EPTThat's the simplest way to describe something that had eaten at the core of my being for what seemed to be an eternity, but was in reality only a fraction of a moment. As the sun began to set behind the rolling hills, and the valleys faded from view, and the trees eschewed my sight in the darkness; my vision of her became only brighter; as if with the absence of imperfect light it was easier to view her perfection.
"I had to make you care" she whispered with the slightest breath, and passed into death.
I caught words in my mind, and tried to hold on to them, tried to project them and express them. They failed me. Or perhaps I failed them. Or did I fail her? In a strange, detached stupor of thought, my self-realisation was lost and became simply a notion floating amongst a state that was my perception. I groped blindly through millennia for the answer. My powers, though prodigious at the time, were limited; even if by then the limit was a speed many times that of light. And an earthly confusion set into my querying spirit. The cold wind snapped at me, like the merciless bird snaps at the defenceless worm. I felt it, coarse and rude, across my face; like never before. My connection to the Universe was dying. I knew of no way to restore it. I lost my conception of self. I fell to the ground and grasped as she began to transform into glowing light. Tears flowed freely, though by this time I didn't know why.
I appeared several earth centuries later in another galaxy...but I did not know this. To me, I had woken as if from a terrible, terrible dream. The agony was so great and fresh in my mind. But I couldn't think of it, not for even a millisecond, lest I be consumed for all existence. For the first time since her passing I uttered the phrase that should begin it all.
'Let there be light'
Nothing happened. I was distressed. I floated through space, yet was not sure in which direction or for how long. I found the nearest star and settled neatly into its centre. I traversed the 16 trillion trillion miles in an instantaneous flash. The light wasn't enough though. I needed more light, and heat. I was positively frozen. I stumbled from the red giant, hardly able to concentrate on my interstellar course. I headed from this galaxy, 10 million light years away, barely focusing. I drank the wine of a supernova, but it was not enough. I pulled together entire galaxies, smashing them upon each other, murdering trillions upon trillions of inhabitants in an instant; to drain their heat and light and energy...and for barely a ripple on the lake. In the space of a day I consumed half of the Universe, untold legions of civilisations. And I still had not enough energy to utter any more words. I had, however, scraped together a semblance of my mind's eye. I could examine the snaking passage of time once more. I could thread the dimensions like before. I passed some light from one end of the Universe to the other, as a test.
However, as I was connecting to the hub of the Multiverse, and preparing the great journey, great even for a being of my unfathomable capability, I was tripped up by a mere flight of conception that happened to cross her countenance. My grief instantly shook me. For a indeterminably small amount of time I remembered, and this memory ruptured the fabric of my existence. The shockwaves pulverised Universes. Billions of beautiful Universes were shattered by my puerile mourning, like a child smashing a stained-glass window in malice, for want of his favourite toy. She was indeed my favourite toy, she was the only one. Although being a creator like me, she was of course far more than a toy. I began to imagine the importance of her final gesture, as the cascade destruction of the Multiverse played in the background. Why did she divert the entirety of her powers into capturing me? Holding me hostage in my own will. Manipulating the barriers of my capacity into becoming the bars of my prison cell. She gave me a human life, but what for? What reason did she have, for forcing me to exist among mortal life, as a member of an unbearably primitive species?
I spent years searching for meaningless objectives to distract the core of my spirit from rebelling in disgust at my outer shell. Unconsciously, I lamented my trial by fire through prosaic realms of understanding. I passed excruciatingly slowly into a degree of comprehension, which took even a decade to teach. I was believing the words of other humans, my 'parents', and listening to the mewling of 'teachers'. I was studying, and working. The sweat on my brow and dirt on my hands. Food, sleep. Intimacy. Horrific, needless pain and desire. A deep unsettlement from which my only defence was avoidance through escapism.
In a slice of a picosecond I had collected these memories, and deep resentments, and queries, and in this passage of time the Multiverse was all but destroyed. I callously indulged more reflection, fully knowing that it would mean the ending of everything forever, and even the other creators could not sway my countenance, and their combined power yet could not prevent the unscaled destruction, because none of us had ever prepared for such a task; and we had never begun to believe one of us would have such malign inclination.
But what was this? Some degree of satisfaction I glimpsed. Like the sight of the sun in my once human eyes, it burned gloriously, and dare I say painfully. Emotions swelled. I couldn't explain it with all my mental resources. This must be some sort of fault I picked up during my captivity and couldn't shake in my reascension to greatness. But it gnawed at me, far stronger than the trillions of Universes exploding around me. A memory of attachment, no, that was not it. Attachment to a woman, a very human attachment...But wait, another recollection. Her, it was her! Of course!
