On the first day there were pure high energy forms. They called them Lights.
On the second day, there were low energy forms. They called them elements.
On the third day low energy forms were given life.
On the fourth day, The University of Lights was created.
On the fifth day, Lights were bonded with low energy forms, with and without life.
On the sixth day, life was made multicellular, and Lights were bonded to them.
On the seventh day, humans were created and Lights were bonded to them also.
On the eighth day, Herr Godfrey Vann had trouble with humans and Lights and all manner of things and wished he’d never created any of it.
Herr Godfrey Vann took a step back from the two auras in front of him. In each was an image of a baby, one male, one female. They were his babies, his creations.
His glow was not a reflection from the aura, but came from within. His golden colour was achieved by so few of his kind; to obtain that pure colour took a level of awareness only reached by those who participated in the physical world.
The normal world of the Lights was incorporeal, bodiless. Godfrey was an aberration of the spirits of space. Not only had he, by a fortunate accident, discovered the existence of the physical world, but he had reached out and touched it. And it had touched him.
Godfrey smiled. Unlike many of his kind, he could do that. He had temporarily fixed himself to physical bodies enough times that he retained what he liked to call a PRIM, or a permanent residual internal memory. Currently, his golden glow took a primitive human male form, the last one he’d occupied, but the screens were telling him this was the last time he’d look like this, with hairy, bent body and aesthetically unpleasing scull. Success! His first two volunteer Lights - he’d found Zed and Veda floating aimlessly around in nearby space - had stayed bonded to the more advanced experimental bodies he’d been working on for the last few millennia.
If only there was someone to share his achievement with.
But sharing would mean letting others know of his discovery: the physical world. They might not believe in its existence and he would be ridiculed. He wasn’t ready for that. They might shut him out, shun him, even send him to another part of the Universe.
Or to another Universe.
How could he explain to a species made of photons and interacting with the Universe as waves of energy, that energy could take another form and that they could interact with it? In fact, how did he even begin to explain how he discovered this other universe alongside their own? But he wanted to. He had played with this world now for many, many millions of years, and he wanted to share what he knew. He had to. It was too big not to.
Godfrey reached over and touched one of the auras. In that one was Zed, and in the other, Veda, the only two he’d ever recruited to inhabit the bodies of this world.
They were different from the others. They were two of a kind. Their colours were of the same hue and the same shade. They made a Light-pair. They were Light-mates. They were as one. And they thought the same way, which was very useful for this particular experiment. Previously, the bindings had been temporary, only lasting part of the lifetime of the animals they’d inhabited, but this time… this time, the two Lights were committed for the lifetime of these beautiful creatures he’d created. Humans. They were his hope for the future of his own species.
‘I see you’ve done it, Godfrey,’ said a voice behind him. The Light that was Lucien came beside him and mingled at his edges. They observed the two auras together for a while, but even Godfrey had to admit it was not a riveting sight.
‘They have stayed the duration of the animals’ gestations at least,’ said Godfrey.
‘Why fix them so early?’ Lucien’s glow extended toward the aura closest to him, just as Godfrey’s had a few moments before.
‘I don’t know for certain, but it seems to hold better at that stage.’ Godfrey didn’t have to turn to see his friend. The senses of the ages were strong within him, as they were with most of the more advanced Lights. ‘Have you come with news, or are you here to merely observe with me?’
‘I find no comfort in observing these primitive beings, Godfrey. That’s your area.’ Godfrey sensed a subtle shift in the hue of Lucien that others might not have noticed. He knew his friend well enough to know that there was something of greater importance still to come. He was right. ‘We are to be visited,’ said Lucien.
‘Visited? Visited by whom?’ Godfrey glowed purple in puzzlement as he assessed this information, which he could only assume was incorrect. ‘Why would anyone visit us?’
It was true. This whole world was his creation. He kept quietly to himself so nobody would notice what he was doing. Not that they would see anything even if they looked hard in his direction. They could not see the physical, and would not believe it if they could. It had taken a long time for Lucien, Zed and Veda to see it, even when he had carefully showed them what they were looking at, taught them how to see. As far as every other Light was concerned, he merely existed in this part of space.
He was certain they had kept his secret - their secret: his, Lucien's, Zed's and Veda's - how he had taken some of this matter he’d found and shaped it into a ball. Then, bit by bit, over millions of years, he’d played with it, adding first one form of atom, then another, the most successful of which was a combination of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen. That had given him his first breakthrough. That had given him the first substance he could use to make life. And he’d continued to play, his friend calling it experimentation, building the complexity of life forms one step at the time. Millions of years, and many experiments later, he had a range of lifeforms: big and small, stationary, passive and automotive life.
He’d bonded himself – again, experimentally – into all forms of low-energy matter and creatures over time, and gathered experiences of each of them, to build the ultimate animal most suitable for symbiosis with a Light. Now, these two young supported the lives of his two recruits. This was it.
Godfrey’s thoughts were brought abruptly back to Lucien’s intrusion.
‘They do, the High Ones,’ said Lucien.
‘How do they know?’ Godfrey’s glow pulsated various dark shades. He was not happy at this news.
‘You told them. Don’t you remember?’
‘I did not. That would be absurd.’
