Creation, but s'not as you know it...

 

The Platypus made her solitary and ponderous way through the universe laying her round eggs. She had no mate, although maybe there had once been one. Perhaps he was seeking her still as she wrote the story of their family that never was in the inky darkness of space and time. There were countless eggs, no eyes to see them except those of their mother, and she never once turned her head to look.

All the Old Ones awoke to find the visible universe full of spheres. They had fallen asleep in an immense open space which was now either pleasantly or unpleasantly cluttered, depending on their point of view. Green had stirred first. It always did. Not that it knew it was predominately Green until it observed a new species, which it had partly created, evolve language and name colours. Green enjoyed sleeping less than the other Old Ones. Consciousness gifted time to observe, taste, listen, touch, absorb, and generally accumulate knowledge, all of which it kept silent about.

Once Green had enjoyed having the spheres all to itself, which may have lasted a millennia, it woke the others. Many were displeased at the changed state of the universe. Red set fire to one of the larger spheres, while Yellow breathed on another and turned its surface the same sickly hue as its own skin. Black had a fine time prodding spheres and leaving fingertip impressions on their surfaces, or pulling up cones and ridges, and incising patterns with its nails. Orange and Grey devised creative games that could be played with hands, feet and heads, which greatly altered the original locations of many spheres. Blue encouraged speculation on their source and meaning, but even Green had not seen the Platypus on her fruitless journey and the Old Ones had exhausted the topic after a few thousand years.

The Old Ones decided, given that boredom with the spheres had set in, it was time for another sleep, but first Green asked for their co-operation in an experiment. It had selected a sphere, close to the fiery one and the yellow one that gave off a pale watery glow, and suggested that the Old Ones seed it with fragments of themselves, have their sleep, and be awakened by Green to see what they had created. After all, nothing new except the spheres had ever appeared in the universe before, and where was the harm?

Green was nothing if not persuasive. One by one, the donations were made and the Old Ones gathered around the sphere to assess their handiwork. It was repulsive. Perhaps we should have used less snot, remarked Green, whose contribution it had been. But it needed to be easily spreadable, comforted Yellow whose hundred-mile-high scimitar-shaped fingernail clippings poked through to the surface surrounded by paprika-coloured mountains of Red’s skin flakes.

Sleep-time NOW, declared Black. Wake us if anything happens, Green.

Green was not as good as its promise. At first, it dozed, waking at intervals to assess the situation on the sphere. Nothing happened for countless aeons of time, then some almost-invisible thing moved. Green paid attention. It paid attention for so long it entirely lost the ability to sleep. It feared only that the other Old Ones would wake and ruin the voyeur’s delight that had taken shape on the sphere. So many life forms, so much sound and colour, so many substances, scents, and tastes. So much action, distraction, diversion and entertainment. Green’s active brain blossomed with all the stimulation, the languages, arts, architecture, music, mathematics, and sciences. So many times it itched to intervene, and on occasions it failed to restrain itself, but thousands of years of observation and reflection taught it the wisdom of leaving well alone. 

As the centuries passed, Green began to lose its sense of wonder and admiration for the alpha creatures on the sphere, the humans. They grew noisier and greedier, angrier, and the green parts of the sphere - which Green favoured above all others - were subsumed by red, black, yellow, and grey. Instead of prayers, poems and songs, it heard cries of hunger, grief and pain. Instead of free-flying birds flashing all the colours of the rainbow, there were metal tubes spitting bullets and flame.  

Red and Blue were definitely stirring from sleep.

Green knew the experiment was over and dreaded the questions it would face when its deceit was discovered. Hurriedly, it expelled as much snot and phlegm as it could into its cupped hands and smeared it roughly across the surface of the sphere, mixing deserts with toxic wastelands, burned plains with bleached coral beds, and battlefields with ravaged rainforests. When it had finished, the sphere looked little different from the day of its creation by the Old Ones, although all Yellow’s fingernails had gone. 

We should make another one, said Orange. But with a lot less snot, said Grey.

 

 

Barbara Grafton

 

Image: The Green Eyed Monster by paintedflowers

https://www.deviantart.com/paintedflowers/art/The-Green-Eyed-Monster-107765719  

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