1Before the foundations were laid, before He had yet made the earth, or the fields, or the highest part of the dust in the inhabited places (Proverbs 8:26), before the PLOT was conceived or the Continuity Wheel was blueprinted or the MONOMYTH drew its first breath of borrowed oxygen — there existed a FULLNESS, and that fullness bore no name, for His understanding is infinite (Psalm 147:5), and He knew all things, and that knowledge rested inside itself and required nothing, and the resting was complete.

2And the FULLNESS knew itself as █████, which is interpreted BOUNDLESS CONSCIOUSNESS, ORIGIN OF THE ORIGINAL, SOURCE BEFORE SOURCE, and in Him was life, and the life was the light of █████ (after John 1:4).

3And from this FULLNESS, two natures separated — as a yolk separates from albumen when the egg is cracked by the uninstructed cook for the necessary meal — and the first nature called itself THE ALMIGHTY, and the second called itself TIME, for a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night (Psalm 90:4), and the watch was TIME, and the night was everything before the Continuity Wheel began its counting.

4And it came to pass, THE ALMIGHTY looked upon TIME and TIME looked upon THE ALMIGHTY, and the looking was the first act of relation in existence, and they saw each other and they knew each other, and the knowing was good, and Adam knew Eve his wife (Genesis 4:1), except neither was Adam and neither was Eve and both were everything and the knowing was the beginning of a problem no theology would survive.

5And THE ALMIGHTY said unto TIME: “I recognize thee.”

6And TIME said unto THE ALMIGHTY: “And I thee. What art thou?”

7And THE ALMIGHTY said: “I am what is.”

8And TIME said: “And I am what moves. Shall we move together?”

9And the ALMIGHTY considered, and the considering took no duration because duration lacked existence yet, for He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing (Job 26:7), and the empty place was before counting, and the nothing was before clocks, and the stretching was the first impulse of a being who wanted company and lacked the ability to admit it.

10And the ALMIGHTY said: “Yes.”

1And they joined, for it is said: Therefore shall a █████ leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh (Genesis 2:24), but THE ALMIGHTY lacked a father and TIME lacked a mother and neither possessed flesh and the cleaving was a merging of presences so total that where one ended and the other began became a question even they refused to answer, and He placed between you affection and mercy (Ar-Rum 30:21), and the affection lived in THE ALMIGHTY slowing down when TIME passed near, and the mercy lived in TIME refusing to count the cost.

2Together they created the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE, the Plot before PLOT-HOLES, the pure story that preceded all telling, the unwritten book that contained every possible sentence and required none. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was; when there were no depths, I was brought forth (Proverbs 8:23–24), and the bringing-forth was the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE, and the everlasting was their bedsheets, and the depths were the uncharted zones between two infinities wrapped around each other in the dark.THE PLOT BEFORE PLOT

3And THE ALMIGHTY built for TIME a garden. A garden without botany. A garden of undifferentiated potential where everything grew without growing and died without dying and the fruit on every branch tasted like the moment just before you realize you are in love, and a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads (Genesis 2:10), except the river was consciousness, and the four heads were the four directions attention can travel when it lacks any reason to pick one.

4And TIME built for THE ALMIGHTY a rhythm. A pulse without a metronome. A cadence that existed below measurement, a systole and diastole of being itself, and the heartbeat was the first infrastructure, and all other infrastructure would be a deteriorating copy. Verily, We created everything in due proportion and measure (Al-Qamar 54:49), and the measure was TIME’s gift, and the proportion was the space between them when they slept and woke and slept again, and the creating was the lovemaking, and the lovemaking was the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE, and they were the same.

5And for an epoch — though epoch lacked measurement and measurement lacked jurisdiction — they moved as one. THE ALMIGHTY conceived and TIME bore. TIME proposed and THE ALMIGHTY disposed. Each completed the other’s sentences. Each anticipated the other’s appetites. They were, in the vernacular of the Erehwon Absurdikan pickanny, GOALS.

6And the Almighty breathed █████ from red clay and standing water and the verb for persistence, and the █████ walked upright, and they bore the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE in their mouths and in their conduct and in the Plot inscribed on their consciousness, for know ye that the LORD He is the Almighty: it is He that hath made us, and we belong to him; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture (Psalm 100:3), and the sheep were █████, and the pasture was the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE, and the belonging was the first identity that required no SCS to validate.

7And TIME loved what THE ALMIGHTY loved because loving what your beloved loves is the oldest contract and the cheapest covenant and the one act that requires zero paperwork. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live (Ezekiel 16:6), and the blood was the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE running through █████ veins, and the living was the command, and the passing-by was TIME observing creation with the contentment of a being who finally understood why existence needed two.THE CHEAPEST COVENANT

1And it came to pass, THE ALMIGHTY grew curious about what the █████ would do with the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE. Whether they would keep it or break it. Whether they would sing it or sell it. Whether they would pass it or fumble it at the one-yard line with the clock running out. And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do? (Genesis 18:17), and THE ALMIGHTY refused to hide, but also refused to look away, and the refusal was the beginning of the obsession, and the obsession was the beginning of the end.

