If I Had Words

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In the beginning there was — nothing.

He called it the void. 

I called him Khaos. 

Khaos said his void was perfect. 

I watched elements floating within the void and said it had — potential. 

I touched one of the elements and it glowed.

“Gaia,” he said. “Leave the elements alone.” 

“Why?” 

“Because the void is perfect the way it is. Do not change anything.” 

“What is so perfect about nothing?” I asked.

“Just leave them alone,” he said. 

But I could feel them. I could sense the elements had a similar kind of energy that I had. They were eager to see what I could create with them. So I started bringing a few of them together. I filled them with my energy and they glowed bright and hot. 

“You are changing them, Gaia!” Khaos said in alarm. “You are hurting them.”

“I am not hurting them.”

“How do you know?” 

“I can feel them,” I said. 

“I do not feel them. I think you are filling them with too much of your energy.” 

“I am helping them become something new.”

He watched me as I pulled together more of the elements. As they came together, they began expanding around a small, hot inner core. Outer elements cooled and turned hard and crusty. 

“It looks ugly,” he said. 

“It has potential.”

He didn’t like it. 

“Stop,” he said, putting his hand on my creation. At his touch, parts of the outer layer broke apart. Elements were sent floating within the void again.

“You stop,” I said, pulling the elements back. “You are undoing my work.” 

“It is not good,” he said. “It is better to leave the void alone.”

“You take care of your void and I will take care of my — thing,” I said. I didn’t yet know what it was, but I knew if I kept working, something would eventually form. 

Khaos pushed me to the edge of his void where I would cause less trouble.

He expanded his void, and with it, the darkness grew. From the darkness rose another being. Khaos called him Erebos. 

Khaos liked him. 

I couldn’t see a reason for another being to maintain the void. The void was big enough. How much space did ‘nothing’ need? But, it wasn’t up to me, so I just continued working. I sensed and drew the elements to me. My little creation got a little bigger.

“What is it?” Erebos said, approaching me. 

“It is my creation,” I said, positioning myself so he couldn’t touch it. 

“Khaos said you are a destroyer,” he said, his eyes still fixed on my thing. 

“I am not a destroyer,” I said.

“You destroy the void,” he said. 

“I do not destroy the void. I fill it.”  

Erebos thought for a moment. 

“Filling it also destroys it, does it not?” he said. 

“No. It makes it smaller.”

“Khaos does not want the void to be smaller.” 

“It is big enough. There is room enough for both.” 

“Maybe.”

“What is so great about the void? Why do you and Khaos care so much about it?” I asked. 

“Khaos does care about the void,” Erebos said, nodding. “I like it because it gives space for my darkness.” 

He looked again at the object I’d been working on. 

“What does your creation do?” he asked. 

“What does the void do?” I asked, feeling defensive.

“It does nothing,” Erebos said. “Is that the same for your creation?”  

I looked at it. It was hot and wonderful, but still rough. 

“I am not sure what it does,” I said.

“Why do you make it?” 

“Because it is what I am meant to do.”

“You are meant to make a hot, crusty thing?”

“I do not expect you to understand. It is what it is and I am meant to build it.”

“Interesting,” Erebos said, finally moving away. 

He continued helping Khaos with clearing the void. As they worked together, it became harder and harder to find the elements. I wondered where they were sending them. 

As the void got bigger, Nyx appeared. She was the stillness in the darkness and the void. She too was dark.

Another one to help with the void? It took no effort to make things dark and still and nothing. 

I had to work hard at my something. 

Erebos took a special interest in Nyx. He followed her, enjoying her peace and stillness. She was more pleasant than Khaos, who wasn’t much company. The two of them would talk together about the darkness and the stillness. 

It was very boring. 

They didn’t seem to get bored of each other. 

Generally, I tried to stay out of their way, but there wasn’t much in the void to keep them busy, especially now that there were almost no other elements in the void except for my creation. 

“What is that, Gaia?” Nyx asked. 

I was tired of answering the question, so I said nothing.

She approached my creation, hand outstretched. 

“Do not touch it,” I said. 

“Why?” she said, touching it anyway. Luckily, her touch didn’t have the same effect as when Khaos touched it. Still, she cooled it slightly and I pulled it away from her. 

“I do not want anyone touching it. Khaos’s touch destroys it.” 

Nyx looked curiously at the big ball of heat and crust. 

“How do you make it?” 

I thought about how to describe the process of creation.

“I sense what is needed and I do it,” I said. 

She kept studying it. There was something different about the way she looked at it. 

I wondered.

“Maybe you are a creator too,” I said. 

She looked at me. “Maybe.”

