Everything:
An Abridged History
(continued)
Gradually, North Peterman Avenue grew more full with skinny bugs, flying
creatures visible only as swishes of color at times, and unlimited stones
of infinite shape, texture and color, each with their own fascinating
qualities, keeping the trio of namers quite busy. Oceans held fishes and
beat the rocks into sand. Stars mirrored in the seas brightened the face
of the moon, a luminous sphere in the night, unless covered by storm clouds,
which filled the oceans with their substance. Still, the launchpad of
existence hung ever over Zed and Biv like an ugly cloud.
That there was no authority on the subject was thoroughly frustrating.
It would be silly to ask Nothing questions about its origins. The Creator
was unreachable and visible only in hints, and debatable testimonies determined
to keep his existence a mystery. And the something represented by dogs,
moose, and the assorted flotsam that made up everything, really didn't
care where they had come from, but were happy being something, rather
than nothing.
"I dunno," responded a sea otter, shrugging when queried on
the source and purpose of everything. There was a brief pause as he thought,
floating on his back in the slow ripple of calm ocean shallows. "Does
it really matter?"
That it certainly did matter was one of few points Zed and Biv agreed
upon, aside from their own malcontent, and that the purpose of everything
was nebulous at best. Ultimately, in the possibility of everything having
no point at all, they decided they had better give it one.
Zed decreed the purpose of everything was to become sophisticated and
marvelous as it expanded from its point of detonation. Biv naturally felt
the purpose of everything was to find the person who made it and express
thanks.
Again, neither could agree on a solitary purpose, nor could they accept
everything as having more than a singular justification for existing.
So their irritation perpetuated and intensified. The only clear recourse
was to reduce everything to nothing once again, hoping once everything
was nothing, nothing might become something again, and they could witness
how it happened the first time.
North Peterman Avenue became subdued at this revelation. The most wary
creatures waited in suspense for what seemed inevitable destruction: something
they were not yet familiar with, but dreaded all the same. Woodpeckers
stabbed nervously at the trees in an attempt to distract themselves with
meaningless toil while nightingales sang mournful dirges of woe-filled
expectation. It was too bad, thought the collective brain of an ant colony
near where Zed and Biv pondered and argued, for the rocks and potatoes
and elephants populating the planet had thus far enjoyed their existence
regardless of where they originated. That was just the way it went, the
colony supposed, for those with little power could hardly prevent the
recklessness of others.
Sensing the palpable worry of North Peterman Avenue, evident in the dank, ominous air, Fidge interjected, arguing they ought to enjoy something rather than fuss over where it had come from as it would be a horrible tragedy to destroy everything, which was in all likelihood a fluke that might not repeat itself. Zed's response was to tell Fidge he should stuff his cakehole. Indignant at having his own idea spurned by determined snobbery, Fidge fisted Zed in the eye and the two rolled beneath a clouding sky. Biv, seeing this as an excuse to vent his frustration, leapt on the both of them and thumped with his giant, dirty hands.
As Zed, Biv and Fidge warred, another label pioneered by Zed, other creatures
occasionally happened by, drawn by the uncharacteristic racket of something
yet to be defined. In this particular instance, the spectators were two
friends: Monkey and Elephant. Monkey and Elephant spent their time wandering
across North Peterman Avenue, observing everything they were not in utter
wonderment when they happened upon an unprecedented and none-too-pleasant
ruckus.
"What are they doing?" Monkey wondered to his comrade through a crack in his mouth.
Trees fell beneath the rage of battling über-beasts, and all the
landscape they encountered was made a wreckage. Elephant poked at his
head with an opposable nose, attempting to jostle an answer loose from
the chunky wadding of ideas clumped in his mind.
"Ah, destroying," Elephant replied after a moment of thought.
Monkey turned.
"Is that what they call it?"
"I just invented it," answered Elephant.
"I thought it was their job to name things," said Monkey, gesturing
to the oscillating pile of fists and punches.
"They're busy."
That seemed to satisfy.
"Destroying," Monkey repeated thoughtfully. "Is it a very
pleasant thing?"
Elephant shrugged.
"I couldn't say. Perhaps. Why else would they be doing it? You might
let me destroy you, and then we'd both have an answer."
Again, Monkey considered, chewing at the end of his tail as he pondered.
"Makes good sense to me," Monkey replied at last. "Have
at it then."
Elephant nodded and turned to watch the combatants as they tumbled, waving
his appendages with the minimal skill of infantile mimicry before deciding
he was ready. After a bit of searching, Elephant found a sizable rock
and approached Monkey, watching the battle with baffled curiosity, and
clomped him over the head. Monkey, stunned, dropped into the dirt.
"How now?" asked Elephant, tossing the rock aside. There was a long silence as he awaited the answer. Elephant flexed his trunk and rolled Monkey, who flopped lifelessly. "How now, I say."
Still there was no answer, and Elephant began to shift anxiously over
his motionless friend as a newly indefinable emotion began to take hold
of him. Moments passed as the notion that the consequences of Destroying
were irreversible plummeted through his mind, gathering horror and fear
as it fell, giving the thought greater and more destructive momentum when
it finally plowed into his heart like a stone through a stained-glass
window. At a terrible price, Elephant had his answer.
"I hate Destroying!" Elephant trumpeted, the tears gushing out
his eyes and blinding him as he dashed aimlessly over the terrain, trampling
all in his path and introducing Destroying to still more of the world.
But grief, pursuing on silent wings, could never be outdistanced.
In the tremendous frenzied argument that ensued between these creatures
of unprecedented hugeness, something pummeled something else until most
everything was rendered virtually nothing: the raw materials of creation.
