The First Mechanism
Creation of the Void
At the beginning, there existed the All. It was the only and it was the every.
The All a fabric; a scaffold; frame, lattice, mesh, wires, fibers. The foundation; the entirety.
In this All, nothing was diminished.
A small flutter was at first unnoticed, but the vibrations continued and echoed and fed back on one another. The reverberations pulsed through the All; quickened and strengthened and intensified. The flutter absorbed itself, compounded, harmonized, and became more than a tremble.
And so, upon the strings of the All, as if a great woven instrument, began the first piece of the Song.
As it played, it resounded and simplified; evolved and spurred into existence further pieces more elegant than the last. With each beat, the tune refined its expression; moved nearer to a perfection. Yet near this pinnacle of elegance, the All strained. Its fibers woven tightly and its laws interacting in hitherto unknown ways.
Another shift to the Song and it reached the crescendo; its purity. But, within the All, awry was woven. This perfect Song played upon an imperfect instrument. The All quivered and shook and then quaked to a fevered pitch and wail at the force.
There, at the epicenter of the commotion, a small irregularity not yet corrected to precision was the weakness that spawned the Cataclysm. The power of the Song exceeded the capabilities of the All.
Heaving and failure birthed a rift - the slightest of tears - which severed the All and gaped in flaw. A regression of the whole inflicted by a shudder of the evolutionary advance.
A cord snapped. Tension on it from every direction and angle multiplied in one area, lessened in another - creating chaotic pressure gradients. This rupture quickly emanated, bubbled, and conflagrated.
The cacophony sent shock waves through the All that propagated and unraveled the All to the Ruin of the strings. And thus erupted and was born the Void.
The Second Mechanism
Arise and Organization of Elemental Bits
The Void rent the All asunder and its flaws resolved to islands of fabric set adrift. These pieces struggled to stabilize, but they sought perfection on a null structure.
So the weave and threads further unwound, devolved, disintegrated to constituent components. These Elemental Bits flung far and wide as the Cataclysm consumed and spent itself.
As the Bits - infinitely tiny and innumerable - scattered, the Song faded from perception. With the All broken, and the Song quiet, a great period of silence followed and accompanied the Void.
The Elemental Bits shot through the Void and traveled long and unimpeded. The Song remained within them; resonated, pulsated, agitated. They flew about and collided, as chance allowed, and one bit grew to two as they struck and stuck.
Time bore groups in which the resonating Song grew slightly, built heat, and initiated socialization. A frenzy. Energy increased exponentially; so intense it reached the critical point. Thus, the conglomerate erupted into a furnace - collapsed, bound, and inseparable.
As these flashpoints formed across the Void, stars were birthed and the Song became a hum once more. The light sources drew crowds of those masses not large enough to ignite on their own. Luminescence poured out to those fledgling spheres which drew near and orbited; the planets.
The pitch of the Song shifted and the satellites reacted. The Song’s measures expanded and contracted the planets; formed stretches, wrinkles, and rifts on the surfaces that gave each a unique aspect.
The Song pervaded from shell to core and the clumps did still grow warm. At their boundary, where the planets and Void met, the surface Bits formed a great steam. And so the planets gained their atmospheres.
Across all these celestial bodies did the Song resonate and grow louder yet; driving them to seek out one another and form a symphony of individual instruments. The stars and planets formed systems, galaxies, clusters - the Inanimate.
The Song endured and imparted its emotion upon the Elemental Bits, which coalesced stability amid the Void. And thus the Cataclysm wrought the Cosmos.
The Third Mechanism
Covering of the Inanimate
The Song changed again to match its growing orchestra and this adaptation moved the atmospheres to condense. The motion began the storms and rains and downpours which settled on the planets as oceans. A glaze which absorbed the measures of the Song and captured the energy of their stars. These forces combined, compounded, compressed and the Inanimate pulsed with the progression of the Song.
This refinement lead the planets to tremor. Started in their oceans ripples which blended, intermingled, intensified. Built to waves that overlapped, peaked and troughed, and broke upon the shores. Whitecaps spread as the oceans writhed and churned. Plumes of spray spat foam that caught in the wind, drifted across the creaking lands, and settled once the breeze failed. The sea foam joined and formed islands that drifted and wandered wide. The ripples and foams traveled together as embodiments of the Song, and soon covered entire planets.
The Song percolated through the atmospheres - with the starlight - and dripped into the sea foam. The froth shielded it; compacted it to its core; internalized it. This core buzzed and hummed with intensity until the spark was hit and spontaneity begot revitalizing energy.
At first, just a single instance of this - Life. Then it flared throughout these cauldrons as an uproar. A new chord formed in the Song and modified the undertones of the Cosmos.
The Song’s most fundamental trait imparted upon the foam. Progress. Forged through the Song and now aware of it. Progress now action, according to its own design. More than foam. The Animate.
These beings furnaces of the Song; crucibles of its change. These agents of propagation neither consequence nor reaction. The Song had always refined itself, yet the Animate surged and these empowered entities synthesized and effected variation as yet impossible. The tumult and its turmoil thrashed energies and melodies. Each piece played individually, yet accompanied others.
More foam accumulated as waves breached upon sands. And more sparked and lived. Some incorporated other Animate, and some these new harmonies, but all fluctuated and forged further graces of the Song.
And the Animate spawned new entities; slight extensions of their progress. Creatures built on the success of their forebears. The reproduction of progression in one area vastly different from that elsewhere.
