as two children who sit to far apart from each other miles apart from the fulcrum of a seesaw will not have much fun or range of motion, so it is that the point closest to the funnel or nozzle (or neck, in this case) will see a lot of motion and movement as frisson and friction cause collisions and interaction.  These compression points allow for the creation and destruction that is important for life to spring up and flourish.

All of this is only possible with the extended tail of flagellation extending from a star outward and splashing on its floating bricks.  These bricks circle endlessly in the kiln of the universe's oven, stirring up riots of chaos and random fluctuations like a roulette wheel. The chance interactions of all the elements are put into dangerous balance by the bellows action of the forces in the oven.    The neck of these violent bellows is where the most interaction occurs and where the pot toils and boils.

The random luck of the draw is capricious and unmerciful.  All possible outcomes are known in advance based on the initial placement of the ball and the wheel.  The size of the bellows and the direction of its neck also informs the chaotic riot of action.  The size of the star's bulbous head and in which direction the tail splash emerges like a lengthy glop of rich fertile material starts the orb spinning along its tracks.  All of this silent sound and calm fury takes place against a blackboard of pinpoint pricks of light.  Each little light as richly varied and riotous as the others, but each one is unique.

Sadly, only one is known to produce the spark of energy and motion of life.  All the other light points look on jealously while our star continues a slow burn into death.  The brick we stand on in the neck of these bellows squeezes further shut on each gasp and wheeze.  We roll the dice and hope for double aught, not because we consciously know we are doing so, but by accident out of pure chance; ignorance is bliss and we are supremely blissful.

As cheesy as it sounds, we are all created out of this star dust.  Our time is a brief spark of light in the dark, and that is a deathly serious matter.

*Ricercar (or fugue) in six random words from a website:  star, tail, riot, roulette, bellows, neck.  Discarded: blackboard.