The sign said “Escalators to Big Bang,” but it was a bit of a misnomer.

For one, the escalators led first to the display of the Big Bang, which, while interesting, was not really the heart of the exhibit.

No, to really, really get your hands on, as it were, you had to know where the other escalators led up.

And to do that, you had to know how to go behind the displays.

Most of the displays in the American Museum of Natural History had Behinds.  It was a feature of the museum, for those in the know – the Sandboxes.

And most of them were assumed to be some sort of virtual reality, where you could watch dinosaurs or play with evolution and push it down different routes.

The Big Bang “backdoor” required a leap of faith, diving directly into the Big Bang display.

Once you had gotten there, though, you had your own world to play with, your own universe.

The dinosaurs, evolution, all of it: you started from dirt and fire, and, over what seemed, generally, like a couple hours, you built yourself a world.

What the Museum was doing with these worlds was anyone’s guess.  But nobody, as of yet, had managed to get humanity out of their “simulation.”

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Written to a prompt from Livewriting Day:

In the American Museum of Natural History, they have a sign that says ‘Escalators to Big Bang’. What if they actually were escalators to the Big Bang?

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