C- The Child that Came Before

The Child that Came Before

Now, let me tell you about the beginning of things.

You'll have to think about a time long ago. You must have all thought
about it in some way already. A time before everything we know. Before
anything we think is normal and everyday was even thought of. Before
supermarkets and cars and traffic jams and houses. Before banks and
churches and temples and countries. Before people and trees. Before
even there were stars. Before all this, there was a child.

Not the kind of child that you and I know, mind. Not the kind we can
hold in our arms and shush to sleep. Not the child with all its
softness and its wetness and its smallness that we all once were, but a
child without any of these things. In fact, this child had nothing
except its own loneliness. You see, it was alone in the dark and the
cold. Completely alone. And what do children do when they are cold and
alone? They cry. They cry and they cry, just like this child did. But
it didn't cry in the way we know.

When a baby cries (one of our babies, that is) it makes a noise. Such a
noise as to wake the dead, as they say. But this child that cried
before didn't make a noise, because there was no one there to hear it -
no one except itself. So rather than noise, it made things - solid
things. Stone and iron and air and copper and even gold. It made them
all, just to fill the emptiness, like a baby that pulls its sheets up
close when it's cold. The baby doesn't know how or why the sheets keep
it warm and neither did this child of ours.

Now, when a baby cries it doesn't make just any kind of noise, it gives
the noise a shape. It gives it a particular form and sound and loudness
that works to call its mother. You know what it's like when a baby
cries - not one among you can ignore it. The form is very important and
the child knew this, just as our babies do today. So it gave form to
what it was making. It made rules and laws and processes for the
working of things. And the more rules it made, the more they overlapped
and interfered and affected each other until, after a while - not very
long after it had begun - the child stopped making things and watched
what was in front of it. The material and the rules mixed together and
grew and changed and unfolded. And the child was filled with wonder at
what it saw.

It watched what was being played out before it, surprised and delighted
by each new thing it saw. Planets formed, seas came and went, mountains
rose and valleys fell.

After a time, there was a spark deep in one of the seas. A spark of
something different and new. This was the beginning of us. The
beginning of you and me and every living thing we see around us. The
child was amazed and enchanted at the discovery of something so like
itself and it tried to speak to what it saw. But we were yet too simple
and couldn't hear the words.

So the child watched and waited. And as it waited, we changed and grew
and learned. And by watching, the child grew as well.

When it came that there were people like you and I who could think and
talk amongst ourselves, the child tried again to talk to us. But its
words, although heard this time, were so powerful and so different from
our world that they drove men mad. So the child lapsed into silence
again.

And it's watching still today, watching and learning and growing with
us. One day we will both be grown and will look into each other's
faces. Then, understanding each other, we will join together and out of
our union there will come another child. Another child that came
before.

And what of the parents?

Well, I don't know. I'm only a part of the child. And after all, what
do children know of what their parents do when they're out of
sight?

***

"But," said those who had gathered to listen, "We have heard different
stories told."

The old man laughed. "No," he said, "You've heard the same story told
in different ways." Smiling, he sat back in his chair. "Now, go and
tell it yourselves."