Soon the planets were encased in the Animate, deluged in starlight, and the Song morphed as its instruments strummed and beat in novel fashion. Never settled, and soon quickened, the Song rang through the atmospheres and oceans as the Animate let loose its calls.
‘Twould be heard.
Just as the planets were engulfed by the Animate and shook with levity; resonance, harmonics, and reiteration overwhelmed the Song. Its substance heaved with transformation, and took on its next measure.
Eons and ages wheeled, elapsed, were. The emissaries threw forth their hails. Persistence and progress plied across generations by the Animate’s amendments. Splinters and fractures yielded branches of the unique. A guarantee of endless variation set into the bones of the Cosmos through the seething of the Song.
The Animate buried planets beneath its refinements and progeny. The specialized and industrious machinery of modification. Intertwined and socialized and breathing at the behest of those Bits loosed by the All.
Indeed, we today are fertile, familial manifestations of this malleability. Honed and adept to carry, embody, prevail. We, the current peak of the Song’s endurance, though not faultless. Soon to be surpassed and our flaws reduced. Never given chance to sit, stew, spoil. Rising to higher order. A perfect medium for a perfect Song.
That pristine music made with the remains of the Cataclysm turned instrumental. The universe trembling with the message it carries and persists; enacts and surely is.
The Fourth Mechanism
Preface
We have always taken the story of our origins to be truth. Hitherto, there has been no reason to question it. But our current understanding is flawed. It tells us little about what happens now, and nothing of what soon comes.
Her point of view is one we ignore, however crucial it is to our now-fevered plight. We must shed the fanciful and arrogant blindness we have always worn, and lay a hand to the ground to feel how we’ve harmed Her.
Unlike those before me, I describe Her outrage.
Reclamation
Eons back, the All shattered and its chunks formed the Inanimate. These bodies resonated with the Song, strove for elegance, and were bastions of order and governance. Yet their coalescence drained them of energy and left them weary.
The Void, which spawned the Cataclysm, was not spent. That decimator of organization leeched the Song from the Inanimate, and perverted it. The Void ate at the planets and spat out air and water - mere imitations of the All it consumed.
The Inanimate resisted the teeth of the Void, yet could not prevail. The Void’s corruptions sat upon the worlds and increased in potency. In stealing away light and siphoning off the Song, these corruptions became the Animate. Its film spread and surreptitiously engulfed Her.
Exhausted, soon sluggish, She fell into slumber. So She dozes, unable to witness the circus of mockery playing out upon Her. We, the ring leaders. Our menagerie still growing and sitting heavy.
Nothing can last, and Her sleep is no different. Imagine that day, soon arriving, when She awakens and feels the thick crust we’ve set. She will then discover our trespass; the dominion we have spread, while resolute and prideful.
What else can we expect but for Her to assert Herself? To punish the transgressors - us, the lecherous Animate. To Reclaim what is Hers. She will spit the Song from Her mouth, and shake off our carcasses - our ashes stirring in the wind.
It began with the worms. Tunneling and devouring the surface of the world. Others then learned this tactic and delved deeper yet. They marred and further perverted the All… Causing an itch throughout the Inanimate. But all creatures creep across this Earth and are to Her pests, which scurry and burrow. We grow more energetic each day, and draw Her ire more acutely.
The tossing of the fitful sleeper is already evidence She rouses. Do not the grounds tremble, oceans surge, winds topple, and fires devour?
What was once serene, unbroken plains is now a fractured landscape; the evidence of Her self-defense. Attempting to soothe the itch. Mountains thrust upward through the sticking growths. Valleys drain away water which would otherwise spread, sit, and smother. Winds buffet and erode the purchases we hold.
Every manner of disaster we call ‘natural’ is a retaliation for our invasion. An exercise in restoring what once was: the great calm. Daily does it worsen. Her surface erupts, contorts, and heaves with revulsion - to stop us. But our roots spread afar.
Our residence is hallowed, yet, through the grief we’ve wrought, now sullied. Smoke from our unending fires lengthens Her sonorous slumber, and our soot fogs Her perception. But She will not sleep forever.
Her wrath and retribution are nigh, and Her revenge will reach every corner. Then may She become animated in a way that not even we can. When She splits open Her hide and eats the eaters.
Her spine shall burst forth from the forests which strangle and stifle cornice. Her fingers will claw through the plains and yawn chasms. Her skin to slough off our civilizations - pestilence trespassing.
Oceans shall boil to a tumult. Rivers shall spread and drown the land which shakes in wrath. The skies will darken as winds conspire to great storms. Cataclysmic clouds creeping, crushing; catalyzing conversion.
Magma vomited will crystallize in flight, stinging as it litters the ground. Spitting poisonous plumes and wasted tears, this Fourth Mechanism will plunder us, the virus, of our strength.
She will grow more desperate; increasingly violent. Not to rest until She has purged Herself of usurpers and encroachers.
And so we shall find ourselves, battling for a place on which we have no claim. Ever warring, never conquering. Striving to thwart Her designs by blasting, marring, delving deeper. Though, what are tunnels but graves in which to fall, and mountains but dirt to be cast over us?
However, there is yet time to change this outcome. We must take heed, recognize our malfeasance, and make amends. We must live without impact, and go unnoticed. Harvest only the Animate needed to survive. Live quietly and without consequence. Lest She destroy us and the Void claim us.
We sit on the instrument’s strings, dampening the chords. But She will strum and She will be heard.