The Lightbringer

They ask me how I've made the world, but sometimes I don't know quite what to say. Why do we blow? The winds will say, and they blow further in anticipation. Why do we fly? The birds ask, gliding on wings made lighter than air. And they all have questions, they all have questions, but even I will get no answers.

But I cannot break their hearts, because once a heart is broken, it can never be unbroken, so I will tell them the story as it was told to me.

I take the breeze through my fingers and let the birds perch on my arms, I gather the rivers and their ‘why do we runs’, the seven seas and their ‘why do we waves’, and the mountains with their ‘why do we rises’.

I gather the world in front of me and watch them in their beauty. The oceans settle to my left, calm and mellow as the midnight sea. The wind watches from above, their strength greater than the clouds. The trees root themselves in the back, and they watch me with their wise eyes; we understand that the world will give us no answers, but they will stay to listen anyway.

I sit in a lowly rocking chair, and when they ask their questions—why do we fly and why do we blow and why do we run—I find that the story is tucked beneath the chair like it knew I was coming. The cover is stained and worn and familiar and in a moment of melancholy, I flip through the pages, trying to remember what it was like to believe the stories it told.

The world is murmuring amongst themselves, grass sits near me, arguing with flowers, their colors vivid and bright as the stars above.

I catch the world's attention and beg their silence.

The birds cease their conversations, the butterflies their flapping wings. I open the cover, and there is a sort of magic in the air, the magic of the unknown, of words not yet spoken.

“Before the universe awoke there were no birds to fly her skies, no flowers to grace her fields. Everything was so very dark and the universe itself felt, for the very first time, a deep loneliness that can only be cured by company.

She searched high and low, beginning to end, but there was nothing to find, and so, broken with loneliness, she began to dim her light until all hope was lost.

The universe cried and cried, and soon enough, those tears gathered amongst themselves swift with currents and waves, they came together and formed the oceans.

She was delighted, finally, company. And so the oceans and the universe made the rivers run as far as they would go, they carved canyons from the nothing of Chaos and felt the bends and winds of flowing water.

The universe had never felt anything like it. She could feel the flowing of the river and the currents as they moved in the deep ocean. She was the currents and the ocean and the waves and the river, running and running and running.

But when the universe looked beyond the oceans, the vast world was painful, so empty, so untouched. She paced the edges of the world, trying to fill the empty space. She snapped her fingers and waited. But the space was endless, and try as she might, the universe couldn't summon even tears.

She sat at the edge of the world and gazed at the empty space in frustration; she tapped an anxious knee, she closed her eyes and begged, but there was nothing to find.

The universe looked at the emptiness and closed her eyes, clenching her fists until her fingers popped.

She didn't open her eyes for a long time, unable to bear the emptiness that would stare back at her if she did.

She watched the colors travel behind her eyes, she said her greeting to blue and purple, and waved at pink in the other eye.

The colors appeared one by one and the universe talked with them, speaking of oceans and canyons and rivers running across the world.

When she made it to the last of them, she was surprised to find that the colors in front of her were ones she had never seen before.

She snapped her eyes open, and there in front of her a curl of red and orange and yellow hovered warily before her. The universe reached a hand to the colors, but she was surprised to find as she moved closer that the warm sensation was growing unbearable.

She gazed back to the empty in front of her, then back to the lightmaker.

The universe closed her eyes in concentration and cracked her knuckles again. She felt a roaring wave of relief when she found in front of her the brightest most beautiful creatures lighting the darkness.

The universe rejoiced and the fire celebrated with her. She watched it for a long time, the flickering flames and changing colors.

When she asked them to light her world, they took to the skies, filling the emptiness with new light.

The universe looked at her world. It stood so still in front of her and she couldn't help but notice the silence, deafening and unbearable.

She rose a hand upward, and the world came easily this time. Birds flew through empty air and filled the silence with their chatter, wings so free, flying higher and higher so that all could hear them.

A flower sitting at my feet speaks with a young voice.

“Ma’am does this story have pictures? Because the pictures are my favorite part.”

I can't help but smile, and I ask the flower’s name, to which she replies with confidence.

“Aster.”

“Come sit with me Aster, we can look at the pictures together.”

She scampers from the floor and I lift her into my lap, holding the book so she can see them.

“Shall we let them see too?” I ask her as she looks with wonder at the vivid colors.

Aster nods enthusiastically and I turn the book to my world; it makes me smile when their eyes widen with the same wonder.

“Shall we continue, Ms. Aster?”

The young flower nods and leans her melted blue petals against me.

“The universe rejoiced in her world for a long time, but as each desire is fulfilled, you will always find that there is another one to take its place.

She trimmed grass fields of brilliant green, and graced them with color in each flower. She bent her knees and brought forth the mountains with their white caps, the forests with their stoic grace.

The universe loved her world like it flowed through her veins instead of blood and she thought that maybe it was okay if it burned the eyes, as long as the view was beautiful.

The world grew further and further, and the universe felt every step, every life, every forest stream. There was a tiredness, deep in her bones, that she was never able to lose and the world noticed. They begged her to rest, but the universe would not leave her creation alone. Only when the weariness threatened to crush her, did she rest with only one request, and with the last of her power, she built another in her own image, a guardian for the world while she slept.