Vignette: In the Beginning

Somewhere far beyond the thin, boat-like silence of strata and cumuli, past the unhurried mighty wheeling of planets and their moons, and far flung across the eternal dance of the passion-stars, a Universe was formed.

"Come, let us birth a Universe," said One. "Let us make her as dazzling as the first sun, and her laughter ripple into the folds of other galaxies."

"Let us place twin white moons in her eyes so they may see far beyond herself," said Another, "and a voice of clear, sweet ether to sing her planets."

"She shall have nebulae in her hair," Another tinkled. "We shall give her a belt of sleeping comets, and the song of the stars to keep her happy."

The Fourth thundered, "Her cores shall boil as the first seas of hydrogen once did, and her crusts shall teem with poison to those who would wish her harm. She shall have no master."

The Fifth added, "Ah, but I shall give her eons where she may glean wisdom. Let her form her planets and their orbits and their moons and stand amazed, but she too will soon see them for the pretty playthings they are. From there she shall learn."

The Sixth, the youngest and the smallest of them, spoke. The voice was bright and lucid as a pinprick star on a cold, desolate night. "Oh, but we must teach her to love."

"Love?" The Fourth rumbled. "I have given her flesh and blood from my own side to make her strong. Love shall only make her weak."

The Third's laughter tinkled across the Universe's belt. "Sibling, Beauty has no need, no desire for Love. It only needs to desire Itself."

The Second's voice broke, and a decade of stars died. "But she has the sweetest voice, and the brightest eyes. If she loves and should her love be not returned, she shall weep craters into her face, and her planets shall die from first song-breath. She shall have her spheres and her moons, and stars to court her happiness; what need shall she have of Love?"

"Young Sibling." The First's voice echoed across time, across eternity, and sent yonder galaxies shuddering. "Do you truly wish to break my daughter's young heart?"

"No Sibling, I do not," cried the Sixth. "It is true your gifts are indeed great, fearsome, and forever beautiful. And it is true what you say Love will wrought for her. But, shall we not teach her to seek something greater than herself, and by then become that greatness herself? Is that not what Love does as well?"

The cosmos was silent. A galaxy came, and a galaxy went.

The First released a deep, resounding sigh, and a black hole, completely full of its own emptiness, shuddered.
“Yes.”

The Fifth crackled. "The Youngest is right. We have fine gifts indeed, but they shall be the most useless should this Universe not be given Love."

The First thus spoke. "Very well. So as it is said, so shall it be."

And in the simplest, most vulnerable pebble deep within the womb of this Universe, the first paramecia drew breath. It scrambled ashore on the hot wet pebbles, strange and new, and soon stood blinking at the setting sun on its biped legs.