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A Bug, a Rock and a Goddess Walk Into a Pantheon...

In our humanities class 'Stories' we have done lots of writing work and metaphor analysis. This past three-or-so weeks we have been working a lot with figurative language, and etiology (the study of causation or origination) specifically in mythological standards.  For instance we examined Norse, Greek, and Roman mythology to find origin stories like the formation of earth through the dead body of the giant Ymir in Norse mythology.  Using this as a basis we moved on to our action project.  Writing our own creation story for something and creating etiology for how it got its name.  I personally loved this Norse story for the creation of earth or Midgard, so I wrote the creation story for Earth with my own twist.  Hope you enjoy...




            In the beginning there is only MT (Em - tee), a vast blank place with nothing but a void. MT was created when the Gods breathed life into the void. From this came a cataclysm of galaxies and beings of all forms. Mysteriously they sealed themselves away in the middle of MT. The place where they initially breathed life into the universe. Their creations would call this place ‘Middle.’ One of their creations were the celestials called Behemoths. These creations were unfortunately unfinished. Just before the few behemoths could be named the Gods sealed themselves away in ‘Middle’. All Behemoths naturally search for ‘Middle’ in the hopes that they can be named and become whole and individual. A Behemoth was a rare sight in itself, but to be a named Behemoth was a rare and uncommon feat. They are the ultimate envy of all unnamed Behemoths


One such unnamed Behemoth is Turtle.  Turtle is an enormous and slow-moving creature called a golem, a great stony being that floats through the dim of MT.  Like all Behemoths, Turtle wishes for a real name given by God.  Since Turtle was unnamed he became Turtle when another Behemoth decided his slow movements, and hunched stony back reminiscent of a turtle's shell.  One day Turtle saw in the distance a blindingly golden figure.  He could make out a sad sob coming from it.  As he trudged forward slowly, the figure came into view.  It was another behemoth; a fiery-gold-shelled beetle. 

 “Why are you so sad?” called Turtle. The beetle shakily turned to him, surprised. 

“No one can bear to look at me; I'm cursed with this golden carapace.  I’m literally too bright to look at!”  


Turtle thought for a second, and then nodded to himself dumbly.  He definitely felt bad for the giant golden bug.  


    “Your gleaming shell doesn't bother my stony eyes, you could join me on my adventure.”  


                The beetle said nothing for a second but quickly grinned as he joined alongside Turtle. She flew orbits around him, and quickly warmed to the big rocky fella.  She was very energetic and had a bubbly personality.  Not long into their journey, introductions took place, which is when the beetle mentioned one very key detail about herself.  


    “My name is Jun, like the month. It's been a second since I've spoken to anyone. Others might know me by my God-given name Solace or Sol for short”  


    Turtle's big craggy face lit up with surprise.  “You’ve got a name from the Gods!  I can't believe this!” 


    Sol looked at him sheepishly.  “Yeah, no one seemed to ask because no one ever got close enough”  


It then slowly occurred to Turtle that he forgot to mention the place he was going; the legendary home of the gods called ‘Middle’.  Shock was plastered across his cobbly face.  


    “I think I could still find the path to the middle if you want,” said Sol quietly.  

    

    “I want to go back anyway. I need to get rid of this fiery carapace.”  “yes, please the golem mumbled with a tentative smile”


    So they journeyed into void. The once lonely Sol was Turtles lantern through the dark, and  he was Sol’s ‘rock’ in the dark abyss. They were as inseparable as Turtle's own shadow which was ironically only cast because of beetles' fiery glow, and the miscellaneous debris of MT.  They journeyed until they came across the first landmark Sol could recall from her previous descent from ‘Middle.’, the Wormhole.  The Wormhole was once the Gods' access to a pocket dimension, from which they took the hyper fertile soil to form the galaxies with.  It was also totally invisible; the only thing that made it detectable was the silt that still trickled into their dimension.  Sol explained how she would need to navigate them through the pocket dimension, and onto the path to ‘middle.’ 


    “Make sure to keep your mouth shut and hold your breath, dirt could get in and erode your insides.” she laughed teasingly.  