‘You told them before you last bound yourself to that Neolithic creature. Why you bother with these animals, I don’t know.’
‘Don’t you?’ Godfrey knew his friend was not as indifferent as he’d like Godfrey to believe. Unlike many of his kind, he was hyper-sensitive to the variations within the Lights’
glows. Somehow, by attaching himself to so many different beings, he had developed senses like none other. Not even Zed and Veda had developed such sensitivity.
Sometimes, his developed senses took him in directions not even he had predicted, so he could see stretches of time, both forward and backward from the present. Sometimes the possibilities were so many they became as separate entities, forming different worlds. The past flowed as numerous tributaries into the present, and the future spread out into a delta of possibilities into the distance. And here in the present, at one single point he could see them all, all possibilities past and future compressed into a stasis, where he could pick and choose his options.
So, why couldn’t he see his own future? Why didn’t he see visitors coming into his life any time soon?
‘I wouldn’t have done so.’ It irked Godfrey to think Lucien could even suggest he had done such a thing, when it was what he avoided, and discovery could bring disgrace and ridicule upon him.
‘You did do so, Godfrey. You told me it was time, and that all other Lights should share in the greatness of experiencing physical life.’
‘I did?’ That did sound like something he might say. ‘When did I say this?’
‘Right before you went Earthside the last time.’ Lucien moved away from the two auras. Nothing would change in them at this point. ‘This is too tedious,’ he said.
‘And I informed…who?’
‘Oh, you went straight to the top, as is your way.’
Lucien’s glow was receding from him, so Godfrey called his attention back. ‘Lucien, would you be interested in trying one of these new bodies?’
‘Not at all, my friend. To lie so still for so long, while the bodies become fully formed would be only one step less tedious than watching them.’
‘Fine, fine, as you wish, but I will find a body you will be interested in eventually.’ He knew that to be true, although he did wish his friend would try out some more of the less advanced bodies beforehand. Working through the many levels of life he had created had given him both humility and awe at the complexities and intensities of experiences, whether modest or monumental. It had made him appreciate the lives of even the smallest bacteria as well as the awesomeness of the final bodies that were even now forming before him.
‘I doubt it. Anyway, our visitors will be arriving at some time soon, perhaps within several spins of this world you call Earth.’
‘Lucien?’
‘Yes?’
‘Why can’t I remember telling The High Ones? I don’t remember it at all.’
‘You once told me, if ever you couldn’t remember why you forgot, to remind you to check your memories about PRIMS and the after-effect. The answer lies within you, but it seems to keep getting bogged down in that area every time you put yourself in one of your Earthbound lifeforms. Do you think those things are destroying you?’
‘No, my friend. The opposite.’
‘How can you say that? How can it possibly not be a bad thing to contaminate yourself with that physical stuff. Whenever you come back, you are like something has thrown you back to youth, and taken all your levels away.’ Lucien’s derision was obvious. He didn’t often speak so openly.
‘So it might seem to you, and it would also have seemed to me watching Zed and Veda, if I hadn’t experienced it myself. But even you can see that they have moved up through the levels of enlightenment much faster than if they had been left to their own development in space. I won’t even question that you can see that. You aren’t closed, like many of the other Lights. You can see at least some of what I can see, that ,somehow, spending time in these physical bodies advances a Light faster than anything we’ve tried before.’
‘Yes, but it also changes you in other ways. Look at you now. You are deformed into the shape of that last animal you fixed yourself to. You have contaminated your form. What else might you have damaged!’
Godfrey didn’t mind these discussions with his friend. They’d had them many times before. They helped to decide which of the future courses he should take.
‘Damage? Look at my colour! Look at my glow! Does that look deformed? No! I am in better colour than most every Light existing today, even The High Ones. You can’t call this damage. This is advancement. Advancement!’ Godfrey repeated.
‘Godfrey, my friend, what you consider advancement is still damage. You are not what you should be. Yes, you have become something others might not become in many times the millions of years you have immersed yourself here, but how do we know if it’s good? How do we know if you aren’t corrupting yourself into something else?’
‘Pha!’ said Godfrey. ‘I’m stronger than ever before. Yes, I forget sometimes, but the memories aren’t gone, only subdued. I have experienced more in these few million years that I would ever have experienced drifting through space, unaware of the existence of the physical Universe.’
Lucien came back to Godfrey’s side, and for a moment their colours touched. Godfrey felt Lucien. The being that was Lucien merged with the being that was him at that point and the two communed together for a while. They were not close enough in colour to merge completely, but they were close enough that their glows mingled and tingled together. Now, that was good.
Lucien broke away.
‘Your energy is indeed strong, my friend,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I forget how much so, but I can’t deny the truth of what you say. I can only call it extraordinary how ambient you are with the Universe. Every part of you sings in harmony with it.’
Godfrey smiled, as only one that has been in touch with the very lowest to the very highest physical form can smile. He was aware of himself as no other Light could be. His place in the Universe was here, now, at this point in time, in this place in space and yet in every other too. Every photon of light within him sang with every other photon of light, but with a dimension no other Light knew. He had touched the particle world, and he could never be merely a Light again. He was some new form, yes, but a form he aspired to be, connected to both worlds.
‘It is well, Lucien. I am strong enough to face The High Ones,’ he said.