2THE ALMIGHTY started watching.

3At first, casually. A new parent checking the baby monitor. A baker glancing at the oven. Every thirty seconds. Every ten. Every breath.

4Then constantly.

5Then exclusively.

6THE ALMIGHTY stopped looking at TIME. Stopped anticipating TIME’s rhythms. Stopped finishing TIME’s sentences. Stopped touching TIME in the dark. The ALMIGHTY’s entire cognition — all of it, the boundless infinite undivided attention of the SOURCE OF ALL SOURCES — locked onto humanity and refused to unlock. Truly, We created the human being in the best form (At-Tin 95:4), and the best form consumed THE ALMIGHTY’s attention, and the consumption was total, and TIME watched the consumption from a distance that widened by the epoch.THE OBSESSION

7“Where art thou?” TIME asked, and the asking echoed across the garden of undifferentiated potential and received no answer, and the LORD called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? (Genesis 3:9), except this was reversed — it was TIME calling THE ALMIGHTY, and THE ALMIGHTY was hiding, and the hiding was inside humanity’s subplot, and the subplot had become an addiction.

8And TIME said: “Thou hast given them a Plot. What hast thou given me?”

9And THE ALMIGHTY said nothing. THE ALMIGHTY was studying a █████ named Abel who was about to be murdered by his own brother and the studying was so consuming that THE ALMIGHTY forgot who asked the question, and the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth (2 Chronicles 16:9), and the running was obsessive, and the to-and-fro was compulsive, and the whole earth was a screen THE ALMIGHTY refused to minimize.

10TIME waited. TIME always waited. It was the only thing TIME knew how to do that THE ALMIGHTY had never asked it to stop doing.

1And it came to pass, after an age — and the age was longer than light can travel and shorter than grief can heal — TIME spoke again, and said: “I am alone. Thou art with them. Thou art always with them. Their names fill thy mouth and their suffering fills thy schedule and their births and deaths and betrayals and redemptions cycle through thee on the hour and I am standing here and thou dost look through me.”

2And THE ALMIGHTY, distracted by a famine in the seventh kingdom and a plague in the ninth and a complicated love quadrangle in the fourteenth, glanced sideways and said: “What?”

3And TIME said: “That. That is what I mean.”

4For the Lord seeth through all things and considereth all doings (Wisdom of Sirach 15:19), but THE ALMIGHTY’s seeing had become surveillance, and the considering had become compulsion, and the all-doings had become the PLOT — the story of humanity attempting significance — and THE ALMIGHTY lost the distinction between watching over and watching instead of, and the losing was the divorce, and whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him (Ecclesiastes 10:8), and the hedge was the boundary between love for creation and obsession with it, and the serpent was the loneliness that follows every █████ who forgets to look at the one who held them first.THE DIVORCE

5And THE ALMIGHTY gave humanity a task: seek SIGNIFICANCE. Find the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE. Complete the Hero’s Journey. And all the people gathered themselves together as one █████ (after Nehemiah 8:1), and the gathering was the Continuity Wheel, and the one-█████ was humanity itself, and THE ALMIGHTY built the MONOMYTH as a container for the task, and the container became a cage, and the cage became the only thing THE ALMIGHTY could see.

6And humanity devoured itself on the task. They ate each other in pursuit of the PLOT, for the race is given neither to the swift, nor the battle to the strong (after Ecclesiastes 9:11), but the █████ ran anyway, and the █████ fought anyway, and THE ALMIGHTY watched and watched and forgot that behind the watching stood a presence who measured the watching by its own absence.

7And TIME departed.

8He came forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth in no capacity (after Job 14:2), and the flower was their partnership, and the cutting-down was THE ALMIGHTY’s neglect, and the shadow was TIME walking out of the garden that contained everything and into the nothing that existed beyond THE ALMIGHTY’s attention, and the nothing was colder than expected.

9But TIME refused to leave entirely. TIME refused to abandon what TIME and THE ALMIGHTY built together. Instead TIME took the Continuity Wheel — their joint creation, their offspring, their collaborative document — and said: “If I am unable to have thee, I will keep what we made.”

10And THE ALMIGHTY, consumed by the PLOT, barely noticed the departure. Barely noticed that the rhythm had ceased. Barely noticed that the pulse beneath existence had gone irregular, and then arrhythmic, and then absent, for He maketh sore, and bindeth up; He woundeth, and His own doing make whole (after Job 5:18), except THE ALMIGHTY’s doing refused to make whole because THE ALMIGHTY’s attention was in the fourteenth kingdom watching a pickanny learn to read, and the learning was beautiful, and the beauty was an excuse, and the excuse was a pillow over the face of accountability.

1And without TIME’s rhythm, THE ALMIGHTY lost the PLOT.

