In the beginning, the universe was a pristine lake. The spirits of gods and creatures and angels swam in the void together, content to ride the waves and ripples created by their fellow Swimmers. The Swimmers didn’t need to see or hear; they could feel each other’s presences. Every little movement translated through the water and communicated their existence. There were no barriers between them. The gods protected the angels, who in turn protected the creatures.

Until, in secret, one angel began to desire self-sovereignty. In defiance of the gods’ Eternal Movement, the angel Jezero practiced perfect stillness and isolated himself from other Swimmers. Jezero soon grew bored of inactivity. The angel wished to move around without anyone knowing, to be completely hidden from others’ senses. Jezero desired darkness and silence. But in the unpolluted lake, there were no lights or noises, so there could be no darkness or silence.

Because he could stay perfectly still, Jezero could catch other Swimmers off guard. When creature spirits were trapped, they thrashed erratically, their splashes and waves calling on the angel spirits to investigate the frenzy. Jezero’s stillness allowed him to save strength, and he quickly overpowered other angels.

With the power of captured angel spirits, Jezero created the lights that became stars. For the first time, the Swimmers experienced the blindness of light, the oppression of darkness.

In an effort to protect the lesser Swimmers, the gods created objects to block the lights and ease their fear. As the gods created more and more things, the lake became more and more cluttered. The creatures and angels were alarmed by the vision of a cluttered universe. The spirits who were used to swimming freely could no longer swim without caution. The objects became barriers; the Swimmers could not feel each other. They were separated by mass and light. Jezero forced them to experience the isolation he so vehemently wished for and a chaos he began to enjoy.

The threat of a typhoon created by the creatures’ panicked movements loomed over the universe. Their ephemeral state was no longer safe. The gods gave the creatures physical bodies to protect their spirits from collisions and damage.

Without the ability to sense the ripples of other Swimmers, the creatures needed new ways to communicate. The gods gave them voices, but this new language was imperfect. Sounds were not true spiritual forms. Sounds marred the purity of Swimming, muddied up their their messages, created rifts.

Unable to control the lake’s flow anymore, the gods took a drastic risk to save the lesser Swimmers. The gods shattered the lake’s barriers, spurring on an Eternal Flood of the void and its masses that sucked creatures and spirits in all directions.

In the confusion, Jezero continued to harvest angel spirits, forming larger and brighter lights culminating with the Sun, a light too bright to be blocked by anything the gods created out of nothingness. They had exhausted their raw power; they could create no more.

With great sorrow, the gods took parts of the creatures’ corporeal bodies to form islands and shoals. The creature spirits were confined to smaller spaces. These new bodies were now too fragile to swim with the powerful angels and gods without drowning. They were confined to the surfaces of the nearest islands, spread so far apart that they soon forgot how to communicate across the universe. The Swimmers could no longer sense the trueness of each spirit, even as they learned to make beautiful noises and graceful movements.

The gods protected the fragile creatures and few remaining angels by forming a bubble around them, encompassing nine islands and their surrounding shoals. The gods wanted the lesser Swimmers to have a safe haven from Jezero and the universal storm.

Though this bubble kept the lesser Swimmers safe, it also kept them caged. The gods could not interfere any longer, could only watch as the creatures grew farther apart, fighting and miscommunicating and destroying.

Spiteful about the gods thwarting his every endeavor, as well as their continued effort to drive him from his solitude, Jezero occasionally emerged to attack the creatures and angel spirits. He used the forces of the tumultuous lake to throw rocks and stars at the bubble. Every so often these attacks punctured the bubble, eradicating creatures and maiming the vulnerable angel spirits. Islands and shoals became wastelands. The gods could not bear to see the creatures and angels suffer these attacks.

Through these small holes in the bubble, the gods communicated inelegantly with the angels. In order to continue protecting the creatures, the angels agreed to have their spirits and light trapped inside mortal bodies so they could communicate more directly with the creatures. The gods took special care with the angels’ bodies. These bodies were different from the creatures around them, for the angels could still unite and create. The gods siphoned parts of their own spirits, their own energies, into the angels’ mortal forms.

Satisfied by the relative safety of the lesser Swimmers, the gods used their spiritual sense to find Jezero amongst the now never-ending lake’s polluted and cluttered waters. The gods captured the corrupt angel spirit and pulled him apart into countless pieces. On occasion, these bits of spirit slip through the bubble’s protection via the unpatched holes. Jezero’s spirit manifests as evil thoughts and actions, unpredictable flashes of energy or storms, mass death and suffering in the form of disease.

The mortal angels face the continuous work of staving off the tyranny of disunity. They create music and dance and art, communities and tools and languages, all to protect the creatures and honor the sacrifice of the gods. These small ripples keep the boundless lake from stagnation and make their way through the bubble to comfort the gods in their loneliness until our spirits are freed from our mortal bodies to swim with the gods in the universe again.

-Ryn Baginski