“It’s not good,” Khaos said, joining us.

“Why not?” I asked. 

“It has no purpose,” he said. “It takes up space in my void. You do not even know what it is.”

“You should give it a name, Gaia,” Nyx said. 

I thought for a moment. Khaos had a name for his nothing, maybe I could give a name to my something. 

“Ge,” I said. 

“Ge??” Khaos said. “Even the name is not good.” 

Erebos joined us. 

“‘Ge’ is too short for what you have created,” Erebos said. 

I could not help feeling annoyed. Why did it matter what I called my thing? It was mine, not theirs. 

“Why do you always have to make it so difficult?” I asked Khaos. “You say your ‘nothing’ is good, but what I create is not good. And now even the word I choose for my creation is not good.”

“Just give it another name,” Nyx said.

I looked away, trying to decide if it was worth giving it another name. Likely whatever I said, Khaos would not like it. 

“Then I will call it ‘earth’,” I said. 

“Earth?” Nyx said, nodding. “I like it.” 

“It is still not good,” Khaos said. 

I looked at Nyx. Her interest made me care less about what Khaos thought.

“Earth. Do you know what it does now?” Erebos asked. 

I sighed. 

“I still do not know.”

“Maybe I could make something too,” Nyx said. 

“No,” Khaos said, turning on her. “You do not want to make things. It would fill the void. It would disrupt the perfect nothing within the void. Look at this thing. It is clear that there is no purpose. It is imperfect. It is hot and messy. We do not need it. Nyx, you do not want to create useless things like Gaia.” 

Nyx looked at Erebos. She seemed sad. Erebos approached her and embraced her with his darkness.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I am sorry you cannot create.”

She nestled into him, burying her sadness in his deep and comforting darkness. As they stood together, their darkness intensified and began pushing out particles of light.

“Look!” I said, surprised. 

Nyx looked at the light gathering around their embrace. As she reached out a hand, her darkness repelled the light further, pushing it closer together and making it shine even brighter. 

Nyx looked at me and we smiled. She continued pushing the light, making it brighter and brighter. Erebos joined in, helping gather the light as they both repelled it.

“What are you doing?” Khaos said, frowning.  

“We are creating,” Nyx said. “It feels right.”

“Nothing is right about creation,” Khaos said. 

Nyx and Erebos kept working until two forms emerged from the brightness. 

Khaos stared at the two figures. 

“We will call them Aether and Hemera,” Nyx said, looking at Erebos. 

“Yes. It is good,” Erebos said. 

“Why?” Khaos asked in frustration. “Why would you add to the void?” 

“There is no need for the void to remain empty,” Nyx said. 

“Our darkness is now even darker,” Erebos said, slightly shrugging. 

“Darkness does not need to be darker,” Khaos said. “It was fine the way it was.”

“I like this better,” Erebos said. 

Khaos glared at me. 

“You are making them change things,” he said. 

“I am not making them do anything. They are doing these things on their own.” 

“I do not like it,” he said, moving away. He touched some of the elements of my earth, scattering them as he went. 

“It is still ugly,” he said over his shoulder. 

I looked at my earth as I repaired the damage, trying to ignore him. But, he was right. My creation was ugly. It looked even more so with the light of Hemera and Aether.  

My earth needed something. 

I watched Nyx and Erebos with the new creatures of light. Their creation process had been amazing — and different. My earth required molding and changing of the elements. Heat and pressure, melting and cooling. 

Nyx and Erebos had created theirs by combining their darkness. Darkness had pushed out the light. 

Light and dark.  

I smiled a little, watching Hemera pull away from Nyx. Light didn’t seem to like the dark.

Well, maybe ‘like’ wasn’t the right word. They were still repelled by each other, just as when they were created.

That got me thinking. 

Where were all of the elements pushed out by Khaos? His nothing must have pushed them somewhere. I had managed to get a few, but there had to be more. 

I left Nyx and the others to sort out their differences as I went to search for the other elements. I dragged my earth with me. 

“What are you doing?” Khaos said, as he watched me pass. 

“I am looking for something.” 

“What?” 

“Just something.” 

I didn’t want to tell him. I felt fairly confident he would try to stop me. He still seemed rather unhappy with what Nyx and Erebos had done. They were supposed to protect the void, not fill it with light. 

The earth was so heavy, but I was determined to find where Khaos had pushed the other elements. I went deeper and deeper into the void. 

“What issss that?” a voice asked. 

The voice made a hissing sound, like when the elements filled with too much of my heat and released it with a sigh. 

I struggled to see who was speaking.

“It is my earth,” I said, barely making out a figure in the darkness. “Who are you?”

