Death and Life — In a Place of Novas
When Life and Death were young and didn’t understand one another.
We shall call her, Death, the end of all things.
In the beginning there was darkness.
And it was good, considering.
Then there wasn’t. That was new.
And the Universe was born.
And She was alone. She doubted her very existence for there was no reference for her to be certain of.
There was a period of something where the Universe blossomed anew, expanding into her Nothing. Her very special Nothing.
The Place Where There Was No Place was replaced by a new thing called Space. Filled with stuff. Stuff with no name, no origin, no-thing but some-thing.
Space expanded and its Light once everywhere soon dimmed, and the Universe cooled and became a soothing, refreshing Black, filled with inconsequential molecules of Stuff.
It was simple Stuff. A proton, She liked that. She stole the word from the Future. A Neutron. Another stolen word. Hydrogen. It was everywhere. Sticky, seeking out others like it. Binding together. Spinning.
Ever-spinning. And from these vast clouds of almost nothing came Something. And it happened again and again. Until the Darkness was alight with newly a-aborning stars.
They were everywhere. In their own way, cold and bright, blue, gigantic.
And they would die, as their unstable bodies, rocked with fuel would cause cataclysmic explosions, filling the Darkness with their funerary pyres.
And this was the case for some degree of something she would call Time.
A great deal of Time passed.
A great deal of dying would take place across this new cosmos with its single caretaker.
Death.
We will call Him, Life.
He does not remember the Beginning.
His beginning.
He feels only the heat of a billion, billion suns and a billion, billion, billion worlds.
He is everywhere at once.
Kindling the Fire Eternal, this separate thing unique from everything else there was.
He was mad, his self scattered across the cosmos in tiny fragments struggling…
He couldn’t remember who he was he could only remember the need. To recombine, to mix, to match, to organize.
He only remembered his need.
He bound elements, he found the word, stolen from a Future, left scattered across Space. Elements, the building blocks of… Everything.
But Who left it? Wasn’t he alone?
Worlds cooled. Liquids flowed, tidepools formed.
Time infused itself into everything, the simple became complex, the complex became masterful, the masterful became
Alive.
It wasn’t aware, but it was no longer inert. It sought, it needed, it wanted, it claimed something it needed to become more of itself.
Light, lightning, heat, the energy of the world kindled the Flame on a billion worlds. Each life different, each life struggled.
He felt Her.
Something unable to easily be defined.
And he would not truly know Her at first.
Only that she would haunt his work, appearing when he least expected it.
She would appear at many of his tidepools,
A chill breeze at an inopportune time.
A shadow blocking needed light.
A fissure closing beneath, withdrawing much needed heat.
And Life would End.
In the beginning He wailed to an Uncaring Universe.
But he was Life. He would not be denied.
Death
How curious He was. He took that which was inert and made it motile.
It sought out energy.
It needed.
It hungered.
It expanded, it changed. It grew.
But whenever she observed them, they inevitably ceased.
This made her sad. At first.
Life
What is She? What does She want?
Why does She disrupt my work?
Is She displeased? Is this why my work ceases whenever she comes to visit?
Then I shall create new works.
New creations, so numerous they shall dwarf her stars in the cold black skies above.
And Life was fecund and exploded across the Universe.
Death
Billions of shapes, each form multi-fold,
recombinant, ever-changing
forms too numerous to mention,
And this pleased her.
She would gather them, each of the wondrous creations and store them in a Hall of Her Devising, a special place for His Work.
And he made so many things to collect.
Life
She destroys them as fast as I create them.
She comes in the form of a plague, taking a beautiful bacterium and turning it into something she turns to her use.
She comes in the form of terrible winters, massive storms, terrifying fires
None are spared.
I will redouble my efforts, I will fill their skies, their seas, their mountains, until there is no place free from my Work.
She cannot take them all.
Death
They were so numerous.
They’re intoxicating. Flowers, birds, insects, fish,
He is so clever,
So creative.
So magnificent, filling every biome, placing his Work within his Work,
Symbiosis, parasites, partners, dimorphism, He has created a Self-perpetuating engine where his Work spawns itself.
I must have a world.
Life
Why?
