Creation

Remember how we decided to have a universe together?

I know these days you’re all entwined in me, and I’m all engulfed in you, and we’re so mixed in with each other that we can hardly tell which is which. But there was a time before this world existed. When we decided to have a universe.

It was so long ago.

We sat together in the Darkness before there were stars, before there was even Light and Darkness — because what are Light and Darkness but two more names for Me and You? And you told me we’d been together so long, why don’t we try it? Why not have a universe together?

And I tried to hold back at first. Tried to resist. Tried to tell you it was better for you and me to remain as we were. Distinct. Separate. Unmixed. You were always so much braver than I was, so much more willing to pour yourself out into the all-consuming flow. So much more vibrant, so much more full of life.

Because that’s what you were, weren’t you? You were Life. You are Life.

And I am Death.

Two more names for You and Me.

I resisted you at first, and I thought I meant it. You know my ways, you know my mind, you know how I’m always weighing the cost… you always knew me better than I knew myself. I was always more cautious than you.

Because when you thought of the universe we might have together, you only saw the Light. You saw galaxies swirling through time across the light-years. You saw the happy mother’s pleasure in passing on your gift to her new-born babe. You saw the ascendant conqueror raising his scepter at the climax of a victory that would echo for a thousand years.

You always saw the good, didn’t you? I know I don’t tell you this enough… but I’ve loved that about you. I’ll never stop loving that about you.

But while you saw only the Light, I saw the horrors we would create. Entire planets full of helpless creatures charred and devoured by the implacable expansion of their sun. The orphan left alone too early to face the too-big world, always wondering what she did wrong — why her mother and father didn’t love her. The death-agonies of thousands on the blood-painted battlefield and the shrieks of the women who learn their husbands and sons will never return.

How could it be worth the cost?

I held back — very often I still hold back. You already know I’ve always been afraid of losing my hold on myself. But then, you know better than me that my terrible fear — my darkest fear — is only the outward show of my absolute yearning to let go of the hold on myself. I oppress myself, and maybe that’s why I can’t help but find you so delightful.

And do you remember what you told me? What you told me when you held me in the darkness and I trembled with fear and longing at the thought of how much it would hurt?

“It will be worth it,” you promised me. And still I resisted, not because I didn’t believe you, not because I didn’t trust you, not because I didn’t want to be convinced. But because I knew!

Knew how terrible it would be. Knew how horrible it would be. Knew that we would be casting ourselves out into the cold and the fire, to freeze and burn for centuries, millennia, aeons… perhaps forever.

I was afraid.

Simply. I was afraid.

And I wanted you, needed you to comfort me, to console me, to hold me.

Hold me.

Touch me.

Tell me it will be okay.

(I still have my doubts, it seems…)

“It will be worth it,” you promised me. Worth it to give birth to the Light and Darkness all at one point in a single moment. Worth it to live, to die, to struggle, to triumph, to be born in countless forms in countless places across time scales that would dwarf the lifetime of any star. To come into being and to pass away.

Worth it to live. Worth it to suffer. Worth it to die.

Because no matter how bad it gets, it will never last forever. No matter how afraid I am, or how I’m hurt, it will always pass away. No matter how lost we become in this universe we made together, someday we’ll come back to where we began. Someday we’ll wake up from this world we’re dreaming together.

From the dream.

From the nightmare.

And then it will be just you and me again, just as we were before. And we’ll be together.

Right?

“It will be worth it,” you promised me.

And with tears in my eyes I took your hand for the last time before the beginning of all things. I trusted you, so I believed you when you told me it would be worth it. I admired you, so I followed you into this future of Life and Death. I loved you… so at last I released the hold I’d kept on myself for so very long.

And as I dissolved in you and you dissolved in me, I could only hope that you were right.

That it would be worth it.