The love of the universe

It was easy to forget the distance between the Earth and the stars when the world bended and bowed, dropping to its knees as she walked, folding itself to her whim. A staircase from cloud; the ether collapsing down to nothing; creation brought up to the fingertips of her endless hands.

Everything had been within her reach, because she had willed it so: she, creator of all, sculptor of life and sower of souls. The world made itself to her whim and reached back at her with tender, reverent hands—thousands of them, palms out in a pleading prayer for her continued favour. Thus it hadn't mattered just how isolated her queendom in the stars might have been, because everything existed towards her and she could touch it all.

Starlight stretches around her now, a carpet of shimmering light beneath the fabric of a robe made of possibility itself. She shines as a constellation, sitting down in the cosmos a billion light years away, and suddenly knows just how far it is.

The world is a rock, floating distantly, hard and unyielding. It does not reach out to her, not anymore. She is everything and everything is of her—her vision and care, chance and impossibility, divine creation. She is the universe and now she is alone, far away, where the creatures she formed with a part of herself scurry, mindless of her craft.

Her stamp and seal is on every atom, her signature in the smallest of particles, but they do not see her. She is too big for them, she has become too much, expanded the edges of everything into an unending, untouchable stretch and now she has lost it; lost her active creation as everything idles along and forgets her.

It is lonely, to be everything. If you are everything, there is nothing else to reach out to you.

The stars are quiet. The galaxies whisper in voices too low for her to hear. They are too far away. The ground lays dormant and she can hardly see it anymore. Instead she floats, burnt away into dying stars. There is nothing left to create and nothing within her that would be able to.

Everything is still.

The universe has settled.

Being has been dictated, it is all old within her now.

And then there is something.

It starts small, just flickers in the atmosphere, barely above the ground in the grand scheme of things. She does not even see it, she has given up watching a world she created but cannot touch. What is it to her that a few of those things that walk are trying something new? Nothing at all.

Then there is more. They keep trying again and again, racing towards her—the parts of her they cannot touch. It does not matter how far she is, how vast she has become, they are reaching to her again.

This time, the ether does not bend. This time the clouds do not form a staircase. This time it is not easy. But still they reach out to her, sending songs off into the unfathomable space between them until it reaches her at last.

We are still here, we are still coming to you, we still see you.

She is too much for them to understand, and she was too much for them to reach, and she is waiting now. From her place alone it is hard to see, but she is watching closely as they struggle towards her. To the moon, to some place further. Telescopes and space stations and a science dedicated to reaching across that infinite distance that they could not possibly understand.

"I cannot create anymore," she tells them.

They will not hear it; wouldn't even if they could, for she is beauty and wonder and discovery. She has created all there is, so much for them to see and learn and reach for.

"It is a long way to go," she tells them.

They build rockets.

"It will not be in your lifetime," she warns them.

They pass on their knowledge.

"I cannot reach out to you."

But they are reaching out to her.

They are astronauts and scientists and they… they are creating. It is in their hands now, a power that she had thought died in her. Instead it was passed on to them and they use it with such awe and ambition. They are so small. They are only as they were made, but they dream big and they will make something spectacular.

They are flawed, they make mistakes and create awful things too. But their creation is so beautiful, and it is everywhere. The more she looks, the more she sees it. Stars changing forms, species evolving from where she left them, animals creating tools. The universe is shifting into something more, something else.

The galaxies are moving, the planets are spinning and humanity is reaching out to her again. They do not see her, but they could find her one day. All of her. She could be known and she wouldn't be alone and her creation will live on in them, in everything she has given life.

The universe is her—it is alive, and it loves her.

Humanity may never reach her, as far as she is from them. They may never see the whole for what she is, but they care enough to try. Perhaps, even now, even still in the face of centuries alone and not being truly understood, she can comfort herself in the dream of a tomorrow where they will not lay down their curiosity.

Perhaps, one day, they will be there before her. They will be close enough to touch. She will reach out with her endless hands and cradle them with care. They will have the fragility of an insect in her palm, but she will pull them close and let them see as she sees and she will be understood.

The universe will say to the world: "I love you, and I am glad to have created you."