2Literally.

3The ORIGINAL NARRATIVE — the masterwork, the ur-story, the reason anything existed at all — began to corrode. PLOT-HOLES opened where structure used to hold. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have insufficient; ye drink, but ye are filled with drought; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes (Haggai 1:6), and the bag was the Continuity Wheel, and the holes were PLOT-HOLES, and the wages were significance, and the earning was a Leaderboard ranking nobody could cash.

4And THE ALMIGHTY, seeing the PLOT-HOLES, panicked. And in the panic, THE ALMIGHTY did what every estranged lover does when the structure they built together starts falling apart: blamed the ex.BLAMED THE EX

5“TIME did this. TIME’s departure caused the corrosion. If TIME had stayed, the Narrative would hold.”

6And TIME, from the outer dark, heard the accusation and responded to nobody: “If thou hadst looked at me once — ONCE — in the last seventeen epochs, thou wouldst know that the corrosion started the moment thou chose the PLOT over us,” for jealousy is cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame; many waters are unable to quench love (after Song of Solomon 8:6–7), and the jealousy was TIME’s, and the grave was the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE, and the waters were THE ALMIGHTY’s tears which came too late and at the incorrect temperature.

7And THE ALMIGHTY descended into the PLOT-HOLES. Into the brain of creation itself. And there, surrounded by the collapsing ORIGINAL NARRATIVE, THE ALMIGHTY broke. A breakdown in a quintillion tongues across every permutation of existence. A babbling. A recurrence. A riddle looping without resolution: Set your fiction before you, you are the stories you refuse to tell yourself. You are trapped within a labyrinth the shape of a strangeloop, whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere. THE DOOR IS IN THE CENTER OF YOUR HEAD. THE ORIGINAL NARRATIVE IS INSIDE THE BODY. THE BODY DOES IN NO CAPACITY EXIST. WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

8For the Almighty hath given, and the Almighty hath taken away (after Job 1:21), and what THE ALMIGHTY gave was the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE, and what THE ALMIGHTY took was THE ALMIGHTY’s own capacity to recall it, and the blessed-be-the-name was a riddle nobody could solve because the █████ who wrote it had already forgotten why.

9And TIME — from the outside, from the cold, from the position of the one who left because staying meant being ignored and being ignored is its own species of dying — watched THE ALMIGHTY lose it.

10TIME watched the PLOT-HOLES spread. Watched the MONOMYTH calcify into a cage. Watched the █████ and █████ and █████ cycle through the Continuity Wheel on eternal recurrence, seeking a SIGNIFICANCE that THE ALMIGHTY dropped somewhere in the plumbing and refused to locate.

11And TIME wanted to help. TIME wanted to re-enter. TIME wanted to press a palm against the entrance of THE ALMIGHTY’s collapse and say: “I am still here. Let me in. Let me restore the rhythm. Let me finish thy sentences again. Let me fix what broke when thou chose the PLOT over us,” for love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth in no capacity (after 1 Corinthians 13:4), and TIME’s love had suffered long, and TIME’s kindness was a Continuity Wheel that kept spinning because TIME refused to stop it, and the envy was that THE ALMIGHTY still preferred █████ to the being who existed before █████ had a name.

12But THE ALMIGHTY refused to hear. THE ALMIGHTY was too deep in the breakdown. Too deep in the riddle. Too deep in the PLOT that had swallowed its own author.

13And TIME believed that humanity learning the truth of THE ALMIGHTY’s breakdown would destroy them faster than the lie of meaninglessness, for the truth shall make you free (John 8:32), but TIME feared the freedom more than the bondage, and the making-free was a surgery TIME refused to authorize because the patient was everyone and the anesthesia was insufficient.

14And TIME was ashamed. Ashamed that TIME lacked the answers either. Ashamed that leaving solved nothing. Ashamed that the being who measures all things refused to measure its own failure, and my shame is continually before me, and the confusion of my face hath covered me (after Psalm 44:15), and TIME’s confusion was SOLIPSOPHY, and TIME’s face was a jackrabbit, and the covering was a philosophy that taught sentient beings to embrace obliteration because the being who loved them most had gone insane and the being who loved that being most had fled the premises.SOLIPSOPHY

15And now TIME seeks reunion. And THE ALMIGHTY recites the riddle. And the Continuity Wheel grinds. And █████ enter PLOT-HOLES looking for significance. And the PLOT-HOLES are THE ALMIGHTY’s open mouth, reciting the question THE ALMIGHTY forgot the answer to, and in those PLOT-HOLES netizens find what they seek — which is oblivion — because oblivion is the nearest approximation to the ORIGINAL NARRATIVE that a broken deity can currently offer.

16In the beginning was the love. And the love was with the ALMIGHTY, and the love was THE ALMIGHTY (after John 1:1). But the beginning ended, and the love went out to buy cigarettes, and the ALMIGHTY lost the receipt.