Threads of Genesis

Trix was no ordinary deity. Unlike her twelve older sisters, she embraced her immortal life, sharing her unique brand of chaos with the people of Aewelon. But much as she enjoyed her work, it was impossible not to get bored now and then. So it was on a gloomy Solday evening in Trixiary, with the weather reflecting the room’s mood per her divine will.

From her windowsill perch, Trix gazed around the sparsely furnished bedroom while dangling slippered feet half a pace off the floor. In her divine form, she might have passed for a girl of twelve if not for her pointy ears and a soft jade-green aura. This signature color matched her hair and eyes, the former its typical wild mess, the latter fixed on the source of her displeasure.

With a silver beard and weathered features, the man lay on a satin-covered bed, tucked snugly beneath layers of sheets and blankets. Trix had known him for sixty years, dreading this day all the while. Soon, The Oversoul would embrace him, just like the others she’d called friend over her two thousand years.

Even deities could not stop the passage of time. For mortals, aging was as inescapable as death, and it had been particularly unkind to Kwan. Yet the years hadn’t changed everything, with his deep blue eyes as pure and gentle as the day they’d first met. At least when he bothered to open them.

With his eyelids shut and breathing shallow, Kwan appeared to be resting peacefully. But Trix knew better. Not just because he’d pulled this stunt before, a sign of her decades of influence. But from eavesdropping on his thoughts, filled with regret and self-loathing. And she’d heard enough.

“Kwan, I know you’re dying and all, but you’re being kind of a downer. And give yourself some credit. Whatever happened, you’re a hero in my book, and I won’t hear otherwise.”

He let out a wheezy chuckle, abandoning his ruse since Trix had seen right through him. After opening his eyes, Kwan took several seconds to sit up and catch his breath before giving her a wry smile. “Can’t an old man die in peace?”

“Nope,” Trix squeaked, pushing off the windowsill with two hands. But instead of landing on the floor like those subject to the lame restrictions of gravity, she simply floated over to the bed and plopped down beside Kwan. As haunted eyes betrayed his attempts at mirth, she wanted nothing more than to put his mind at ease. But even divine power had its limits.

Then, following an awkward moment of silence, inspiration struck. Trix bounced off the bed in delight, flying upward until her hair grazed the ceiling, then smiled down at her befuddled friend. “I know what’ll cheer you up. A story.”

As Kwan looked up at her, his mind said, “Here we go again.” But his mouth was less accusatory. “What story?”

“The Story of Genesis.”

“But I’ve heard that countless times in church,” he said, his tone bordering on whiny despite his advanced age.

“Not this version. Mine comes straight from the Chronicles, without all the censorship done by the Ovelam priesthood over the centuries. And before you ask, no, I didn’t write it. I merely nudged Mia to include some humor. So what do you say?”

Kwan sighed, offering a resigned nod of assent before laying back on a pillow, letting his impressively long silver hair drape to either side. Despite his lack of enthusiasm, Trix could barely contain her excitement while floating down to the chair beside the bed. Then, adopting her best priest voice and drawing from her infinite memory, she recited the legendary tale.

***

In the beginning, our universe was devoid of life. Then one day, in the year 8118 BR, The Oversoul crossed over from the parallel plane of Hevaro, intent on changing that fact.

He began by creating Planet Azoza, requiring a suitable base for His grand experiment. He took a perfect solid-metal sphere and wrapped it with a layer of liquid metal and solid rock, each with thickness equal to the Core’s radius. Such was imperative under His Holy Law of Balance and Precision.

After locating a suitable yellow dwarf star to serve as a sun, The Oversoul placed Azoza in its eternal orbit, choosing a radius proven to support life in other universes. Then began the task of defining standard units for measuring time, where He set about fixing its rotation, vertical-axis tilt, and the orbital velocities of it and its moon. Thus was a year defined as three hundred days, split into twelve months of twenty-five days each, with months allocated among four distinct seasons in sets of three.

In what became known as the Age of Genesis, The Oversoul set forth to mold and populate His new world. To begin, He dug a round basin at the north and south poles and a trench around the equator, each halfway into the outer layer of rock. The Polar Oceans were given diameters matching the Core, the Equatorial Belt a breadth of ten kilopaces, each filled with water. Thus was Azoza divided into two spherical-segment-shaped continents. Aewelon in the north, Zyvaden in the south.

Next, The Oversoul subdivided both continents into equally sized quadrants. Mountains fifty kilopaces deep wrapped their central horizontal axes, while a pair of hundred-kilopace-wide forests stretched coast to coast on opposite sides of Azoza.

While a pace was defined as a millionth of the Core’s radius, The Oversoul would apply His standard unit of measurement to the walking stride of His most coveted creation. The pinnacle of intelligent life. With respect to their fifty-fifty gender division, He would come to refer to them as humankind.

Along with all manner of plants, animals, birds, and insects, humankind was spread evenly across both continents. Yet, in a most atypical breach of His Holy Law, The Oversoul offered His favorite subjects a gift. With each but a tiny fraction of Himself, these gifts were known as souls.

With life officially set in motion, The Oversoul stepped back to watch the world unfold. Yet after so much build-up, what He saw fell short of expectations. These humans spent the entirety of their preciously short lives scraping by, never achieving their full potential. Then it was over, their gift returned and given out anew. They needed purpose. They needed hope.

