Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Herb’s Sanctified Imagination Gone Wild
“In all the vastness of the very dark space, I am the center of all that is glorious, all that is beautiful and all that is important,” so spoke the star, “Twinkle,” the name given to this beautiful star by the creator God that fashioned all the cosmos; she was a very proud star. For thousands of years Twinkle had shined brightly day and night giving radiation light to the whole of Twinkle’s world. Twinkle was so proud of being the luminous sphere that was the brightest in all her universe.
Twinkle kept close watch on the core thermonuclear fusion that takes her vast storehouse of hydrogen and turns it into helium and great amounts of energy that floats up through her glorious self and at the surface bursts forth to radiate light into the darkened sky of the vast cosmos.
Twinkle is aware that there are other stars in the night sky, but they are so small, so insignificant, she spends little time thinking about them. They shed no real light into Twinkle’s world.
Twinkle has a sophisticated internal network of auto internal communication devices. She can keep total contact with every part of her beautiful body that is such a glory to the night sky.
Suddenly there was an all-points emergency alarm and everyone was alerted to an approaching danger. Twinkle was at the helm and searching the night sky. Twinkle contacted the surface radar for clarification of alarm.
“Reporting back, Twinkle,” the surface radar was on-line, “It appears as thought an ice laden comet is heading our way; I will keep you informed.”
Twinkle responded, “You better double the guard; we can absorb the impact of an ice-laden comet; I just don’t want it to do damage to my shining beauty.”
The surface radar knew how to get promoted, “Live and shine forever, Oh beautiful Twinkle, your beauty is eternal and unblemishable.”
Twinkle shone with approval and continued to examine the night sky into which she was the brightest, most beautiful of all the shining things in the vast darkness of space.
Twinkle had just began to relax for a moment when Surface Radar burst in with news of the ice-laden comet: “Comet is now on our screen and I am computing its trajectory and I will give a full report in a flash.”
Twinkle was very confident of Surface Radar’s ability; like all of Twinkle, he was the best. Surface Radar had got them through a number of stellar storms and whizzing objects hurling through the night sky. Twinkle smiled, “We are the best!”
Just then, Surface Radar broke into Twinkles thoughts with a report: “The ice-laden comet is no danger to us; it is moving at 250,000 earth miles per hour and will miss us by a light distance second.”
Twinkle was watching the communication screen and the trajectory of the space invader. It would miss us by slightly over a light distance second it was grafted at 140,000 miles out at 32 degrees toward the high pole of Twinkle. It whizzed past without even a tremble.
Twinkle gave as sigh of relief; she was protective of her beauty.
Twinkly sat back in the captain’s command chair and was admiring herself in the reflections off the glare of space. Just then, central dispatch called on the intercom to let Twinkle know they had been re-positioning the great array of sound interceptors and they were picking up sound waves from that small blue dot that is in the Sun’s orbit: “It is those kids singing again; I know you love the adoration so I will switch the sound over to all-con-intercom.”
Twinkle turned up her sound so not to miss a word.
“Twinkle, Twinkle little star… Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the world so high
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder what you areWhen the blazing sun is gone
When he nothing shines upon
Then you show your little light
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night
Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are
Twinkle smiled with personal pride to think that children so far away were singing praise to her beauty, splendor and glory. She was so important. They live on such a small blue dot, that my glory, size and splendor must thrill them. Twinkle ordered the photo tech lab to get a space selfie of her with the wide lens camera to put in the trophy room. Twinkle sat back in her captain’s chair and drifted off to sleep.
Twinkle was suddenly awakened by the alarm on the all-con-intercom system; it was the Central Supply Accounting firm with a worrisome supply report. Twinkle gave the okay to speak.
“For centuries we had so much supply of hydrogen that we were not able to measure or weigh it. Four month ago when checking all supplies I realized I could measure it and noted the hydrogen supply. Each of the past three months the hydrogen supply has been depleting in about the same amount each month; I have calculated the supply, and the usage and we are going to turn into a red dwarf in a thousand years.” Twinkle was shocked and angry at the same time. What does Central Supply know of our glory and brilliance; we will never run out of fuel or cease to shine in the celestial sky. Twinkle snapped back and screamed at CD: “You idiot— check it again and don’t talk to me again unless you have better news. Now, get to work and do your job right this time.”
Twinkle sat back in her chair and was shaking all over and mad at the Central Supply for being so inept and stupid, “No one believes Twinkle, Twinkle will cease to be the brightest star in all the cosmos and how stupid to think I would become a Red Dwarf in a mere thousand years.”
The supply captain checked the log sheet and the supply record for the past 5 months and his figures were right on the money; in fact, the demise date could be as soon as 980 years. Then he checked again. With the amount of helium we have in the nuclear waste section, we could turn into a black hole and suck everything in this part of the cosmos into the depths of space. “This could be a cosmic disaster,” Supply Captain said out loud. I guess I should tell Twinkle, but her arrogance and conceit will not allow her to listen to any reason. “I’ll wait till star date mañana.” For the next week he kept putting it off.
With a week to forget the disturbing news Twinkle was back to her normal brightly shinning self and was complementing herself for how big and bright she is and will always be.
Her self-aggrandizement was flowing smoothly and she was shining brilliantly when the private call line was flashing red for her.. “Now, what is this emergency?” she thought to herself as she put on the headset to receive the private communication.