The realisation hit me like nothing before. The final piece of realisation that had eluded me for so long! The realisation that I had instantly blocked and scrambled, and prevented since its inception...that she had gone to the effort of imprisoning me, and yet it was not enough for her. She was not content to be my captor, she became my cell-mate. For even as we do not require any sort of contact to be perfectly at peace and exist purely for our reason of creation, she was at the time less perfect than I, and her pursuit of creation was less efficient. A fluctuation of her objective had caused her to question the ramifications of our endless work. Displaying a weakness I had long ago discarded, she had clearly set into motion a chain of events that ultimately ended in my capture. It was brilliant, and far beyond her capacity.
However, even though she was successful, she had overstepped the mark. The tens of years she spent in love with me as a fellow human had drained her immensely. Late in our lives as humans, I had taken her into my arms as we walked across the beauteous countryside of our home; and began to talk mindlessly to her about all the great things we had accomplished: having our children and sending them to be educated, building and owning our house with money we cobbled together from a life of hard work, each of us finding someone with whom we were so in tune it felt like we were two sides of the same coin.
She had smiled, and closed her eyes. For hours I stayed attentive to her, knowing she was passing, both of us unwilling to see the inevitable happen in a cold hospital ward, when we both knew the country was where we ought to leave our lives; hoping for her to reply, selfishly but also selflessly, for I was certain there was something she needed to say.
Eventually, as I fell into silence and drifted in and out of a melancholy concentration, she opened her eyes again. Like bright, unwavering beacons they directed my drifting like the North Star directs the lost ship. She brought forth the gargantuan revelation in a heartbeat, and started it all with a wry, satisfied smile,
"We have done much more than that, dear Adam, we have done much more. We are the reason for it all, and our children are the stars. We have sent all creation to be educated, and toiled to build time itself. We are not of this world, we are of every world."
The words were immediately true, I had known it. For she was only able to concentrate on these truths by giving up her absolute control on my spirit, and the message was echoed across the walls of my existence as a piercing cry shatters the silence of a cavernous hall. I stuttered in disbelief, in rage and outrage. My lips pursed and shook, as my human limitations were confronted by my far greater existential knowledge. On the verge of violent outburst, my limitations were broken and transcended. Instantly, serenity and understanding quashed the base feelings. However I still maintained a querulous notion, of the reason for this grand and ultimately (to her) fatal charade. But before I could express it, she sighed, and summoned up the strength for one final sentence, before she passed.
And I suddenly cared, deeply. I instantly found my spirit soaring. I visualised my voyages on the high seas and climbing to the peaks of mountains. I instantly found it within my mental powers to collect all memories of all experiences within the entire multiverse, effortlessly rooting through the energy created by the fallout of my inadvertent destruction of almost all existence. By now, even my great perfection was moved by this combination of memories, in a computation that would defy even an infinitely powerful supercomputer. And then, again instantly, came the ability to stop the destruction. In a turn of thought, I stabilised the Multiverse. An intense passion, stronger than the heat of creation, welled within me. I suddenly knew what I had to do. It would take more than I could give safely, and would certainly result in my destruction. But I was resolved to complete it, I knew the only way to restore everything I had done would be to sacrifice myself, my last act to be guiding the energy released to recreating all that had occurred. It would be such a great disappointment to my purpose, but I had to correct her faults, as the last glimmer of my ancient humanity forced my celestial hand.
I gathered my energy and thoughts, and directed them in a monumental stream of consciousness, to reassemble every single atom, and every single direction of subatomic movement, that had been present and active at the time of my great, catastrophic reawakening. I could feel my grip of life slipping, and death was overtaking me. I reflected on my existence, and was greatly disheartened that my original objective, that of infinite creation, would not be fulfilled. But simultaneously my dying mind was filled with a vast wave of gratitude, to her, for giving me something truly worthwhile to die for; even if it was her who was responsible in the first place. In a life where linear time was a voluntary constraint, and causality an option, I could not possibly blame her imperfection. And I rode this sublime wave of gratitude onto the shore of death.
But the immediate moment after I had experienced what all logic and reason had told me to believe was the end, I heard upon the shore a walking, felt upon my shoulder a hand, and looked up to see a most wondrous sight, bathed in celestial light.
"Hello, Adam, I'm glad you're finally here"
And it was then that I realised she was perfection embodied, and had always been far greater than I, and had long ago bypassed my self-deluded limitations and pre-conceptions, no matter how brilliant they indeed were; and we had been living our lives in different modes of existence.
I stood up, and held her hand. And we walked along the shore of death together, and for this experience I was aware my entire existence had been a feeble preparation, when compared to the majesty of this moment.
THE END
