On the planet Okenfolk, a young monk named Brother Stopdrop woke up early to sweep the western side of the Great Abbey. Sunlight gleamed across the stonework floors and high walls where doors led to stairwells around the main building. Brother Stopdrop prayed his usual prayers, hummed a hymn, but dreaded part of his task that led him to the darker hallways. It seemed that in recent weeks, some of the rooms had become engulfed by complete blackness, with shadows creeping further each day into the nearby gardens. There was an oppressive feeling of gutwrenching hopelessness just from being near the dark corridors, and all the monks knew something was wrong.
“Should we warn the townspeople?” Brother Stop drop asked his elder during commons meeting after finishing his rounds. He did not tell the leader that he had skipped several halls.
“Not yet,” said Elder Warren. “Let’s see if prayer can drive out the darkness first.”
“Elder Warren, what if it is the Abyss?”
“Quiet,” said Elder Warren. “People will panic.”
Days went by and the gaping shadows reached the stone gates at the border of the monestary. Brother Stopdrop asked God for ideas of what to do.
Meanwhile, just outside the orbit range of Okenfolk, a spaceship led by Sargeant Cori Hopewell faced its own dangers. They had detected a black hole that swallowed three galaxies previously monitored and targeted with the most reliable exploration tech ever invented. Cori requested printed updates on the star distances every four hours, and her crew was growing weary of the vigilance. She was growing weary of their complaining.
Finally, in desperation, she typed a message to Okenfolk’s monestary. “Please pray for us, there is a black hole that is in a dangerous range, and there may not be much recourse.”
Brother Stopdrop received the message on his computer in his cell late one night as he read letters and books from his main list. The message warmed his heart with a new sense of companionship, and he quickly replied that he would pray all day the next day.
He did pray the next day, and even wondered if he noticed the abyss recede a little bit as some love grew for his planet and people.
Sargeant Cori and Brother Stopdrop began writing to each other every morning, sometimes steadily for hours, trying to brainstorm solutions for their fight against the chasms of nothingness that threatened all life as they knew it.
“The black hole is rapidly gaining sky and progressing in a direction that we can’t avoid,” Sargeant Cori wrote one morning.
“Get it, void?” replied Brother Stopdrop. “Avoid…”
“Funny,” said Sargeant Cory.
Brother Stopdrop and Sargeant Cory started laughing more often, and finally they admitted to themselves and each other that they were in love. They wanted to get married but felt that they both could not abandon their duty to protect their people from the abyss and the black hole. They once again prayed and waited to see what would happen, without much hope of a solution. But right after they were engaged, data started changing.
The black hole started moving in a direction 40 degrees left of where it had previously been headed, and the abyss started creeping toward the ocean. No one could believe it, but within just a few weeks, the black hole had moved completely out of range of Okenfolk’s galaxy sequence, and the abyss had fled all the way out to sea, hovering on the horizon to create a dark block of nothingness after sunset.
“I think they like each other,” said the monk.
Sargeant Cory was finally able to return home, and she and Brother Stopdrop were married at the Great Abbey. They built a cottage near the water and sat outside every night, looking at the stars and wondering about the mysterious dark section where the glimmering ocean met the black night sky.
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