Billionaires get to think bigger. Some spend their money on grand projects, pushing technology to new limits. The rest of us play amusing parlor games, imagining what we would do with billions of dollars.
Raúl Jianyu Mason
My imagining led me to create a fictional future trillionaire, Raúl Jianyu Mason, who’s featured in my short story, “Infinity in Your Hand,” published in Tamarind Literary Magazine, Issue 9. Bold and determined, Raúl lives by this credo: big accomplishments require only two things—money and will. The first human to marry an android, he’s famous for building and operating the largest space habitat.
Wormholes, Black Holes, White Holes
Raúl has set his sights on reducing the time required for interstellar travel by constructing stable wormholes in space. If he can do it, he’ll open the universe for humanity to go anywhere, thus bending space itself to his indomitable will.
Theories tell us anything can enter a black hole and nothing comes out. But for a white hole—the counterpart to a black hole—everything comes out, and nothing can enter. Raúl believes these could serve as an entrance and exit, with a wormhole between. But black holes and white holes attract each other, so he develops a design using two white holes and two black holes positioned to maintain stability. To sum up, he proposes a shortcut portal through a wormhole to a distant spot in the universe.
Poetry
The story got its title from the poem “Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake, which begins with these lines:
To see a World in a Grain of sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
Money and Will
You’ll have to read the story to find out how things work out for Raúl, and for his android wife. Perhaps he’s right—all it takes are money and will. Raúl’s got plenty of both. Or maybe it takes something else to hold “Infinity in Your Hand.”
My Story in Your Hand
Pick up a copy of Tamarind to read this story by—
Poseidon’s Scribe