    Then suddenly she took him by the hand and dragged him through the silt and into the wormhole.  The wormhole was fast.  Lights, colors, sounds, and entire dimensions passed by.  Sol was well versed enough to avoid most debris; all the while Turtle managed to be clumsy enough to hit every single patch of silt as though it was the goal.  By the end they were spit out by it, and Turtle was coated in a thick layer of extremely fertile dirt. He felt ashamed, like a dog that rolled through mud and ran through the house.  Sol took a minute to laugh before they pressed on.  Turtle then stopped once he began to notice the heat from her fiery carapace was causing the mud from the wormhole to harden like glue and make movement even harder for the big rock.  They began to panic once they realized it was covering Turtle's eyes.  If he didn’t do something he would be blind as a bat.  They looked desperately for help. Sol's heat was too much. She felt responsible.  She had to come up with something. She molted her shell and fashioned it into a light and airy heat shield that allowed some heat in but didn't make it unbearable.  “Cloud” she called it.   Instant relief followed. They knew they were on the right path and soon they were met with a misting.  Sol explained to Turtle that it was a veil to mark the end of MT and the beginning of ‘middle.’ The center of MT was cooling and with it expanded ‘middle’.  The pockets of silt from the wormhole created great purchases in Turtle's body for the water to hold onto.  The cool feeling was a rare gem to the dry rock behemoth. The cloud kept the water from evaporating too much or too quickly.



    Suddenly the heavens opened up and the end was in sight.  The path to the mighty gods was set aglow by the brightest of constellations, delicate light paintings on a dark devouring canvas.  They shone like the purposeful street lamps that lit a highway into a distant glowing city.  They had arrived in ‘middle’ finally.  As soon as they got to the domain it seemed like all the colors of MT had inverted and one great pantheon stood within. Gold plated stairs greeted them, and at the top they found mammoth sized doors which swang open as if they knew to let them in.  Within the great palace was unreal architecture. Grand columns seemed to go up into the unseen abyss. It was dark inside, and the torches printed their figures across the fog covered floors.  As soon as they got half way through the room a figure draped in white seemed to apparate from the fog.  She had 4 arms, and her eyes were hidden under the veil, strangely enough Turtle could sense her curious eyes beneath the veil.  She was the Goddess speaker of the Gods.  Her voice seemed to echo out from all around the pantheon.  


“Golem.  You wish for the gift of a name.  Beetle.  You wish from us to undo the gift of life which you find to be a curse.”  


Sol and Turtle looked at each other.  “Yes! Please! They both said grinning.” ''Can you do it?” The Goddess paused meaningfully.  


“Nah.” she said. 


             Turtle and Sol began their shouts in retaliation, when suddenly the goddess made a small pushing motion with both hands.  Sol and Turtle were sent flying through the MT.  Every galaxy system, black hole, and star rushed past them as if they were shot from a cannon.   As suddenly as they started they stopped, and the goddesses voice rang out from nowhere.  


            “We will understand each other eventually.  For now you have my blessing.”  


               This did nothing to ease the two creatures' anger, but in the end it was not anger that came, it was despair and despondency.  They could believe that after all that they went through all they got was no without even an explanation. They cried so loud half the universe could probably hear; so loud they almost missed the small voices on Turtle's back “Erde”.  They chanted the name for them to hear.  Small clay looking-creatures had taken to living on the back of Turtle.  


“It's you Turtle”. Sol confirmed recognizing the familiar look of confusion on the golems face.  “You did it Turtle! You got your wish!”  


Turtle still seemed to scrutinize the moment. “I am Erde… But what about your wish?”  


Sol thought carefully.  “I am fulfilled.  I’m needed by someone; someone who can bear to look at me.” She happily flew circles around the golem “I get to see all the life I provide for. They are thankful for me”  


Turtle’s or Erde’s eyes went wide.  “Goddess knew all along.”



Conclusion: Thank you for experiencing this journey with me. I had a great time letting the story build itself.  It was worth all the challenges and time caused by writers block.  Next time I will consider writing with the plot thought out before thinking about figurative language. 

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