Becoming a White Dwarf

In its youth, the human body is a magnificent, radiant star, constantly exploding with enough internal energy to ignore the law of gravity entirely.

It leaps, it bounds, it sits on the floor without a second thought. But eventually, the nuclear fuel runs out. Without that internal pressure of youthful optimism, the body undergoes a rapid gravitational collapse, packing all of its available mass into a dense, unyielding core situated roughly around the lower pelvis.

You become a biological White Dwarf. You haven't actually gained weight, but you have become dense. Attempting to roll over in bed at 3 AM suddenly requires the kind of complex trajectory calculations and immense expenditure of energy usually reserved for pulling a damaged star ship out of the orbit of a black hole, usually accompanied by a low, planetary groan.

Furthermore, a young star relies on heat, or thermal pressure. If it gets cold, it changes size. A degenerate star  is locked in place by quantum states; it cools down completely but its size never changes because quantum rules dictate its structure. Much like our inability to leap around with the agility of youth. We are locked into a state where carrying a heavy shopping bag leaves our shoulder aching for several mugs of tea and a biscuit afterwards. 

Eventually, you reach the point where the universe itself seems to be conspiring against your memory. This is the Event Horizon of the Hallway. You will stand in the middle of a room, possessing the physical density of a small planet but the cognitive processing power of a toasted teacake, wondering why you are there. The reason has been sucked into a localised singularity, leaving you with nothing but a vague sense that it probably involved a pair of scissors or a very specific type of cheese.

Then comes the transition to the Black Hole stage. This isn't a literal collapse into infinite density, though your knees might suggest otherwise. It is the phase where your sofa develops its own irresistible gravitational pull. Once you have crossed the threshold of the cushions, escape becomes a mathematical impossibility. Light can escape a black hole, theoretically, but a sixty one-year-old man who has just found the remote and a comfortable angle for his neck is going nowhere until the next galactic epoch, or at least until the kettle whistles.