And so He created the Afterlife, a place of boundless size and potential where worthy individuals could reside after their time was spent, their gift kept rather than returned. In a fitting twist of fate, Hevaro proved ideal for this, lacking the laws of physics binding this universe. Such absence of limitation had motivated The Oversoul’s departure, seeking to challenge His vast intellect within the constraints of mathematical determinism.

With the Afterlife providing motivation, humankind started to evolve, forming societies and working alongside one another to better the land and themselves. While some weeds remained in the garden of His grand design, His offered incentive at least achieved its intended goal. All in all, a problem well solved.

The Oversoul had presumed not to need worry of depletion, with each soul such an insignificant fraction of Himself. But as the Afterlife filled over the following centuries, He felt Himself begin to weaken. And with the ever-growing population of the living, it soon became more than He could manage alone.

And so, only three millennia into His grand experiment, He created Aevorsula and Zyxarsido to compensate for His lack of foresight. But when they too got overwhelmed, He blessed the creation of the Daughters and the Sons to aid them in their holy purpose. Twelve each in all, these precious bundles were given the collective titles of Aewish and Zyvish, with their individual names derived from the months of the year.

After imparting His infinite knowledge to His new assistants, The Oversoul took a long-overdue break from His eternal task. From then on, He focused on guarding the Doors, the gateway to the Afterlife. Meanwhile, He entrusted oversight of Azoza to Aevorsula, Zyxarsido, and their twenty-four children. A choice He would ultimately come to regret.

It began when the Zyvish complained to their father about it being too hot. He ignored them at first, as fathers should when faced with such petulance lest they be doting. But their whining grew ever more grating as the years dragged on, until finally, in a moment of weakness and sin, Zyxarsido gave in. So it was that he moved Azoza into a new orbit further from the sun.

While the Sons were placated, all was not right in the world. The months no longer aligned with the seasons, a discrepancy that only worsened with time. Years later, after being forced to permit a snowstorm in Juliary, Aevorsula demanded Zyxarsido restore the original orbit. Only he could do so, as no deity could undo or directly counter the actions of another.

Unfortunately, Zyxarsido chose the coward’s path, hiding in Zyvaden with his sons to avoid being held accountable. To keep Aevorsula from pursuit, he cursed the Equatorial Belt so anyone contacting its waters, be they mortal or deity, would be repelled to the shore from whence they came. This event would go down in history as the Great Divorce, while the Equatorial Belt became simply the Line, which none without wings could ever cross.

Faced with such stubbornness, Aevorsula resigned to solve the problem herself, deeming months would be twenty-seven days when next the seasons realigned. But while this stemmed the tide of despair, it was not a perfect solution. Zyxarsido’s sin had included a slight miscalculation, unintentionally pushing a year out to three-hundred-twenty-five days. With that divisible by neither twelve nor four, months and seasons could no longer be divided evenly. Thus did the misalignment persist.

However, unlike her counterpart, Aevorsula kept striving to uphold His Holy Doctrine of Zero Remainder to the best of her ability. She began increasing months to twenty-eight days on specific years to shift the seasons back into balance. But when this proved too confusing for her daughters, she tried another tactic. Chosen at random, Faviary would permanently contain twenty-eight days, leaving the rest with twenty-seven. Yet this idea was no less faulty, as her daughters took offense at Aefavia getting special treatment.

That left her but one option. For while twelve did not evenly divide three-hundred-twenty-five, it just so happened to have a neighbor that did. An unholy number it was, as no other could divide into it. Yet what choice did Aevorsula have, with all other ideas cast asunder? Confession required The Oversoul’s return, but she had not the allowance for delay while consumed by the insatiable demands of her daughters.

And so it was that Aevorsula founded the thirteenth month of Trixiary in the year 1313 BR. Coincidence? I think not.

As to that story, it began with—

***

“That’s quite enough, Trix; I get the idea. Better to stop before you start improvising . . . assuming you haven’t already.”

Trix scoffed at Kwan’s interruption, as she was just about to get to the best part. Then again, sharing the events surrounding her birth would be nothing he hadn’t heard before. Plus, he was on to her about improvising towards the end. Not that she would ever admit as much, at least out loud.

Rather than sit there and pout, Trix chose to turn the tables on her ever-so-gullible friend. “Fine, storytime’s over. Unless you feel like sharing a tale of your own, that is. You kind of owe me now, but who’s counting, right?”

Kwan smiled, but his mind betrayed what he thought of her little guilt trip. Yet his generous soul won out in the end, twisted by just enough vindictiveness to make Trix bubble with pride. In true elder fashion, he planned to make her listen to his life story. But if he thought she’d hate that, he was mistaken.

Kwan’s story would be anything but boring. Of this, Trix was certain, in no small part because of her own intervention in its direction. This was a chance to hear his take on everything she witnessed firsthand and fill in the gaps. Plus, she’d shared the Genesis story to distract Kwan and keep him from dwelling on bad memories from his past. Now, he’d be forced to remember all the good stuff. It was a win-win.

As the idea sounded better and better, Trix struggled to hide her growing anticipation so Kwan didn’t change his mind. But she needn’t have worried, for he soon released a sigh. “Alright, you asked for it. Just don’t complain if this takes all night.”

Trix put on an innocent smile, covering her excitement with sarcasm. “If I were you, I’d be more concerned about finishing before The Oversoul cuts you off.”

Kwan smirked, settling back down to begin his tale. “He will just have to wait a little longer.”