Central Dispatch was on the line with disturbing news, “There is a space object that looks like as a space probe from earth approaching at warp speed, and their trajectory is aiming directly at us.”
Twinkle thought, “Perhaps, more earthlings that want to come and check out my glory and brilliance; let them come; the probes are always so small compared to our size and brilliance.”
Central Dispatch kept the space probe on the screen and when it was at location 200 earth miles from the star, the probe moved into idle mode and set gravity forces to maintain position for radio contact.
The probe voices modulators began the introductions from the voice computers on the probe. We are earth probe 2045CD5 and we have been sent to communicate with you of impending dangers to you and to all the cosmos in this sector.”
Twinkle listened to the computer voice and wondered when they were going to complement me on my brilliance, glory and beauty; then she heard it.
The probe voice continued. “We have been measuring you on the Hertzsprung-Russell monitor and scale and with your weight demise and size reduction over the past hundred years, you are in danger of turning into a black hole and destroying this whole sector of the cosmos within the coming millennium.”
Twinkle was angry and shouted, “What do you know about me! I am the brightest, most beautiful, glorious star in all the sky! Even your earth children sing my praises; where did you get such a stupid idea that I would turn into a black hole ever?”
With that the computer on the probe brought Twinkle up to date. “You see, Twinkle, the Earth astrologers and astronomers have mapped you for many millennia. First to place you on the sky map were the Egyptians in 1534 BC. Then with better accuracy The Babylonians in Mesopotamia mapped you in 1250 BC.
Twinkle was quieter now— could Central Supply have been right?
The probe’s computer voice continued, “Then Ptolemy the Greek had you marked spot-on. We have followed the charts of the Chinese and the Arabs and even Fahkr el Din el Razi had you mapped along with your cluster that have all shrunk into red dwarfs in the Islamic charts of the 9th century AD. I know you well; now, can we get down to business?”
Twinkle was unusually quiet as she listened; this had to be an Islamic plot to steal her beauty and glory and move it to some place of theirs and to destroy my glory. She thought aloud, “Would the American children sing my praises if I were in decline and on my way to being a black hole; it is all a dirty plot against me by those that are jealous of my beauty. Twinkle did not realize she had let her hand slip on the control panel and the last five minutes of the conversation was broadcast over the whole star. The computer on the space probe was equipped with as thought monitor, and her quiet thoughts had been broadcast to the space probe and back to the star’s main communication platform. Everyone heard and was watching quietly what was coming next.
Though it was not politically correct to do so, the computer on the probe was laughing: “Where did you get the idea that you were the most beautiful, brilliant and glorious star in the cosmos?” The computer went on, ‘you are one of a creation of stars that number a billion times a billion times a million stars. And the Creator has each one named, just as you are Twinkle. But believe me, there are billions of stars in the cosmos that are brighter, more glorious than you.”
Twinkle could not listen to more and shut off the mic, and the probe overrode her switch and was right back on. Twinkle could not even cover her ears; the probe was forcing the message into Twinkle’s mind. She was resisting, but the probe was winning. “Shut this garbage up; I don’t want to hear it.”
The probe’s computer was overheating, and it was tired of Twinkle’s conceited vapor trail, and told Twinkle, ‘We came to help you. Now listen; we don’t have long. Your Supply Center man has miscalculated; you only have a couple years to be transferred to another star and once you are all off safely, we will laser beam an anti-fusion force into the supply room and convert the helium from spent fuel to active unstable hydrogen-2 and explode the star before it becomes a black hole and a danger to the neighborhood.”
Twinkle sat quietly for a few minutes— the computer on the probe was programmed to wait for an answer and sat quietly for the duration.
Twinkle thought, “my control Supply man told me a thousand years, this wandering machine told me a couple of years. I am taking my supply officer’s word. That will buy me as little time to figure this out. How can I trust a machine that tells me there are millions of stars brighter than I? Just look into the night sky and you would know that was wrong. ‘Shove it, probe! Get out of my orbit.” Twinkle closed down all communications and put a solar shied up to block anymore of the probe’s dribble.
The probe had recorded the full conversation. The probe thought, “I have met some conceited, arrogant creation in my time, but Twinkle out does them all”. Then warp speed home— we won’t make earth in time to make any other plans.
Twinkle slouched in her captain’s chair and refused any of the daily reports that reported that her brilliance was depleting by a small degree each day; she refused to read the Central Supply reports of depleting hydrogen and everyone of the stars were quietly consoling themselves to their fate.
Three earth years passed and Twinkle was feeling good in her ignorance; “nothing has happened yet”. The morning of day four of the beginning of the fourth year since the probe, the star was shining and things seemed normal. Then the whole star began to tremble, the walls were caving in as the star began to implode. The instruments all peeked then fell to zero. Twinkle sat belted into the Captain’s chair as her world collapsed around her. Her conceit cost her, the whole crew as they were sucked into a worm hole and whisked away at twice the speed of light and Twinkle followed into the Black hole as the children on earth were singing, ”Twinkle, Twinkle little star….” Arrogance and conceit had not only destroyed Twinkle, but all of those around her…The children continued, “How I wonder what you are.”
Many of our fellow workers in the kingdom have the feeling they are the brightest star in the kingdom, and there are millions that have suffered, hurt and served alongside. We are equal servants; the brilliance belongs to Jesus.
