How To Make A Miracle Xmas 1997

Our story begins with a teenage boy called John who has just purchased an early Christmas present for himself. John lives in another region of space time, maybe in another Universe - who knows?

His present is a 'Stimworld' - a wonder of technology that delivers a world of delight in an amazingly small package. With this marvellous toy, John can construct an artificial world, with its own rules, which are like the laws of physics for the world within. In this world soft evolutionary forces swirl and sway, producing creatures that evolve from the interplay between the forces, the environment, and the creatures themselves. The world has its own 'time', whose clock is controlled by the technology, and so many aeons of time can pass in the stimworld while John watches and wonders.

John has several ways of watching what happens in the stimworld. He can select an overview, which shows him what is happening on a global scale, or he can zoom in on any special areas of interest. But it is difficult to keep track of all that is happening as evolution proceeds apace. So the makers of the toy have in their wisdom provided a number of 'agents' who are soft enitities that can monitor what is happening, and report any particularly unusual or interesting trends or events. These agents are themselves looked after by a 'head agent' who is the main means of communication between John and his world. The head agent is called 'Gibreel', and John has many conversations with him. In order not to interfere with the 'natural' process of evolution, the agents are invisible to the inhabitants of the world - the 'stims'.

Gibreel explains to John that this business of evolution is not as simple as it might sometimes appear. Things can seem to be progressing quite nicely, then some unexpected event can send things into a downward spiral, which is most disappointing for the observers. But preventing these downturns is not easy. For one thing, any 'unnatural' intervention tends to have rather unpredictable results. Even with the awesome technology available with the stimworld, it cannot predict the outcome of any changes - this after all, is the whole point of the game. And for another thing, the stims themselves would become pretty suspicious, and deeply confused if the world they inhabited suddenly stopped obeying the rules they had become used to. Indeed, some of the cleverer stims can seem to understand the rules pretty well themselves.

But sometimes events take a turn when intervention seems the better of two evils. Although Gibreel and his cohorts cannot predict things with any certainty, they understand the world well enough to have a good idea when things are starting to 'go bad'. One of these critical points is now appearing, and Gibreel discusses with John what to do about it. It seems that, by taking a few carefully selected steps, Gibreel and co. can push things in a better direction, which should make the world's future a better proposition for John's continuing interest. 'But', says John, 'how do you make these changes without the stims noticing'. Gibreel explains that he can, with John's permission, 'stop the clock' of the stimworld, make the changes, and then restart the clock. The changes happen, as it were, in no time at all to the inhabitants. They may notice that the changes have happened, but they won't 'see' them take place.

John gives the go ahead, and Gibreel arranges for the changes to happen. When he reports back to John, things seem to have settled down quite nicely. However, some of the stims have noticed some strange things going on, and apparently, some of them even claim to have 'seen' Gibreel and his agents at work. They have called these events 'miracles', and, says Gibreel, 'They even have a name for us agents'. 'Whats that?', says John. 'Angels' says Gibreel with a smile.

 

P.S. I am not trying to 'prove' anything with this story. I do not have any religious beliefs, but I just followed an idea, and this is where it took me.

PPS. I stole the name 'Gibreel' from Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses, which I happened to be reading when I wrote this.

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