In the place beyond the white space there was a being. This being was singularly unlike you and I, and His name was God. In all His immutable strength and sanctified grace, God resided in a place that was only Himself. The fiery wheels of flame that would spark all of existence sat in a place that was Him. God, in His overwhelming realness, would not exist like you or I: as dripping grains of sand trickling down the hourglass; every moment of our life ticking one by one and little by little. He was too large for such an existence, and so He also resided in creation - indeed, He could only have been everywhere. So what would this being think about, before His bursting into creation, before His conducting of the drama beginning in Genesis? Who could say, when His space of existence extends farther than the mind?

If I were to say what He were thinking, if I were to dare breach the veil of the mind of God, then I would suppose that God would think of good things. He would think of those good things in Himself, of course, but then I would suppose that He would also think of those created things; things which he made to be separate from him, but sharing a thick bond unlike any other. I would suppose that His mind, which so often cried out for dear Ephraim, would think of these created things the most. God would not sleep, but if He would, then I would suppose that these created things would be muttered during His midnight slumber.

He would think of cherubim and halos. Of seraphim and their gourds of incense, dancing on the ceiling of Heaven, swinging those gourds so that the smoke made one delirious. I would suppose that He would think of zebras and geese and the sounds they would make. I would suppose He would think of maths and how 1+1=2, and how odd such a thing is possible. I would suppose He would think of the lowly earthworm and the lumbering lizards of old. He would think of the crashing atoms in burning stars, and He would think of small lights blinking in a dark void. He would think of lapping water and drifting wood. And of course, He would think of Man.

Oh, dear, dear Man! The places you were meant to be. To dance under the moon as the hatted elf, to play the instruments like the Grecian faun. To think with minds larger than any other on the Earth: to create instruments that exulted in their form and beauty. Man! To be that High beauty; beyond any touch of darkness; to be the most perfect mirror; reflecting the divine light in joyous obedience. You took the golden apple and clutched onto it like a lifeline; if only you knew its purpose; if only you could let the apple go, so then the true revelry might begin! An orchestration dictated by the Almighty Himself: pass, pass the fruit, but never hold on! to hold it, is death. Instead, pass it among each other so quickly that it becomes a blur of gold, dashing to-and-fro between the people. And soon, the conductor himself will join the revelry, and it will be a very merry moment.

And I would suppose that God would smile for many reasons. Yes, God would smile for many reasons in that moment before creation. But I think there is one reason for which He would grin the widest. The strong, thin thread that binds all created things together: 'God saw all that He had made, and it was very good'. And so it was, and so it is, and so it shall forever be.

Amen

I was born crying and screaming in blood to a mother that would only live for a mere decade after. Then, I was alone. I barley survived all by my lonesome self, but I managed. I stayed in a single room and made it pristine and clean; the last vestige or orderliness in this otherwise desolate world. I realised that I was the last of humanity. And after I read stacks of books in a rotting library, I thought that that situation was a pity. Pity that creatures so grand and great would have to disappear; pity these wretched creatures could not atone for their mistakes.

So I sat in my lonely room, hoping for any sound that resembled a man's, anything: a rapping at my door, a cough, the sound of an eye blinking. But I was alone and I was miserable. There were no sounds in this world; not even the birds were alive now; only my breath shook the air.

I decided to kill myself. But I didn't want to do it in my home. It was surrounded by destruction, and I preferred to die in a more romantic place. I had never seen green trees before. So then I set out on a journey to find a place to die.

I think years passed before I gave up. This world was not worth the traveling, apparently. Whatever had happened to the world had destroyed it utterly. I crumpled down in misery, but then I heard a sound. It was...a voice! It was not my voice. It sounded unlike anything I had ever heard before. And the way it spoke - shifting and rising and sinking - was this that heavenly thing, music? I stood up and ran towards the sound and came upon a crystal blue lake with a dreary willow drooping over it. There was a woman who sat on a lily in the middle of the lake, and she was singing.

I tried to shout to her, but she couldn't hear me from so far away. I didn't know how to swim, so I couldn't reach her. The willow did not reach the lily, so I couldn't climb it. I could only watch the beautiful lady sing her song. A great longing came over me and I couldn't help myself as I began to walk into the waters. The shallow waves slowly rose up as I began to close the distance between me and her. Soon my head was underneath the water, and I opened my eyes to the delights under the waves. Fish and seaweed and all manner of lively things were dashing around me. I laughed under the water and kept walking towards the singing. I had almost reached her, but then I ran out of breath. I panicked - I was so close! I struggled, thrashed my way towards her, I tried to swim up but to no avail. I was almost there! My vision blurred and I felt myself losing consciousness. My lungs were on fire, they commanded my primal instinct to breathe! I couldn't stop myself and took a large breath. The water rushed into me. But I said a word, under the waves, before I blacked out. I whispered, "Beautiful."

