History of Loneliness

 

In a beginning, there was nothing. Then, God said.

There were light and trees and oceans and horizons,

and there was Adam.

 

God said everything into existence,

Those that missed something nonexistent no longer suffered.

 

Darkness was lonely, and there was fire.

The trees were despondent, there was shade.

Adam was aching. God said. And there was Eve.

God said “This is very good.” And it was.

 

But soon, Adam and Eve realized they missed the longing they’d felt without each other.

They built a fire, darkness disappeared,

and when the fire sputtered out, darkness became even louder,

thicker than before the first flame.

 

When Eve ate the fruit, and offered it to Adam,

they were sent out of Eden.

And the first people on the planet felt another kind of longing,

called: homesickness.

 

Ever since then, people have been obsessed with the notion of home,

and the notion of emptiness,

not to mention God.

 

You see, in a beginning,

God didn’t know that people could long for nothing,

could court nothing, could fall in love with absence.

 

So God filled God’s world with endless somethings

that begat more somethings,

and each something found a longing inside

that no other something could fill.

 

They say God’s light was a vessel that splintered

into millions of pieces.

We are glittering fragments, trying to heal the world

by finding light in each other.

We are drawn to glowing, because we are drawn to God.

 

They also say that God didn’t create the world,

but is creating the world,

so we are constantly repairing and shattering,

and repairing again.

 

It wasn’t the beginning,

it was a beginning,

and it was an ending.

It was the end of nothing.

 

– Heather Paul, 2007