Origami Stars

by Sam Clough
November 1st, 2007

Author : Sam Clough aka “Hrekka”, Staff Writer

“We’ve considered the simple stuff in previous sessions, and now all of you are comfortable with the basics of folding space, correct?”

The teacher saw some nods of assent from his class.

“Excellent. But this is the advanced class. I’m not just going to teach you to fold space — I’m going to teach you origami.”

He drew a sheet of plain, white paper from his desk, and held it up.

“I’m not trying to overextend my metaphor, don’t worry. A piece of paper really is the easiest way to show you the folds. That way you can all see the work in progress, and understand where all the folds are meant to go.”

As he spoke, the teacher’s hands were creasing and folding the paper. The eyes of his class were focused hard on those fine movements, most of them probably recording it in their cortex or otherwise. He soon finished, and held up a model of a twelve-pointed star between his thumb and forefinger.

“And this is where the metaphor breaks down. In your spacetime version, when you reach this step, you need to grab the center of the structure and do the tesseract twist, wrench it round by about half a rad. Then put the entire thing somewhere safe, and release.”

The teacher sat back in his chair, and closed his eyes. About a metre above the desk and it’s spread of paper and origami, the air began to distort. Light shifted crazily through the patch. The teacher’s face betrayed his enjoyment of the task.

He opened his eyes, and the miniature star above his desk ignited.