“Tartarosss,” he said. “How do you like my abysss?” 

“Your abyss? It is quite dark.”

“Yesss,” he said. “The dark is sso comforting.”

“Comforting? I had never considered the dark comforting,” I said. 

“When all hope is losssst, when there is nothing elssse to do, the dark releasses you from all concern, all ambition, all desire for anything elssse.”

His words seemed to penetrate through to my core, cooling its heat. Why was I struggling so hard? Why did I care so much to build my earth? Why did I want to add to it? Wouldn’t it be better to give up? Rest? Let the darkness wrap me in its cooling embrace?

I closed my eyes, considering. 

“It hasss taken so much out of you. You dessserve to rest.” 

It had been so hard to create the earth. Khaos could destroy it so easily. All he had to do was touch it and the elements came apart. I had to pour in so much energy just to build it. It had taken so much. 

Maybe it was worth resting; worth abandoning my search. I could just float within the abyss. 

“Why are you here?” he asked. 

His question snapped me back. 

“I am looking for something,” I said, trying to rekindle my heat. 

“What?”

“Something I can use to expand my earth,” I said. “Do you know where Khaos has pushed the elements in his efforts to empty the void?” 

“They are here,” he said. 

“Really??” I said, gaining newfound energy. 

“But they have lossst their desire to become,” Tartaros said. “They want to sssstay here.” 

“Why??” 

“They are tired of being pussshed. They are tired of being unwanted. They have found ressst here.” 

“But I want them.” 

“They want nothing now.”

I turned to my earth. What could be done? Was all lost? How could I possibly create more, find what was missing, if all of the remaining elements wanted nothing? What could I do if they wanted to stay in the abyss?

Then I sensed something. 

You give us energy. You give us warmth. You give us purpose.

“Can you show me where the other elements are?” I asked Tartaros. 

“They are everywhere and nowhere,” he said. 

“May I look for them in your abyss?” 

“Yessss,” he said. 

I moved away from my earth, trying to sense the other elements. 

Don’t leave us alone with him, they cried.

I pulled my earth along with me. 

I tried to feel for the elements in the abyss, but the only elements I could sense were already mine. The abyss was so wide and deep. I moved about randomly, trying to sense any of them when I finally happened upon one. The one, lone element was dull and looked dead. It had no thoughts, no feelings.

And then I touched it. 

At my touch, it sprang to life. It glowed and I could sense it again. It was happy to be found, to have purpose. 

I was happy too, but my heart sank as I thought about how much time it had taken just to find this one. How would I possibly find more? 

It would take forever. 

I watched the little glowing element. It was bright and stood out clearly in the abyss. If only I could touch them all. If only I could infuse them with my energy, then they would be easy to find. I needed to wake them up. 

Drawing inward and focusing my heat and my power, I let it build. I stretched and strained my insides until it was close to bursting. Then, I pushed it all outward in a circle around me into the abyss. 

Instantly, elements everywhere sprang to life. There were so many of them, many I had likely passed during my search for the one I’d found. 

Come, I told them. Come. I beckoned and felt them finding their way to me. 

“What did you do?” Tartaros said, coming up alongside me. 

I could see him better now. He was not like me or the others. 

“I have found the elements,” I said.

“But you have given them ssssomething,” he said. “What did you do?”

“I woke them up. I gave them my energy.”

He frowned. 

“You are not like Khaos said. But ssssome of them ssstill sleep.”

“May I take the ones that are awake?” 

He didn’t answer.

“I will take them out of your abyss. I will move them so you do not have to worry about them.”

“I do not worry about them.”

“You would not have to care about them anymore.”

“I do not care about them.”

“Then may I take them?” 

More silence. 

“Yesss,” he finally said. “But you may only take thossse that want to go with you.” 

I could barely contain my excitement. I spread my arms and gathered in all of the elements who had come, and even more I could now feel. As they converged and combined with my heat, they started changing form and a new figure emerged. 

“A new one?” Tartaros said, curious.

“Pontos,” the newcomer said. 

Finally, someone for me. My heart filled to bursting, creating more of Pontos’s elements. 

“Thank you,” Pontos said, gathering them up. He tried moving them away from me, but they turned solid in the abyss. He brought them back. 

“I believe we are meant to be together,” he said. 

I smiled. I would no longer be alone. 

“Will you help me leave the abyss?” I said to Pontos.

“I am ready,” he said. 

Together we collected the elements and began pushing. It was so much easier with his strength working beside mine. I couldn’t believe it. It was almost effortless.

Could it be? 

Could I have found the thing my earth was missing?

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