To the Beginning of It All

This Weeks Prompt: 34. Moving away from earth more swiftly than light—past gradually unfolded—horrible revelation.

The Research: The Start of It All

12.At the center of it all, at the dawn of it all, a fire burns. A single many colored point of light that sears itself into the minds and eyes of the three who behold it: philosopher, priest, and poet alike. It lingers there, igniting new candles beyond the glass veiwing station.

1.It was a voyage unlike any other, crossing not just the encircled worlds of space but trespassing deep into Time’s domain. No longer would Chronos be some unconquerable titan or unpassable gateway. Rather now he would, like his mother Gaia and father Ouranos , be rendered a domain of humanity’s stolen thunderbolt.

11.As they flew back, the three candles saw worlds come into existences from the coalescing smoke whirling out of that first primordial flame. They saw as strange lights flickered brilliantly out of the darkness, pale in the presence of their eyes now burning inside out with a blaze. They could feel, as the ship pulled itself lurching back in time, a sensation spreading out of their eyes.

2.The passengers on this most auspicious voyage were carefully chosen. Not just scientists went aboard, although they were many. No, for this most deep dive into the origin of it all, all had a say. Thousands went aboard the great ark, to be conveyed homeward and see the on edge of all that was. Priests came to see God’s face. Poets came to hear the song that came from the stars. Farmers came to see that origin of life, that thing which gave them work and began the greatest of all gardens. Craftsmen came to see themselves reflected in the unfurling of all.

10.As they flew back farther still, the fire spread within them. Most of them thought that their inside, their memories and their intuitions, their instincts and emotions would burn last. That the flame would strip first inhibitions and rules, that the inner id was an inflammable substance. They were grievously wrong. The fire was kin to those deep things, and caught them first. Flickering it stripped things bare. All those deep things sank into it as if it were a great vat of quicksand or a pit to the depths of the sea. And so it was as the planets cooled and the first stars died.

3.It was strange passing past earth and seeing the rise and fall of progressively smaller empires from miles away. Ripples seemed to cascade in waves over the world, astonishing everyone who watched. Jungles and forests spread, and then glaciers spread over them, and back and forth the eternal clock swung. As they passed farther out, they saw multitudes of other worlds coming into view.. Worlds that lacked the familiar buzz of comm chatter and radio signals. Worlds that they knew had been full of life when they began the journey.

9.The poet did as poets do when they find something new. He composed verses and rhymes and meters and couplets and similes and metaphors, relearning his trade first with the pastoral. And so, the fire spilled from his mouth and whole worlds were settled with things like shepherds as planets are like hills, and naiad inhabited rivers rolled out among the stars. Life began and ended as winters came and went with the poets unwavering diction. HE spoke not a word of language any would understand, but the language that all the world obeyed. For he had seen the fire.

4.The engines whirled as the passengers went on and on. As they grew farther past, those with telescopes saw the belt of broken stones assemble itself into a whole of fire and soot. The children delighted themselves with the fire works of supernovas in the distance. They played with toys that now stood like giants over distant shapes. A few clamored to see the lone planets, lost hunks of ice roaring about the solar systems as this ship now did.

8.The priest did what all priests do when they behold revelation. She preached. She told the world of God and heaven, of profound unities and theorems, of mystic bonds that transcended apparent flesh and matter. And so between still shapeless smoke, flickers became clearer. The shepherds of mountains felt communion with one another. And fire, across all worlds, fire spread and delighted. The suns came into being more crisply, to imitate that first holiest of lights. And at her bidding did the first of those hilly worlds whirl down tumbling into the center of those stars, a sacrifice to the great powers that filled her. And she and the poet with words quarreled on things, and on the shape of things they had seen.

5.As the passed the edge of the cosmos, the passengers saw more of those many formed galaxies than all but the stargazers had seen. A brilliant web spread across the sky as they drew closer and closer together. It transfixed and tired many to behold such a vast shimmering form, a tapestry woven out of the cosmos.

7.The philosopher first did what their kind always does when they behold new truth. Doubt. Question. Deny. It burned at the edges of the philosopher’s eyes, until at last it escaped. It sculpted around itself those unsightly laws. It molded worlds of it’s own accord, full of hypothetical creatures. Things built of solids, hive minds, dreamers without eyes who never knew their delusions from all that was. Gaseous forms that fed on stars, strange minds with axioms alien to any of the ancients or moderns. P-brane zombies, ideological impossibilities.

6.And so the two ships passed on silver streaks, most onboard the one sleeping as they passed into that realm that kept the priest, philosophic, and poet awake as they beheld the new wonders sweeping past.

 

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That ends this tale. Here I tried something new with time as well as space. I hope the experimentation wasn’t too confusing. There isn’t much character here, and like many stories, I wish I had more time. But ah well. What did you conjure or concoct?

I’d also be remiss not to admit that this was the song that inspired most of this to a degree:

Next week, we step outside the cosmos. And see with new eyes.

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