Supernova

Salam.

My mentor once said:
"pressure turns coal into diamond"

I've held onto this quote ever since. My mentor has no idea how these words of hers stay engraved on my baffled mind. I like the fact that potential and talent can be developed and groomed into a way that would highten its value, from crude unpolished, uncut rocks into glistening, glimmering things in glass cases at Habib Jewels.

I believe I am a star. I'm not stoned, trust me when I'm writing this. Its just a feeling that I've got so much more to live up to, so much more to achieve. I don't like whining, I believe in myself and the fact that only myself is a barrier to greater success. But then again, I pray Allah grants me humility with the greater knowledge He bestows upon me from his vast oceans of academic wealth. From His perpetual wealth of inexhaustible materials.

One day I'ld like to go back and tell my mentor:

"pressure turns gas into stars"

From a nebula, I condense under the force of my own weight and magnetic forces, minimising the surface I expose to the universe, hiding away my potential in order to expose it for better purposes one day hence. I contract and attract impurities, my only innate lifelong teacher is my experience.

As I am pressured by the hydraulics of life, I start to glow, enough for me to realise my potentials and work towards honing myself. I give out light, but only a faint glimmer in the pitch black ebony of the night. Like a firefly hovering along the bank of a river in the midst of a new moon, its rays flickering as if blown and caressed by the midnight wind. I feel the temperature rising, a protostar is born!

With the elevation of chemistry inside the neurons of my brain, the pyramidals, astrocytes, ependymals, oligodendrocytes, microglias, all in synchrony playing the for orchestra of education, with books and teachers and lecturers as the conductor, nuclear reactions start to take place. Links are created, matter are fused and therefore the birth of combustible ideas and attitude.

As a main sequence star, I can only give out light, hopefully to aid and navigate others in need. I stop contracting, as I myself need further development. The hydrogens continue to fuse into helium, creating my helium core as I twinkle in the heavens above. I hope to serve humanity as long as I can, be it as a doctor, a student, a son, a muslim, a brother or by just being human and humane. I shine steadily as my physical core is sustained over the years of nuclear reactions. Before we realise, our time ends sooner than we think.

When my helium core is made surrounded by cooling gases, all thats left of me is a red supergiant. I have come to my peak, and this is all that I can contribute to the world. I am only a traveller in time, and as time passes by, so do I. All thats gone cannot be returned, and with the laws of nature, I follow suit.

With my aged iron core, I degrade and wither with the rotations of the mechanics inside my wristwatch. My disintegration and decay is unstoppable, as the mitochondrias inside me expose the cells of my body to further oxygen radical attacks. The electrons desert the transport chain, activating caspase and apoptosis of the body cells. the longer you live, the more oxygen radical attacks you face from the ever combusting mitochondrias. Thats why women have their ovums made prebirth, to protect the manufacturing process from life long exposure to radicals. Anyway, I deteriorate only to see myself perished and gone with the winds.

As I come to to cease, all thats left are memories. There will be a time when everyone will talk about me, at least hopefully. And that is the time when I lay frozen on my deathbed, ready to be fed to the earth and its decomposing inhabitants. That moment in time is momentary only, lasting no longer than the supernova of the star I once was. The whole universe will be blinded, but no longer than the flash of a xenon lightbulb in modern cameras.

On earth, I will leave behind only 1 of 2 legacies. I might become a tiny neutron star, that continues to shine in the background, unnoticed, insignificant to the life of others. On the contrary, become a black hole that absorbs everything and become the talk of generations to come. I only hope all thats left to say of me are prayers to help me on The Day of Judgement. InsyaAllah.

To pen off, I leave you with a song by my favourite band. Indulge!