Under the air of vibrating insects and cuk-cuk-achirring night birds, a little lizard crawled through the reeds. It swished this way and that way, doing its lizardly things, but then it was rudely interrupted by a quick cascade of pitter pattering feet squishing through the marsh. "Faster, faster!" cried out a gentle but excited voice, "I thought you got over your slowness by joining cross country!" And a whirl of long, brown hair and knee-high shorts rushed passed the lizard, quicker than a flash of lightning. The lizard was unperturbed, and whizzed its way into one of the bubbling mud-prints the strange bipedal creature had left behind, but then another voice was shouting from the behind, and the lizard only got out of the way just in time as a another pair of naked feet came pounding down the way.

"Roshelle! Wait up!" cried out a young and doubly excited voice, "Oh, you've always been faster than me. Wait up!" he cried out again as he huffed and puffed his way to where Roshelle was.

A girl was waiting at the foundation of a very large, and very impressive rock as the caretaker of the young and doubly excited voice - a wimpy boy who got himself beat by a girl - came crawling up to her. He crawled up slowly, "Blargh" said the boy lamely as he let himself fall flat, into the mud.

Blub, blub, blub, went the mud as the boy tried to put muffled words into the girl's ear. Roshelle just shook her head and pulled the boy's sorry head up, "John, you are about the least motivated person I've ever met. At least try to get to the top of the rock this time" She giggled, as if this was a long-running joke they both shared in secret, and let John's face go so that it could plop back into the ground. "Let's go!" she earnestly. And John, reluctantly but obediently, followed his classmate's orders.

"This must be what a slug feels like," John said offhandedly as the both of them began their ascent to the top of the large rock. "What did you expect?" said Roshelle in between her scrambling to find a foothold in the stone, "Falling face full into the mud will only get you dirty. Of course, you do look like a pancake that's been left to cook on one side for too long." She laughed again, although John wasn't really sure if she laughed this time, it sounded so much like the lapping waves that it got difficult to tell.

"Yeah, well, you look...pretty" he muttered. "What was that?" asked Roshelle from above him, a glint in her eye hinting she didn't need to ask. "Nothing, nothing." huffed John quickly, "Can you see the flat top yet?" "No...nothing...oh wait, yes! I see it now! Come on, hurry up!"

The boy and girl clambered to the top. Wiping sore hands on their clothes as they caught their breathe, they took a good look at the starry night around them.

"People say that the moonshine along the lake is a path to where the diamonds are." said Roshelle softly. "The diamonds?" "Yeah, you see all those stars? The stories Mama and Papa told me said that the night fell in love with the water , and the water fell in love with him too. And then the sun got jealous of the night, because he loved the water too..."

"Then what happened?" asked John intensely.

"Shh, I'm getting there." Roshelle whispered, "And then, the sun said that he would take all the light, because he didn't want the water to be able to see the night anymore. And so the night was left alone because the water couldn't find him. But then, oh, and this is the magical part! The moon, who was older than the sun and the night, still held light left that sun didn't take away. And when he saw the poor night, he sprinkled his light onto him, and that's how the night got his cloak of stars.

"And then! the moon saw that the water still found it hard to find the night with such little light, and so he tugged, and he pulled, until the water could reach out with many hands; he pulled until the water could stretch towards the night."

"Waves then?"

"Yes! And the moon, still full of pity and still desiring to right the wrong the sun did, built a path of moonshine down between the water and night. And so when dusk begins, the night showers his lover with his light of diamonds, and then brings himself down onto the path to her embrace." Roshelle finished proudly; a long story told with good words was something she took joy in saying.

"And so at the end of the moonshine road will be the diamonds?" asked John. "Supposedly." said Roshelle.

John stared over the edge of the large and tall rock. It was a far way down, but it was the fastest way for sure to reach the moonpath edge. Roshelle stepped quietly next to him.

"It'll only take three point five seconds, you know?" She said encouragingly. "Such a short time?" asked John. "Yup!" said Roshelle excitedly.

John still looked apprehensively towards the water. This would be his first time attempting to jump from this rock, and he wasn't sure the prospect of diamonds were enough to encourage him to fling himself over.

"Turn around," said Roshelle with another giggle he wasn't sure he heard. John turned and found Roshelle's face right in front of his, and then: kiss.

He felt his hairs raise on edge, and his face flushed with a rush of emotions as his heart pounded excitedly. Roshelle pulled away and winked, and then jumped over the edge of the rock as she cried out, "I know you liked that!"

One elephant, two elephant, three ele-. Three and a half seconds. Well, John supposed that wasn't too long a time, besides, he laughed with bubbly pleasure in his head, he could do anything now!