01 Breath

A babe is born. Lights, breath and cold. No knowledge of what goes on. Burbles of sound, air a breath. Noises, voices, one familiar. It was a smell, comfort, a warmth. No memories, he sleeps. Pulse slows, but it doesn't stop. It can't, please, don't.

The world shakes with a red dim light. Warm pulsing. He falls. Skin scraping, gritting, drying. He rose through the abrasive grains, eyes open, eyes raw. His mouth filled by, gums and tongue coated with sand.

Dark firmament and a red earth blur around. Turning dizzy, pushing up. Skin bare, head burning, sand sticking. Stomach grips. Throat stings. A bitter bile, sand still lingers, but dust is gone.

Eyes fall to hands. Pink, raw and flaking. Fingers grasp, and sand buried itself under short nails. Stinging. The first pains, but the first feeling. Alone.

There were others, but they are gone. He'd been a gift, one waited for. He was supposed to be there, with them. He was supposed to make a life his own. Now, nothing.

There was an ache, a tight burning in his chest. It was fear, desperation, longing. Lungs burned, pressure built, eyes hot, water stinging. Lungs burst, his throat tearing, a wail.

The first wail and the only one this man had sounded. Hot sticky air blew. A breath, his first breath. It stung his skin, it stung his lips. A breath, it dried his mouth, filled his chest. Another bellow, another meaningless scream. Again a breath.

His eyes closed. There again that dim light, warm pulsing. It was just outside of himself. Would that they stayed, would that he could be there. At times he imagined his family singing to him. Other moments he could hear them. He knew the sounds, he knew all the words and hopes behind them.

* * *

Wails carried along the winds,

Proffered pleas to the sky,

Now, a mutter.

A whisper,

Muted,

Gone.

The planes of red and black settled. Lost, he wandered. There had been light, there had been comfort and there had been hope. Still, he would exist.

Why had he continued? Was it some selfish wish? Was it one of those countless prayers? Why would he be whatever he was, without anything, without purpose?

He looked for other things to occupy his time. Something to give reason. Idle hands shaped the sand. A rough image of himself emerged. It started as a stick figure, but there was time to learn. Soon it was a sandy, dusty image of him.

Eyes watched the still sand. Memories tried to stir, to recall the place he'd been before. He tried to draw the lights. They could not be drawn, but he tried.

He drew specks in the sand. Failure. Alone. His foot kicked, dust spilled, floated in the air and hands tried to form it there. This worked better. A single mote flashed. It drew closer. His fingers went out as if he could touch it, but it drifted away. There had been warmth. His eyes closed, he reached and grabbed.

The light was warm and hummed. He pulled the light, stretching it with his other hand. At first, it lengthened, thinned, but there were limits. With a burst, it divided. He repeated again and again. He did so until there were as many of the things as there was dust.

He then painted the air and sand with the light. The colors mixed forcing solids and gas together, they gathered and rippled. Hands dipped into the vibrant slurry. It was a void, it was lights, it was suspensions of sand and small particles of dust. Then he stepped into it, into the ether he had created. Here he could breathe and see. It was how he first lived, he knew. He spread the light. They reflected off of each other colliding, spinning, splitting.

* * *

The boy played. There was a lightness and warmth as he watched show of lights. Some burned and were snuffed out, whilst others were kindled by the collisions of gasses. Hand flung through it all, raucously dancing, stomping and laughing. He pulled particles of dust from the ether into the burning lights. Dust vanished and the burning lights changed and grew. Some stars he drew apart till they were wisps. The wisps hummed as smaller lights and grains flew about within them.

He looked and stood upon each grain, each surface, each was a world its own. From them, he could see the lights, his paintings. They were splendorous and distant. But their songs could not be heard from the worlds.

To each he traveled, and each was empty. For some, there were waters, others ice, and some gas. Then there were those he brushed away,

Finally, like the dust in the sky, he shaped and changed it all. Mind imagining different pallets of color, patterns, and depths. When he had finished, he gathered up his work, embracing it, crushing it all together. At first, it resisted, but then it all started collapsing on its own. It grew brighter and the void around him darker.

It drew into to a single point. In it, he saw everything. He saw the world he was meant to live within. He saw the worlds he would create. In it, there was purpose, a meaning, and in it, he saw nothing. He knew this would be his life, he knew what he could do.

The point, that single entangled ball of everything shook, it erupted into spectrums of color, clouds of gas, chorusing stars, and all-consuming pits. Universes, realities formed overlaying each upon the other but never touching.

Like the world he had been part of, there was supposed to be life. There were supposed to be those like him. Feet touched on a world, a plane where liquids and solids striped the planet. Here he spread lights along the waters. The lights mixed the waters and the earth joining them together. Hands took lumps and shaped them.

Each form was a perfect copy. Each from the same light he was made of. Eyes closed and he saw every perspective. From each copy, he saw an infinity of himself. Each vista was a reality. Each reality recursively created an infinite number of realities. With each moment the recursion looped, with each moment worlds fractured within frames of sight. Too many times existence stretched and slowed.

Slowing, stopping, mind splitting, breaking, he blinked. In a moment he spun the worlds into the stars and pits. Skin dried, withered and burned. Blood to steam and bones to ash. Only he remained. Only a single occurrence. Seeking answers once more he crushed the universe. It collapsing it to a single point once again.

He looked into the singularity again and saw his error. Each life was to be different. He could not be everything, he could not control it all.

A child's hands held the universe. He collapsed it further. As he did, it grew smaller. With its reduction, he knew it grew in complexity and depth. At its smallest point entropy formed, and it burst again. He restricted his control, ceding half to entropy, and allowed the universe to spin into existence.

From memories, dreams are born.

From worlds, dreams are formed.

Lives are lived,

Hopes seeded,

Lies are told,

Truths hidden.

The recursion loops.

It inverts,

From dreams, worlds are formed.

From dreams, memories are born.