How To Destroy The Universe

Stanley Doyle's last interview

'So how do you want these photos to be taken?' asked Stanley, sensing with his scientific intuition that something was terribly wrong, but he couldn't yet tell what. Either way, he wanted to get rid of the two weirdos that came bashing into his office as he was working on an important discovery.

'I don't know. Let's try a few versions, shall we?'

'And who is that?' asked Stanley, looking anxiously through his thick glasses at the alien in black that was standing next to me.

'Oh, this. Well, this is a photographer!' I said, glad I could figure out a quick way to get out of this situation. 'He'll be taking photos of us.'

I heard Doyle let out a long sigh and relaxed. 'Good. Alright. Let's have those photos taken and then I'll get back to work.'

He suddenly became more serious, as if remembering what he was at the CERN for.

I gave Kendara my phone and we took many photos. Some of them were just Stanely, wearing his white coat, in portrait mode, looking straight into the camera. Taking those photos, I could almost see the article headline: STANLEY DOYLE'S LAST INTERVIEW. Few people would know that the person he had one last interview with was also the same person he would have the last interview because of.

We tool some photos of Doyle and me standing together, embracing like old friends. Then there were photos of me looking at Stanley with a fake smile, pretending to ask him a question. There were photos of Stanley in front of his computers and buried in papers. There were photos of him looking lost deep in thought. And a few experimental photos, where I asked him to show his tongue in the camera and make a funny face.

The whole thing lasted for about twenty minutes and made me feel uncomfortable. I suddenly felt like a groom on a wedding day that had to pretend he was having fun when he was really elbow-deep in terror. When it finished, I let out a long sigh.

I also tried not to think of the fact that I was slowly beginning to miss the guy. He was not only my favourite author, but he also seemed like a good human. But I guess even good humans with good intentions can do bad things sometimes. And even good humans with good intentions have to be killed sometimes.

'What a day,' said Stanley, smiling at me, then briskly walking towards the window, as if there was something important he had to see there.

I followed and stood by his side. You could see the green hills, a lake, and a chain of mountains. The Alps. Some of them, far ahead, had snow caps. I thought of skiing and Sierra Nevada and Lake Tahoe. I was starting to miss home.

'What a day,' Stanley said again.

For the first time since we got to CERN, I looked at Kendara. He was lost in thought, peering at the computer screens with diagrams and charts. Probably, he was looking for evidence that our Universe is still intact, I thought.

Kendara seemed to hear my thoughts or at the very least, feel me staring at him, because he looked me in the eye and made a half-smile. The same half-smile that freaked me out when I first met him in New York.

Weirdly, I was supposed to be more afraid of him now, with all this stuff of blowing up streetlights and flying over the city. But for some reason, I wasn't. I was growing to like the guy. There was something very comforting about his presence, as if he was the older brother I never had.

Now, once the photo shoot was over, we had to move to the other part of the plan. The one I tried not to think about and had absolutely no idea how I would execute on.

We had fifteen minutes left before Margaret would come knocking on the door. By that time, it's best if there was not a trace of us left in the building. I was sure Kendara would figure it out.

'What a day...' whispered Doyle one more time and stared out of the window, into the mountains, and the city of Geneva.

Kendara and I exchanged glances, then looked at the poor old Stanley Doyle. For a moment, it felt like he knew exactly what was about to happen.