Infinite Space

Sylvia Plath (source: Wikimedia)

The piece was inspired by a line in a poem by Sylvia Plath.

It was like a marriage that was never meant to be, but had to be. Like two spiraling arms of a cyclone, we plunged headlong into each other, we were wedlocked into a tight embrace, fondling while we loved and ravaging each other while we hated.

Neither knew what would be, we experienced the present without prescience. Though I am much older than Life, I couldn't claim to be much wiser. I could claim as much credit for the Sylvan landscape, as the leaf could for the incredible chloroplast.

The early stirrings were indiscernible. My ancient oceans were a soup, with the ingredients that had been forged in the belly of the stars. My only company was the sun, the moon and the occasional asteroid. The distant stars with their cold light creeping across the infinite spaces were but a reminder of my infinitesimal existence.

The ages, I silently observed, at first without concern or care for the precious phenomenon upon my bosom. Life suckled at my ample teats, the Sun fertilised me with a continuous stream of radiant heat. I came to love that which could care no more for me than those distant stars. It was a love like none other, primal, unforgiving, merciless, brutal and nourishing.

Out of the oceans crawled out the crabs, soon on slithering spines did Life's tentacles spread across my lands. Lush forests festooned my rainfed belt, the sparse mountains blossomed into multitudinous colours. Life grew in complexity, the ages swept by, leaving an assortment of species, one stranger than the other, one more ingenious than the other. Every niche, thinkable and unthinkable soon became occupied, only to be wiped out by my calamitous nature, only to respawn and crawl back, in a new form, a varied garb, a stranger ecosystem that one couldn't have dreamed of in their wildest delusions.

My brethren remained sterile, their vast expanses lay bare and exposed to the infinite spaces above. My soil was covered by the canopies, my mantle became fluid and flowed, the tiniest bacteria began causing tectonic shifts. My atmosphere changed, my climate changed. My soils changed, so did my rivers, oceans and lakes. Everywhere, life held on with a tighter grip than before.

I iced over once, with the frosty fingers reaching into my tropics. The very oceans turned into an icy slush, I almost suffocated Life. But Life held on with much more vigour than I had anticipated, biding its time for a favourable sunrise.

Over the ages, Life became aware enough of me, only to ravage me, and to become aware of my own assaults, some retaliatory, and some unprovoked.

Humans emerged on the horizon, building civilizations a fortnight after they climbed down from their trees. The cities grew hungrier and thirstier. The rivers were all diverted into them, and they emerged black and full of stink, with a sludge that could not support the very Life that I had nourished for ages in my harsh lap. The wheat and barley grass grew were once great forests stood, now uprooted and gutted. The noble whales were hunted without mercy. The long dead forms of Life were dredged up, their ghosts filled the air with noxious fumes and trapped the sun's heat. The Humans went on heedless, with disregard for the rest of Life and for their nourishing partner.

Their follies compounded and destroyed their own numbers. Their poor died first, and their rich died too. Out of the ashes emerged an enlightened biped, with an awareness unsurpassed. With locks of hair flaming red, their consciousness could contemplate the mysteries of the universe. One no more felt small and lonely while surveying the infinite spaces, the twinkling stars, now seemed to beckon. I go forth now with my child, my lover, my paramour. Each indistinguishable from the other. Out of the ashes, I rise, like a volcano, exploding the red entrails into the skies, and I eat the parsecs like air.