Why did she rain asteroids down upon World after World?
Were they so terrible she could not bear them for even a second longer?
Then let them Live or Die as they will.
I shall do nothing else for them.
My work is done.
She is cruel and nothing can truly please her.
I shall let her see a Universe without my work.
Death
His work has slowed.
His constructions grow less. His art has changed. A significant note.
They are those rare Ones,
The Ones who survive My Horsemen (I love their words) Plague, Famine, and War. They survive my epochs. Heat. Cold. Ice. Heat again.
They are resilient. They scream out their challenge at me.
They defy me.
They seek to conquer me.
Silly things. No matter how long they live they cannot outlive me.
They spread out from their star.
First one. Then two. Then Four.
Intrepid.
Curious.
I Touch them. I claim their boldest, their most intrepid. They take special places in my Hall. They transcended their world;
They Challenged me.
They Believed they could win.
I love Him.
Life
They are wonderful. Those special Ones;
They leave their worlds, their technology, their magick,
Armed against the cold and the dark, they roar their challenge
to Her.
My champions.
They are strong enough to let her know they will never again
Fear Her.
They don’t know her like I do.
They don’t know her patience.
They don’t know how many ways there are to Die.
She does.
She know Every Way.
My Champions run amok, eventually doing Her Work.
Destroying my Work in her Name.
I hate her.
Death
His Champions, his greatest gift to me.
How can I show him how much they mean to me?
He cannot see me.
Only feel me.
I take one of his Champions and fill her with Me.
I call to Him.
On a distant world, filled with life consuming life, a world with the most fecund parts of both our work.
An orgy of Death and Life.
He appears filled with Life energy, burning from him, Immortal, psychic, powerful, capable of shaping space, time, like supple clay.
He sees me. His rage is evident.
His lightning strikes me.
But I understand. Being part of her makes me see his sadness.
He believes everything will, Must Die.
I will show Him. I take his hand. My Darkness and his Light and we See each other for the first time.
He understands.
We walk the Hall of his Work, my curation of his brilliance and he weeps as the millennia pass and the Hall only grows larger.
I take his hand to a place far from where he spends his days.
A place of novas.
Life.
What cruelty. Yet I cannot turn away from Her. She is me. She is collecting my work, saving it, loving it in a way I never did.
I made It.
I let it go.
I freed it.
I left it to thrive or not to a schema I barely understood. It was necessary.
She was necessary.
Why she dogged my heels; she was ensuring my work was the best it could be.
Why are we leaving the Hall, there is still so much to see?
It has been so long since I have done my Work.
What is this I feel?
I now understand why she chose this place of Novas.
Life and Death
We watch the old galaxies explode, again and again
the firmament alight with their death spasm,
ringing with radiation, swirling new clouds,
bestowing upon them momentum
her gift to me
Only now can I understand our place.
She cannot make new things.
She can only destroy old things.
Her gift to me is to have old stars die and
give way to new stars.
with new worlds,
with new beginnings,
with new Life in need of living
and dying
Perhaps this time,
with intention,
with understanding,
with cooperation,
with love.
We can make
something
that can outlast us Both.
Death and Life — In a Place of Novas © Thaddeus Howze, 2016, All Rights Reserved
From Coffeelicious prompt: Take a situation, any situation; from a date to a war zone (though both feel way too similar). Use that situation and describe it from the perspective of two separate people.
Thaddeus Howze is a writer, essayist, author and professional storyteller for mysterious beings who exist in non-Euclidean realms beyond our understanding. Since they insist on constant entertainment and can’t subscribe to cable, Thaddeus writes a variety of forms of speculative fiction to appease their hunger for new entertainment.
Thaddeus’ speculative fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies: Awesome Allshorts: Last Days and Lost Ways (Australia, 2014), The Future is Short(2014), Visions of Leaving Earth (2014), Mothership: Tales of Afrofuturism and Beyond (2014), Genesis Science Fiction (2013), Scraps (UK, 2012), and Possibilities (2012).
He has written two books: a collection called Hayward’s Reach (2011) and an e-book novella called Broken Glass (2013) featuring Clifford Engram, Paranormal Investigator.
