I have an early memory, even though they say that our earliest memories are suspect. In the beginning there was, I suppose, a dark and a void. I remember one, in the same way that you might remember a dream the evening after you had it. And it was dark. Dark in the way that a coal cellar is dark, at midnight, in the middle of the coldest winter you remember, and with your eyes closed.
Here there was a void, too. It was big, but I have no idea how big. Bigger than I was. It was black of course, but it had something…textural. There was grain, direction, distance. Movement. Barely discernable of course, but if you were patient enough, you'd notice it too.
And I was patient.
There was hesitancy, even in the unknowable time stream. I had no concept of time, no way to count or measure it; there was nothing to either count or measure, but I slowly felt the need to somehow change things. I felt (thought?) that I could move relative to the whatever that surrounded me and made me up. I watched and waited, so long observing the stuff that comprised everything, slowly understanding the gentle swirls of chaos before reaching out to it, peering closely into it, gathering and willing it. Eventually I understood it enough.
Everything changed. I brought threads together, tiny strings of willpowered chaos, flattening them from their horrible complexity into what was becoming order. Finally I could watch their vibrations, guide their flutterings into sanity. I grew them, numbered and organised them, wove them. They grew and blended, merged and split and as they did so, organised themselves. Fascinated, I touched them, these tiny things, poked at them to see what they would do, helped them fulfill what they needed, encouraged them to become clearer. I watched the order spread, building new shapes, conglomerating and generating new structure and then in turn, those structures influenced others. It grew. From this infinitesimal, it grew.
You would not believe how long it took, watching, waiting, living every moment with expectation and even delight. As I watched, it accelerated. I realised a concept of time within this tiny ball of boilingness. Under its own power now it was changing, struggling to realise its destiny, to escape the bonds that held it captive. Finally, I reached out and squeezed. It popped, it burst, it stretched and pushed and bubbled. It effervesced and within I could see the seeds of possibility as it created more and more new delightful things. The original threads, those fundamental strings collapsed into tiny spirals and vanished as the new particles pressed and pushed. As I looked closely between this new weave I could still see them wriggling and driving the new, and as I did so it all changed. Blowing outward, a new energy forced them to move, to change. Growing, it formed new structure and patterns, unfolding into the void as though it were pushing it away. And there was light.
Of course I still saw, experienced everything. The swirling clouds, the gathering and grouping and mechanism evolving. Bound together and yet pushing apart, this universe grew and spread, in some places bonding together with more matter, in others bubbles pushing stuff away. It grew tenuous and it grew denser, which might be hard for you to imagine given you live inside the membrane and cannot see the whole. Matter gathered and bonded, the forces of the new universe sorting themselves out and in a moment forming a grandeur that astonished even me.
Under the circumstances I couldn't help but reach inside as this was happening. I stirred and I prodded and I poked. Some things I strung together, some I pushed aside. I was happy as I watched and played, seeing matter organise itself. I could neither look away nor resist the temptation to create patterns, teasing and tweaking and pushing until it organised itself and learned to grow. It changed. This one teeny spot changed and the rest of that creation followed its lead. Then I left it alone, watched as it spread over one tiny sphere. Waters fell and rose, fell and rose, and the life ebbed and flowed with it. Finally it gathered itself together, and through much effort you stood on your own two feet. I showed you the earth and all that was in it, told you to be fruitful, to multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. It seems you were highly successful in that. It's just a shame that you went too fast and too hard. You had such promise and you've spoiled it all. Back to the drawing board. I wonder what will happen if the next time I stretch instead of squeeze.
Or I could just leave it alone. Don't jinx it.