[ WP ] You just broke a paradox accidentally . As things start to change and no longer make sense , you hold on to your sanity as the creator of this new world .

This was nonsense. My brain was a scrambled egg. Or, in the local language, *Da'th kraz strc prst krk whaaat? * 
 
 The last thing I remembered was pulling the lever. Aspect Technologies had told me to do it, ostensibly as part of a three-week study into memory and recall. When I picked the green one, everything immediately went grey, the sort of grey you'd expect to not see out of the back of your head. I could n't even visualise myself, and already problems were starting to happen. Against the starless, formless void, I found myself wondering just how it was that I knew what the local language was, or if there was even a local language, let alone atoms. Then I saw a disembodied brain floating towards me. 
 
 `` You have broken - krc strz - the universe,'' it said. 
 
 `` How do you know what I'm thinking about?'' I said. 
 
 `` We are the only two brains in the universe: I arose from vacuum, and you from elsewhere,'' the brain said serenely. Now I realised where this thing had come from. We had discuss this with Aperture Laboratories - such a Boltzmann brain was unlikely to come about in the real universe. 
 
 I cursed the grey. Surely this was my fault. I had, after all, wished for a world where all of my co-workers were gone forever. Day in, day out, with no hope of ever quitting your job, staring at the same computer with the same two co-workers and their same dumb dad jokes - it was enough to drive a saint crazy. I mean, do n't get me wrong - I did n't have anything against Lenny or Bruce - but let's face it, they were subhuman excrement only fit to line the walls of an Aperture test chamber. Well, I'd wished hard enough, and I'd got my wish - but I suppose they wished the same of me. It was the only explanation as to why I could only see my floaty hand from behind me. 
 
 `` How do I get the universe back to the way it was?'' I thought. 
 
 The brain said, `` You have broken a paradox by creating the universe, O Creator. As to how you will fix it, I do not know - the Lord works in mysterious ways. You are already lucky I lasted for so long. Now I must leave, lest the uncertainty become too much!'' 
 
 Involuntarily, I cried out - a formless jumble of text pouring from my mouth when I did so - but the brain vanished anyway. And I was alone. 
 
 -- - 
 
 The metric could be moved. That is, I could warp the grey a little bit if I lifted my disembodied hand. It bent a little, and eventually a part of the universe coagulated around my hand - but there was still precious little in the way of stars or planets, both of which were essential to life other than me. 
 
 I suppose now is the right time to say God has an inferiority complex. No, not your God - the other one. You have no idea how hard I tried to impress Aspect's team. I had slaved countless hours, filed away all the numbers and opened innumerable spreadsheets, and here I was, still thinking of them, and there they were, invisible, not thinking of me. They'd probably buy a droid to replace me or something. And let's be honest, who could tell the difference? 
 
 Could I create stars? 
 
 I tried, but the universe seemed unwilling. This was harder than I thought. Then I realised that my old universe had not evolved this way. It had started with the Big Bang, then inflation, then the separation of the component forces -'symmetry breaking', as it were, then hydrogen from the void, then helium from nuclear fusion, then lithium, and if we were lucky, the P-P chain was initiated, and fledgling stars were born from dust... all of which had taken billions and billions of years to do in the first place. I might be a man of infinite patience, but I did n't think that I was willing to wait so long. 
 
 So I focused on creating a single hydrogen atom. I tried, pouring all my energy and thought into a small space of the void concentrated above my one hand, but nothing gave. Soon I gave up. If only there was a manual for being a creator, I would follow it to perfection. As it were, I did n't even know how I got here, or where I came from... wait, what? 
 
 Surely I remembered where I came from. I searched my brain, but there was nothing there. The stuff in there had not merely been erased, it was not even certain that I ever had anything there in the first place. I did n't know where I came from. All I knew was that I was in the void. 
 
 I cried out. The jumble of text started again, and eventually the words crowded my thoughtspace, but I heard nothing. `` Who am I? What is this place, where am I from, who am I?'' 
 
 And the grey did not answer. I looked around. There was nothing, not even the shadow of a Boltzmann brain. *I must be real*, I thought. *Who else could be thinking such things? I think, therefore I am. Enough said. * Then a second comforting thought came to my head. *I am God. * 
 
 *Yes*, I thought. *I am God. The lord of all creation surely must exist. But wait. Surely someone must have created me then. Had I always existed? Had the universe always existed? Oh, no, no, this was mad, this was mad and bad - stop, stop, stop! * 
 
 The grey froze. I could see formless ice crystals, tinkling away in the soundless night. I existed, I did not exist. I do n't know. My sanity is slipping - I can feel the void growing red with its blood. Who am I? What was this place? If I am God, and had turtles all the way down, who then created me? Or if I had always existed, human without end, what about the universe? Why could n't it always have existed? Maybe there was nothing special about humanity. Maybe I was merely a long, lonely road towards a higher consciousness. Maybe none of this made any sense. Maybe - help me, I am God, help me, I need to know, someone, anyone, please, help me, I must be real, I must be real! 
 
 *No, * I thought. *I did exist. I am real. * 
 
 *And what's more*, I thought as the darkness came again, *I could prove it. I knew the magic words to unlock the world. * 
 
 Carefully I prepped myself. I wondered if, in the life to come after this one, whether I might taste a freshly-baked apple pie. Rumour had it that to make it from scratch, one must first invent the universe. 
 
 Well- 
 
 `` LET THERE BE LIGHT!'' I screamed. 
 
 And there was light- 
 

