I remember the night I graduated from Olympus Mons Military Academy.
I remember what my father told me,
the "one hundred percent true story of the creation of mankind."
There was a being who lived on Venus, all alone he lived, so alone he wasn't even sure he was living. This being had no name, but they had a heart that beat and a mind that thought.
He lived on a Venus that this universe has never seen, nor will ever see. Space and time are fabrics, but even the finest of linens have space, impossibly small amounts of space and within them universes. This being lived on a Venus woven into the fabric of time itself.
This being prepared a torch,
fueled by matter the likes of which humanity knew, but has forgotten and will never remember.
He lit this torch and carried it through the fabric of time.
He spoke to beings there about time and he did not like what they thought of time and so he took the torch elsewhere, abandoning the others in a perfect nothingness.
He took his torch to Mercury and asked the beings there what they thought of space.
He did not like what they had to say about space and so he left them in their chaotic abundance of space.
Dissatisfied, he traveled to the furthest edge of the universe and looked Beyond. He asked the beings there what they thought of space and time.
They did not answer.
He asked them what they thought of existence and they told him to stop speaking.
They asked him what fueled his torch and he refused the answer.
They grew angry and decided to try and strike a bargain.
They told him they'd reveal their thoughts on time and space if he reveals what burns his torch.
They told him time is only within his mind and that space is a projection thereof.
He fled.
He fled to earth and dropped his torch there, and it burned to the center of the planet.
He returned to the fabric of Venus and thought for an impossible amount of time and willed time and space to cease and yet he could not.
After, he willed himself to cease existing and he did.
His torch stopped burning with him and humankind was born from the ashes, they crawled from the center of Earth and wept for their creator.
I asked my father what this meant and he told me to stop speaking, and asked me what fuels my torch. Once I answer that, I will understand.