Black Holes and Porridge - Moments with Sir

As the time for my departure on an international trip approaches, my anxiety has risen to new heights of awesomeness. Combined with ruminating depression, I spent most of yesterday, and all night, obsessively thinking about the most horrific things that might happen while I’m away and was completely unable to stop thinking about them.

Sub Brother has been struggling a little bit as well, though not at the level I am. But it’s enough that he’s becoming indecisive. He becomes anxious about making a choice and it causes him to freeze a little bit sometimes, even if the decision isn’t important.

Sir frequently amazes me and… at the same time… makes me worry.

Last night I was pacing the living room literally covered in snot and tears and sobbing, obsessing over something horrible. Sub Brother was standing in the kitchen. Sir was standing halfway between us.

Sir looked at me and said, “Tell me everything you know about black holes.”

“What?” I asked him, through my tears.

“Black holes. C’mon. What are they?” He turns and points to Sub Brother. “Get dinner started.”

I stammer for a minute, “They’re… collapsed stars…”

Sub Brother is turning aimlessly in the center of the kitchen and rubbing his hands on his arms. “There’s not lettuce.”

“How are they made?” Sir said to me striding into the kitchen. “When do they form?” He pulled open the refrigerator and frowned. He jerked open the freezer an pulled out a box of sausages. “Breakfast for dinner. Put these in the microwave. Make some of that porridge Shadow likes.”

“They… a massive enough star supernovas and collapses on itself and compacts so it makes a super dense body.”

“Porridge?”

Sir pulled ingredients from the cupboards and points to each, “Six parts, four, one. When did you first learn about black holes?”

Sub Brother began putting sausages on the plate. I sniffed, my tears forgotten. Sir pulled a saucepan from the cupboard and splashed coconut milk into it. “Good?” he asked, and Sub Brother nodded. Sir turned to me and raised his eyebrows.

“I first learned about it in… Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time, when I was eleven, my parents got it for me…”

Sir murmured to Sub Brother and got a quick nod, Sub Brother now intently focused on his tasks. Sir stepped into the living room and steered me to the table, setting out bowls and plates at our places. “Now tell me about neutron stars and how they are different from black holes…”

And so… we all survived dinner.

Sir is a genius.

But sometimes I worry he gives everything to us. I don’t know if he leaves enough for himself…