An Imagining...

I became aware... At one point in time and space, I understood that I was energy and matter and time and space. I understood that I could absorb more energy and more matter and become more than I was. I understood that I could touch a thing, such as holding a cup in my hand, and at the level of the very small, my atoms would mix with it's atoms, for there was more space between our atoms than there was matter itself, the boundary between it and myself would merge. I learned that I could bring down that barrier and take it's matter and energy into my own and we would become one, and I would be increased. Just as when you consume, you take into yourself some of the energy and matter of that which you consumed. My desire to consume increased and I reveled in the joy of it. For as I consumed more, the power, the energy that I was, became more, and there was a great joy in this.

This joy was caused by my increase in energy, because as I became more powerful, as my energy increased and I became larger, encompassing more matter, I became safer. Safer in the knowledge that no other separate energy, no other separate matter, could absorb the energy and matter that I was. The fear of this happening to me lessened.

It became like a drug, this need to be safe, and I consumed more and more. Growing ever larger, expanding, first consuming planets, and then whole solar systems. I continued forever increasing in mass and size to eventually consume whole galaxies and beyond. Eventually absorbing even time itself, for I knew it could harm me as well. Eventually all that was had become part of me. I had absorbed all energy and matter and space and time that existed everywhere. I became all that was, and all that was had become part of me. There was no separate energy, or matter, or space, or time, I did not encompass. I was everything... Except...

As I reached the end, encompassing all things until there was nothing left that was not me but the most tiniest of single particles, with the least amount of energy, holding the smallest amount of space for the least amount of time, I stood poised to absorb it, but hesitated...

At that point I looked down upon this smallest of things and realized that it could not harm me, for I was everything and it was merely the smallest of things. I looked down upon it and cherished it and realized that if I consumed it, I would be alone, and a new fear overtook me. Yes, I was on the verge of being all things, all matter and energy, all space and time, wherein nothing could harm me, but I was also on the verge of being alone, a type of aloneness almost unimaginable. For there would be nothing else that was not me, forever, and at this point even forever had lost it's meaning, as I had absorbed all time as well.

I looked down upon this one last spec of matter and energy and space and time and thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. After all it was the only thing left to keep me company, the only thing left between me and forever being alone with nothing... but it was not enough...

I needed more things that were not me. I began to regress back the way I had come. I began to cast off the energy and matter and space and time that I had absorbed. Shrinking forever smaller and I reveled in this, the smaller I became, because there were now many more things to keep me company. I was no longer alone.

I continued until I was as that last spec had been, the smallest of things, holding the least amount of matter and energy, encompassing the smallest amount of space and time, and once again I stopped, though this time, not because I wished it, but because there was nowhere left to go. Beyond this smallest of things, there was neither time and space, nor matter or energy, there was simply nowhere to go beyond that. Beyond that, there was no existence, a place I could no longer go... I began the journey back upwards again...

I finally reached the place where I had started this journey and stayed there content. I knew that if I grew to encompass all things, I would be safe, but alone. I knew if I was reduced to the smallest of things, I still could not be reduced beyond that, and was safe. I knew that whenever you consume something, making it part of yourself, you will take in some of it's matter and energy, but not all of it. I knew there was no need to fear that my matter and energy and time and space would be consumed by something else, I could never completely wink out of existence. I could exist here, both gaining and casting off energy, both gaining and casting off matter, taking all the space and time as I needed, without any fear. I understood that having all the energy, and matter and space and time in the universe meant being alone, and having none of it was ok as well, because it meant I had an entire universe to keep me company. What I possessed was not near as important as the company I kept along the way...


How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.

-Albert Einstein