What do you do with thirty minutes?

It's settled.  In 30 minutes we're going to watch Unknown.  So what to do with thirty minutes?  Not a thing on TV I'm interested in.  How about start my 31st novel (I don't actually know how many I've started... I know I haven't finished a one...)
________
I must have nodded off, but the majestic voice at the front of the room jarred me from my nap.  Where was I?  It was obviously a university class room, like the ones I had in college.

The room was packed--I venture to say not a single seat was empty.  The crowd was full of people from all sorts of places.  I swear half of them looked familiar, like I had seen them somewhere before.  I would have looked more but the voice from the front was so captivating my attention immediately fastened on it.

"Everything is quite out of sorts," he said.  "I could fix it of course but this is my day off.  You all think you're rather smart.  At least that's what you've all been telling people.  Let's see how well you do with it."

I couldn't quite see the figure speaking.  I for one didn't remember ever telling anyone I was quite that smart.  Well, maybe I told my younger sister that once to trick her into getting in trouble.

"There's plenty of stuff lying around the building to get everything up and running again.  So, good luck.  I'll check back tomorrow to see how you've done with it."

And with that I assume he'd gone.  At least it wasn't as bright at the front of the room as before.  I looked around to see what the crowd would do.  Most were looking around a little bewildered like I was.

But soon a bald headed man in a skirt--or was it a toga--jumped up on the stage.  "Now look," he started in.  "Before we can get going on this thing we're going to have to plan it all out in our heads.  Only then can we begin to put the visible cosmos back together.  I'm going to go contemplate it out.  Just wait here until I have everything ready in my head."

Then he disappeared off the stage to the left, and the room resumed chattering as if he hadn't said anything.  But hardly a second passed before another man, also in a toga, jumped on stage.  "Right, just ignore him.  I for one am going to take a look around the building and see what I have to work with."

There were a number of nods, a cadre of assenting tones, and a little more than half the room got out of their seats.  The others seemed rather deep in thought.  I still was quite uncertain exactly where I was or what was going on, but I followed the people near me out a side door and into a hallway.

Countless other hallways seemed to branch off from the hallway I was in, and they in turn seemed to branch off into countless other hallways.  I tried to remember how I'd come to where I was, so I might get back.  But to be honest, I'm not sure where I had been in the first place.

I chanced upon several arguing over something or another in one of the hallways.  "There must be a switch somewhere," she said.  "We cannot even begin to do anything unless there is something instead of nothing."

"But there already is something," someone responded.  "He told us there were lots of things already here in these halls.  We're not completely starting over.  It's just all discombobulated and needs put back together."

"So we have something from nothing," she said, as if moving down a checklist.  "And I suspect that zero was the first thing he created."

"Yes, yes," another impatiently said.

"Then he probably made 1."

"Very important."

"And from that you have all the integers," she continued.

It was a very interesting discussion, but I continued on my way.  I came upon another group very busily putting together a series of lines going in three different directions...
_________
Ok... movie time...