Her: The Universe

She belonged to no world. She was the world, or rather the universe.

There were galaxies in her charcoal locks that sparkled from afar. She had no name, just a sex— ‘she’. She was therefore named ‘Her’. However, Her was just a pronoun, a derivative of she, so she never really bothered with a name.

She was ageless— an infinity— who couldn’t remember her creation. Although, she remembered that she was born from nothingness, with locks that shed galaxies. She had discovered this at a moment of deep contemplation. She had been feeling heavy for days, a weird tension was in her mind because of the weight of her multiple musings. That was the moment when a strand of her hair had fallen into space and suddenly the nothingness around it had turned into twinkling stars which started spreading like wildfire. With wide eyes and her perfectly O-shaped mouth, she saw magic unfold before her.

She was in awe.

To make sure that it wasn’t a trick of the mind, she pulled out another strand of hair and let it fall into nothingness. The strand of hair turned silver, it sparkled fluorescent and slowly started disintegrating into stars from both ends, which spread and spread and spread until the hair turned completely white, then slowly it became transparent like an invisible thread and there was no light left. Slowly, it completely disintegrated.

Watching this phenomenal sight, she got really excited. She decided that she would fill all the nothingness around her with stars and create galaxies.

So she set out on her journey, hopping happily on nothingness. There was nothingness everywhere and she was tired of it. She dropped a strand of hair each at appropriate intervals— counting thousand steps in between.

She liked walking on nothingness and seeing it turn into galaxies.

But soon, the whole process turned quite monotonous and she started doing it mechanically, walking every thousand steps in boredom. Nothingness didn’t seem to end. Then suddenly, at a moment of maybe her millionth step, curiosity sparked inside her. She wondered what would happen if she let two strands of hair fall into nothingness?

The two strands of hair collided.

The next thing she knew, there was a big bang. It was so powerful that the flash blinded her. The force of light threw her on a surface full of craters. She felt her life force drain out of her in huge lumps. Extremely exhausted, she fell asleep.

She woke up slowly and looked around her, observing her surroundings, she tried to recall what had happened. She remembered the flash of light and her falling onto this surface. Suddenly there was a voice, 

“Oh! You’re awake.” 

She looked around and saw no one, at least not in her resemblance. 

“Who is it?” she asked. 

“I’m Moon, the crater surface, upon which you lie.” 

A celestial body was speaking to Her. Never had the stars spoken before the big bang, but now, there seemed to be a constant buzz around her. She was amazed by what the collision of the two strands of her hair had done. Suddenly she became aware of multiple life forces blooming around her. 

“How long have I been asleep?” Her asked the Moon.

“I think for about my one millionth revolution around the Earth.” he replied.

Her attention moved towards the Earth. By the size and pace of it, she guessed it was a long time. Very soon, she noticed beings on Earth that resembled her. She was taken aback.

For rotations and revolutions, she sat on the moon and observed these human beings. She learnt about their power to feel emotions, to love and to survive. She learnt that these human beings had the power to choose. But slowly, certain things that they chose to do were rewarded by other human beings while certain things were punished. Actions and thoughts that were punished were mostly that harmed another being. So there came to be good choices and bad choices. However, the balance was more towards the good— towards actions, behaviour, thoughts and feelings that were not harming in any way— which made her extremely happy.

She wanted to visit Earth, but a few rotations back she had realised that there was no nothingness left for her to walk upon. So she stayed on the moon determined to learn everything about her creation. Most of the time, she would just observe the human beings, but occasionally she would also talk to the Sun, the Asteroids and other planets— mostly about Earth.

Everyday she learnt new things about human beings. She watched them create fire, watched them hunt to fill their stomachs and survive. So far, her favourite was to watch them mate and give birth to a tiny little human. She could resonate with it to her core. She knew exactly how it felt to give birth to life, especially by accidental surprise.

After a thousand more revolutions passed, something significant happened. It happened when the moon was shining red onto the Earth. There was blood. A human being had killed another human being. A life had ended.

“Murdddeeeerrrrr!” she had screamed loudly, watching from the moon, and cried.

The moon failed to console her, as he was too shocked at what he had just witnessed that night on Earth.

It happened again, and again, and again.

She became very upset watching rivers of red and suffering spread. Soon her deep sadness turned into something dark that smelled like death. She cried and cried and cried until her eyes had lost its luminous touch and her hair became lacklustre.

“I’m going to sleep.” Her told the moon, numbness thick in her voice— husky and shaking after her tears had dried.

The moon could see that the galaxies in her hair shone less vibrantly. Her existence seemed to be withering, the light dimming in her locks. She silently kept her head at the curve of the crater, letting her silver locks spread on the surface of the moon. She put herself to sleep hoping that when she wakes up, there would be no blood. Hoping that it would all become a dream and when she wakes up, the Earth would be a better place again.

Protected by Moon’s full heart under oath, he let’s Her sleep well. As he goes about his revolutions, he watches Earth turn bloodier that his own eclipse cycles. He whisper’s watching Her sleep, “If humanity really has a chance to change when her eyes open, then one can only hope that she wakes up before it is too late.”

~~~