First, there was the vacuum
Where the plus and the minus remained
In harmony;
And the particle and its anti-matter
Embraced
In cohesion
So that “Nothing” contained everything
And each possible world
Curled up
With simultaneity;
And histories folded to
A single point.
There was then a deviation:
A minuscule
Perturbation–
So that symmetry broke down irreversibly–
Two distinct troughs thus
Emerged,
Now separated by a barrier
Too high to be crossed
By matter or life.
And
Whether the world of you and me
Coincided
So we agreed,
Or if the disturbance
Multiplied into hatred
To separate us
Irrevocably,
Depended on the direction of a random Brownian walk
At the point of no return
So history and nothingness diverged
Into our separate
Identities.
The author is trained as a physicist, but enjoys art and witing. Her writing has been accepted by Ygdrsil, BluePrintReview, Foliate Oak, Tinfoildresses and Oak Bend Review and her art has appeared in Mary and Flashquake.
© 2009, Fariel Shafee
Halfway Down the Stairs 