Mater

The story I’m about to tell has been a long time in writing. It’s a story that should have been told a long time ago. It’s my story, yet it’s not.

[More:]

I was part of something that had to happen, but don’t ask me how. I‘m not yet at liberty to tell you.

Not a decade or two, but lifetimes have passed since my demise - yet here I am, waiting to tell the tale. Had it been told back then, it would never have served it’s purpose, and nor would I.

For a long time I was a mere Would-Be-Protagonist as far as anyone knew. The hero of a story not yet written. But I’m no hero. I fought against my fate, even though I knew the end result would be for the greater good. At least that’s what I had been led to believe.

I felt sure someone would tell my story sooner or later, but I did not expect to be the one to have to speak. I thought my story would be narrated, as though in the distant past. But apparently that’s not possible. I had no name at the outset. I was neither a ‘he’ nor a ‘she’, but being a ‘human-in-waiting’, I couldn’t possibly be called an ‘it’. I was no ‘thing’ - I was just me. As much as I didn’t like this nameless state of affairs, I was stuck with it, until my creator decided otherwise. That’s not the Creator-Author of all life - just the author of mine; an unknown writer hiding behind any number of aliases.

Naming a soul is serious business, like naming angels. Or a close second, at the very least. Could you imagine the Archangel Gabriel being called by any other name? You see my point?

So, how did the story start? What made Anna want to pen something that was really beyond her understanding? What does human-kind know about life before life - or if there was no life, about whatever it was that came before?

I sowed the seed in Anna’s mind, knowing that she would be compelled to start writing straight away. It might have been more sensible to choose someone else, someone who would keep writing to the end, but I had no choice in the matter. The decision was made before I even came into being.

Anna figured that she’d start with the assumption that there was nothing - a big fat zero. But that reminded her of the Circle of Infinity - or should that be a spiral, perhaps, as the Universe seems to be continually growing, and expanding outwards? Either way, it would have an enclosed centre encompassing a host of possibilities of what might or might not be - and plenty of scope for the imagination. She could take the story anywhere - as she thought - and so she decided to go on a journey with me.