Edward had a marvelous plan. He was going to create a genuine mini Black Hole, right here on earth.
爱德华有一个绝妙的计划。他要在地球上创造一个真正的迷你黑洞。
Edward put coils of copper tube, large permanent magnets, sheets of aluminum foil, old iron tubes full of silicone sealant together to construct a two and a half meters high intricate apparatus, putting a copper vertical horn on top. The horn, like the front of a large trumpet, was pointed towards the ceiling.
爱德华把铜管线圈、大型永久磁铁、铝箔片、装满硅酮密封剂的旧铁管放在一起，构造了一个两米半高的复杂仪器，在顶部放置了一个铜垂直喇叭。喇叭像一个大喇叭的前面，指向天花板。
Edward lived alone in the suburban sprawl of a large city. His father had experimented with inventions in his large steel garage. Because of this, his mother had left home four years ago. He missed his father who had died of a heart attack two summers ago.
爱德华独自生活在大城市的郊区蔓延中。他的父亲在他的大钢铁车库里做过发明实验。因为这个，他的母亲四年前离开了家。他想念两年前死于心脏病的父亲。
Today was Edward’s twenty-second birthday, remembered only by the lovely Fiona, the Circulation Librarian. At lunchtime, Fiona had kissed him on the cheek in front of everybody in the tearoom. Edward had flushed crimson with embarrassment.
今天是爱德华二十二岁的生日，只有可爱的循环图书管理员菲奥娜记得。吃午饭的时候，菲奥娜当着茶室里所有人的面亲了他的脸颊。爱德华尴尬地脸红了。
Edward worked during the day as an attendant at the City Library where he taught himself technology so that he could understand his father’s notebooks. At home he stumbled around in track-pants and a T-shirt and busily modified his father’s equipment.
爱德华白天在市立图书馆当服务员，他在那里自学技术，以便能够理解父亲的笔记本。在家里，他穿着运动裤和t恤，东倒西歪，忙着改装他父亲的装备。
But now was the moment. He climbed the stepladder and peered into the trumpet. The curved mirror at its base magnified his reflected image and he admired his golden curly hair and his green eyes, but loathed his big ears.
但现在正是时候。他爬上梯子，凝视着喇叭。底部的弧形镜子放大了反射出来的影像，他钦佩自己的金色卷发和绿色的眼睛，但讨厌自己的大耳朵。
He had a collection of hardware items arranged near him so that he could throw them into the Black Hole and watch them disappear. Edward sat at the computer controls for the Black Hole Generator.
他在身边摆放了一些硬件设备，这样他就可以把它们扔进黑洞，眼睁睁地看着它们消失。爱德华坐在黑洞生成器的电脑控制台前。
“That’s one small step for a man…” Edward intoned and double-clicked on the start icon. There was a loud vibrating noise and a strange glaring effect in the horn. Edward didn’t realize that a simple software mistake had reversed the polarity of his black hold generator. Yes, he could see that the interior of the horn was indeed the deepest, blackest thing that he had ever seen, but within the blackness he could soon make out sparkling points of every color imaginable.
“这是一个男人的一小步”爱德华说道并双击了开始图标。喇叭里有很大的震动声和一种奇怪的耀眼的效果。爱德华没有意识到一个简单的软件错误已经颠倒了他的黑色屏蔽发生器的极性。是的，他可以看到角的内部确实是他所见过的最深、最黑的东西，但是在黑暗中他很快就能分辨出所能想象到的每一种颜色的闪闪发光的点。
Edward sipped on a glass of cheap soda and whispered, “Black holes are the mysteries of our universe. Everything that enters them never leaves — even light.”
爱德华啜饮着一杯廉价的苏打水，低声说道：“黑洞是我们宇宙的奥秘。任何进入它们的东西都不会离开——甚至光也不会。”
Soon every lost sock in the world flew into the air from the trumpet, and covered the mountain of pens. Then a great number of shopping lists fluttered into the air, followed by an emission of lottery tickets, and train, tram, bus and concert tickets. This was followed by every letter, telegram and E-mail that had never arrived.
很快，世界上所有丢失的袜子都从喇叭里飞到了空中，盖满了笔山。然后，大量的购物清单飘向空中，接着是大量的彩票，火车、电车、公交车和音乐会门票。接着是每一封从未收到的信件、电报和电子邮件。
Edward’s garage then collapsed as millions of metal keys shot out of the horn and rained down — lost front door keys, car keys and locker keys. The overflow continued as sewing needles, cuff links, pencil sharpeners, razors and lost passports, followed by countless of pins.
爱德华的车库随后坍塌了，数百万把金属钥匙从喇叭里冒了出来，雨点般地落了下来——前门钥匙、车钥匙和储物柜钥匙都丢了。缝针、袖扣、卷笔刀、剃须刀和丢失的护照，以及数不清的大头针，这些东西不断涌出。
Can openers, bottle openers and corkscrews were followed by sink plugs and remote controls. As these flooded over the local community, they were covered by clothes pegs, the caps of toothpaste tubes and a flow of overdue library books.
开罐器、开瓶器和开瓶器之后是水槽塞和遥控器。由于这些水淹没了当地社区，它们被衣夹、牙膏管帽子和大量逾期未还的图书所覆盖。
“Stars?” he thought just before he died. Within a few seconds, around a hundred million colorful ballpoint pens shot out of the horn, bounced off the roof and filled up the garage, spearing poor Edward to death. As every lost ballpoint pen in the world poured out of the black hole, the pressure blew the top off the garage and the mountain of pens continued to grow.
“星星？”他临死前还在想。几秒钟之内，大约有一亿支彩色圆珠笔从号角中射出，从屋顶弹了出来，填满了车库，把可怜的爱德华刺死了。随着世界上每一支丢失的圆珠笔从黑洞中倾泻而出，压力把车库的顶部炸掉，笔山继续增长。
A veritable mountain of lost-receipts needed by the taxman was followed by every lost screw nut from a world of car engines, household appliances and technical instruments.
收税员需要的大量遗失的收据之后，紧接着是汽车发动机、家用电器和技术仪器的世界里遗失的每一个螺丝螺母。
Finally, just before the black hole generator disappeared in a puff of smoke, every lost love in the history of the world was expelled into the air and rained down in an overflow of desolation.
最后，就在黑洞发生器消失在一阵烟雾中之前，世界历史上所有失去的爱情都被驱逐到空气中，落入一片荒凉之中。
As the city sagged beneath the weight of all these lost things, millions of credit cards fluttered into the air and rained down. Edward would have been amazed, except that he was long dead.
随着这座城市在所有这些丢失的东西的重压下陷落，数百万张信用卡在空中飞舞，雨点般落下。如果不是他早就死了，爱德华会大吃一惊的。
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