The Search for Peace

The Chaos did not last long. Within an eternity or two, the dust settled, unevenly in different places, forming a vast expanse of more or less flat earth. Then gaseous moister, floating around in what remained of the Chaos, formed large clouds that percolated and surrounded the earth. Even the low lying areas on the earth were filled with water.

The Chaos was over. Or was it?

The goddess of moisture, who had been sleeping deep inside water, far away from the earth, woke up. Her mind went straight into the state of Confusion. "What happened to the Chaos?" she wondered, "I can't hear the sound of Turmoil!" She started swimming in one direction. Which direction? Even she did not know. She did not care. During the reign of the Chaos, the Directions had got mixed up before she became aware of her own existence and the existence of various elements around her. She had no concept of direction. She swam from here to there for a long time when suddenly she emerged out of water. She was surprised to find herself half in water and half outside. Water was confined to a level above which there was only air.

She turned around. Far away she was saw the tip of a mountain. Turning around even more, She saw a spot of bright light far away and touching water. She kept turning around and noticed that the mountain peak and the light spot maintained their positions with predictable certainty. She got a sense of direction...for the first time.

She kept swimming for a while, keeping her head above water all the time. She turned around and saw the peak in its place. But had the white spot risen above water level? After a long while she felt sure. The spot was traveling. Traveling like her. Not with her. Very slow. But in one direction. Away from her water. She kept swimming happily. Why was she happy? She found it hard to answer. But even inside the Chaos, she wasn't unhappy. Was there a difference between being happy and not being unhappy? "The calmness!" she thought, "Things keeping their positions! At least not moving in an unpredictable way! The certainty! That's making me happy!"

Happily she swam towards the mountain peak. As she got closer to the mountain, she found the peak rising higher and higher. Suddenly her feet touched something beneath the water surface. It was the edge of the Earth.The uncertainty hadn't ended. "Chaos lives?" she thought in surprise. "No. The earth and water stay that way along this Curve!" she thought as she surveyed the region for a while. The white spot had risen some more, making the sky look white everywhere. She hadn't noticed the color of the sky till now. Inside Chaos, bits of sky floated around, changing their color randomly. "Now the vast sky is a single unit and of the same color too!" She observed.

The goddess of moisture stepped out of the water and started walking along the foot of the mountain on which some shrubs were growing. She hadn't seen anything like green shrubs, so she observed one of them closely. She even plucked a leaf or two from it. "A new kind of smell" she said and walked around the mountain till she saw a narrow flat strip of ground on one side of the mountain foot. She walked along the twisted path till she reached a flat piece of land covered by grass and surrounded by low hills. "Strange" she said as she observed the large variety of plants covering the hills. Many shrubs and bushes were having sweet smelling small white flowers or large colorful flowers. "The goddess of pleasing things has taken great efforts to create lovely plants" she thought, "as she used to do in Chaos, but there her objects disintegrated soon. Now here objects are growing!" The earth was going to be pleasing place.

She thought about the god of storms. The god of storms who went around in the Chaos. The god of storms used to play with the goddess of moisture and the goddess of air and they would create whirlwinds and whirlpools inside the Chaos. Now she saw the marks of the storm god on the landscape. He had used air and her water to carve deep valleys between the mountains while she slept.

"Everything's so calm and quiet," she thought. For a moment she felt pity for the Chaos, but she quickly pushed away that thought and continued taking pleasure in the beautiful landscape around her. "I must talk to the God of life" she thought. Many times the God of life had created a few living objects but they too had disintegrated quickly. "Now he has a chance to show his power!" Then she started imaging how interesting the earth would be when living things were added to the beautiful non-living things like plants and insects that had the capacity to multiply on their own.

The goddess of moisture was walking along the shore when the surroundings were filled with a low rumbling sound. The earth started shaking. A blast was heard high up the mountain and dust came out of the tip of the mountain. It started covering the sky. It reminded her of the time of Chaos. She saw a stream of molten rock flowing down the mountain and mixing with the waters of the ocean. It converted the water into vapor. She shrieked and ran away to a far away place on earth where the sky was clear. The white spot had traveled far ahead of the zenith by now. The sky was gray. She had reached into a desert, far away from the lush green environment. Should she pour some moisture here? No. The sand dunes looked beautiful. She walked over the cool sand for a long long while. There was no trace of Chaos here. The white spot in the sky had become dim. Darkness was covering the sky. "What would happen if it goes to touch the horizon?" Thought the goddess of moisture. Then she was surprised to see that she could even ask questions. In the time of Chaos, there was no point in asking questions about the future. Anything was possible.

"Will the sky become totally dark?" she wondered. "Forever?" She shuddered. "Darkness for ever?" That situation wouldn't be better than Chaos. She pushed away the thought of Chaos again. She tried to think of something else. Will another white spot come up from any point on the horizon? Why just one? Suppose many white spots arise. Will it make the sky even brighter. Will it make air hotter? As she stood wondering she saw the white spot going below the horizon. The small part of sky, where the spot had touched the horizon, had remained gray, but soon it started turning black. The goddess of moisture felt sad. She sat down, feeling tired. She closed her eyes. After a while she opened her eyes. She saw that the sky was still black. But there was a white spot twinkling near the horizon. What was it? She looked up. Her eye sight moved over the whole sky. It was all black but there were a million white sparkling spots scattered all over it. She was shocked. One white spot had traveled across the white sky, and a vast multitude of bright spots twinkling on the black sky! How absurd! Chaos exists! No! The crystal spots are in their places!

"Chaos exists?" She could not shake away the unpleasant thought. Staring at the black sky studded with bright crystals, she found her mind flooded with questions. What became of the Chaos? Where was it now? Where had it gone? When the things fall in an order, where does Chaos go? Is there a place where it goes to live? Can Chaos exist in the absence of things? Isn't the arrangement of crystals chaotic? So Chaos lives! Or are there patterns of crystals in the sky? A crown here and a shoe there? No! Yes! And at that moment she realized that Chaos existed!...it existed in her mind.

It had taken full control of her mind! It had found a place to live.

She sat down trying to calm the whirlwind of questions in her mind. She couldn't. She tried to analyze the state of her mind. "The failure to find the patterns or laws governing the things around you is Chaos. All things are governed by laws of nature. Chaos does not exist. It never existed". She felt calm. After a long while, when another white spot arose from the horizon, and the sky turned white, she got up. Now she didn't care about the earth or the sky. She went about in search of laws.