At this point, Something did indeed arise from this new nothing, naming
itself Edgar. Edgar was immediately satisfied at being extant, and the
first thing he did was curl his face into what Fidge called a smile. Overwhelmed
by a sensation of happiness, Edgar felt compelled to name this mood so
he could share it with others, so he entitled the feeling Fraffle. Turning
about in appraisal of wonderful everything, which was largely broken rocks
and mud, Edgar spotted the small bit of something that remained, a three-headed
tangle that appeared to be fighting itself. Thrilled, he introduced himself.
"Hello," said Edgar cheerily. "My name is Edgar. I'm very
Fraffle to meet you."
Kicking, swinging and biting with sportless anti-chivalry as their energy
waned, Zed, Biv and Fidge were too exhausted to pay Edgar any attention.
After numerous introductions went unrequited, Edgar turned to the shattered
world around him and found himself Here. Since Here was a place unfamiliar
to him, it was clear the vagary would need a familiar identifier, since
the unfamiliar was invariably frightening.
"I'll call this Cosmo's Lunch Buffet," he decided with a content
smile.
At once the raging incoherence of single-minded madness released its
battling grip and returned to long-abandoned civility. The trio of combatants
separated, and Fidge fell limp into the dirt.
Zed stomped forward through the rubble, bleeding from the forehead. Biv
followed.
"You can't name this," Zed asserted. "It already has a
name."
Edgar's mouth opened.
"North Peterman Avenue," Biv snapped with authority and assurance,
answering the question that would surely follow.
Edgar squinted.
"How long has it been here?" he asked.
Zed and Biv looked to one another, wondering.
"A week," Zed ventured.
"That long?" asked Biv, his brow rumpling.
The two shared a ponderous look that ended with an indifferent shrug.
"Has it always been..." Edgar paused to look around at the desolate,
empty place, strewn with broken rocks and dirt, but not much else. "Like
this?"
"Oh no. Of course not," said Biv with a wide smile made broad by memory. "It used to be much nicer. With birds and elephants and otters and potatoes and stuff."
Edgar's face twisted at the unfamiliar but pleasing words, regretting
having missed it all.
"How did this happen? How are you going to get it back?"
The fascination of things occupying the bleakness had seized Edgar with
an insatiable wondering. Where had it all gone? And more importantly,
when would it return?
"Ah, well," Zed began while Biv fidgeted. "Uh."
"Er," Biv added, complementing Zed's false starts with an undertone
of similarly meaningless noise.
"Where did it come from?" Edgar went on. There seemed to be
no end to his questions, but Zed and Biv were happy to leave the prior
inquiry.
"Ah!" said Zed alertly, and explained his theory of explosive, spontaneous generation.
Biv was quick to follow with his notion of a great maker, leaving only Fidge without a view on how everything came inexplicably from absolute zero. Of course, being face down in the dirt anything Fidge had to add was unamplified and reflected back into his mouth along with a lungful of grit.
Amidst the prattle of Zed and Biv, Fidge found the strength to raise himself. The movement drew Edgar's attention and he gazed in amazement at this new creature. Edgar, who had seen the fighting from a distance but turned to the world when he didn't understand it, was utterly oblivious to Fidge's existence until this point. To his knowledge, Fidge had only recently come into creation. He was new to everything, and perhaps would be the most enlightened of them all, since he was the most familiar with the nothingness that came just before something.
Still, Edgar couldn't help but think this new creature was deformed and
ugly.
Fidge glared with his giant eyes, pinched, watery and swollen, at the
ruined everything, bruised where it was not broken, not unlike himself.
Being the smallest and least able to defend himself, he had absorbed the
worst of the thrashing. Welts rose across his body, distorting a face
that throbbed as he scowled.
As Biv finished, it was clearly Fidge's turn to give his assessment of
the epitomal source.
Zed, Biv and Edgar all waited for Fidge to explain what everything was
and what it was doing there. To offer his dispute, his menial conflicting
story. To loft kindling into an already towering pillar of fire. His lips
quirked and parted soundlessly, then closed again. Nothing. Instead, he
approached with short, mincing steps because it hurt to walk, and looked
up at Edgar, two heads taller than Fidge and staring down in curiosity.
Somehow Edgar felt this small fellow would be the most convincing of all,that
in his mind rested the true secrets of purpose.
Fidge panned again across a shattered and pulverized landscape, empty
of all but broken ground and ruin, before looking up to Edgar. The wind
around them was hot and heavy, filled with fatigue and malcontent. It
seemed so long since any stories had been told. All the joy had been drubbed
from the ruined wasteland, leaving only the most dismal tales to fester
and write themselves. The purpose of everything seemed quite clear.
At last, thought Edgar, his face opening with Fraffle-beridden joy, an
answer. Even Zed and Biv found themselves hopeful they might leave the
worn question behind, buried by the heapings of sense and understanding.
At last.
The sonorous and fulfilling toll of At Last filled the minds of all but Fidge, who planted a fist on Edgar's cheek, sending him backward to the ground, where Fidge leapt upon him and pounded away. For a moment, Zed and Biv watched in awe as Fidge thumped Edgar, eyes expanded in astonishment only to absorb hammerblows and sharp elbows, who couldn't understand the purpose of this sudden violence. Fright and alarm had taken him, and all feelings of Fraffle were lost.
The dizzy sensation of confusion began to fill Zed and Biv, a sickening
reminder of the misery of dissatisfaction. Before, they recalled, their
recourse had been the distraction of combat. Maybe that was the purpose
of everything. To buffet itself into oblivion and make itself over. Maybe
names and purpose were arbitrary and without meaning deliberately. Not
to baffle and elude, but because they were not supposed to be wondered
at. Maybe the only escape from wondering was obliteration.
They looked to one another, finally finding a point they could agree upon,
and leapt toward Fidge.
At last.
