The Life of an Electron

This is a story told from the perspective of a sentient electron that is part of a copper atom buried deep underground. The copper is then dug up and reacted with fluorine. In this reaction, Fluorine gains an electron, making the atom very stable.

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Time fades away when one can remember the beginning of forever. The seconds, the minutes, the hours, and the years all blur together. Time means nothing when its intervals are not marked in any way. For me, time had started at the same time the universe was born, the day I was created, but was lost somewhere in the heavy and infinite darkness that surrounds me.

The darkness is all that I have ever known. As my small body, an amorphous being of mass and energy, floats through indeterminate space, I feel the strong current of forces guiding me down a predestined path. After the initial explosion of matter and energy, the rhythms of the universe were able to place everything into patterns, shapes, and spaces, which is why I am here.

I’ve heard whispers of the concept called “life.” It seems like a fantasy, a product of one’s wildest imagination. I cannot fathom what it may be like to have complete influence over one’s actions, to determine one’s future. I’ve heard that it happens on a massive scale, that creatures the sizes of which I simply cannot comprehend possess powers that I will never be able to understand. These monsters are able to see something that is beyond empty space: they see objects that are not defined by the particles that make them up. I can sometimes feel the insane rush of life as it attempts to take full control of the universe and as it reorganizes and redistributes matter in all the ways in which it can. But I know, at least, that I am one small piece in this greatness, so float around in my assigned energy level, content. I somehow know that without me an imbalance will occur, which will tip the world off of its axis forever. I am so insignificant that I am almost not real, yet my purpose is monumental.

Sometimes, while drifting through nothing I experience a repulsion from a body that feels so familiar to me. It is one of my kind, I can sense. Yet the laws of nature will never allow me to see my brethren. I also feel an attraction towards a large and dense pocket of something so completely different from what I am, but I know that I’ll never be able to see that, too. So I float around, being pulled in different directions by opposing forces, yet always going somewhere.

The calming lull of nothingness is shattered suddenly as a new type of energy enters my realm. A new type of force embraces me as the darkness escapes and is replaced by something so completely different. It is magical: a bright and blinding absence of nothing. As my body is permeated with energy, I go down paths that I have never thought I would. The predictability that I had been born into is suddenly ripped away from me. I am scared. I sense the presence of other matter. A force of indescribable magnitude rips me away from all that is familiar, and, all of a sudden, my existence takes on a new meaning. Eventually, a sense of peace pervades. Some indefinable and hidden desire within me had been fulfilled, I understand now. Something had been missing, a sense of belonging, a need for stability. I’ve found it now.

Something large may exist out there in the great unknown, something so big and powerful that I may never be able to understand. Massive creatures may be able to control the universe and perceive the world in magnificent and breathtaking ways, but an underlying force that strives for microscopic stability makes all those wonders possible. So I exist here, in my own little world, fulfilling a purpose as old as time and as big as life itself.