CHAPTER THREE, Part One:
Gleaning The Making Sands, The Making of Matter & Law
The simple act of smelling the cooked fish had so overwhelmed the Boy's vessel it's eyes now fluttered and it's form collapsed in glee.
"Before we make anything," said Rul, "Would you like to eat the fish?"
"Eat it? Oh Rul, I don't know what to say ..." This was rare as the boy always knew what to say. In fact, it seemed The Boy's very function was to never shut up. This was not an imposing characteristic however. His storytelling was inspiration to The Makers as dreams are to us. Nearly all the Matters they made were inspired by elements in his stories. But as the illustrious elements of our dreams are realized in lesser forms according to the limitations imposed by the nature of our bodies, so also were many of the elements within his stories excessive to the natures of The Makers abilities.
The Boy would create words with The Maker of Understanding to describe the illustrious elements in his stories, names for the Matters that both could and could not be made. Words like creature, animal and man. Words like molecule and season and snow. Words like flower, volcano, reef and rosemary. The Boy was fascinated by everything constantly and he relished the feeling of giving it all a story.
Among these many unmakeable Matters was fish and among the many unrealized abilities was eating.
But now being made, Rul experienced tantalizing pangs of excitement awake within His vessel. The new ability to smell, was unique to this new vessel and was unlike any of the sensations Rul or the others had previously made. Rul considered heavily the reality that these sensations seemed a manifestation of The Glow while existing apart from The Glow.
Rul, alongside Understanding & Unknown saw all of this to be during the Disturbance.
But to finally experience what had before only been foreseen left Rul in awe of the Boy's manifestations.
Rul considered the Boy, considered how first he conjured the thought of such an ability: to eat. This ability to take a Matter and destroy it, absorb it, further destroy it and manifest from it so many other Matters such as skin, a boundary for a being; such as blood, a Matter like The Glow in each being; such as thought, a droplet of Her to guide each being; such as Life, a Matter still unfinished in it's making.
Rul considered the ability to eat and found familiarity only in the functions of The Making Sands. That substance by which The Great Makers made, that which The Glow manifested through them and back into itself. For The Glow could never diminish, it's nature was only to grow and it did so through The Makers.
The Glow is The Warmth & The Light that envelopes, connects and courses through The Makers and all of their realm.
The Glo is their realm.
It is that which upon even darkness rests, that which is found when the curtains of emptiness are peeled back.
If in our realm atmosphere, matter, water, energy, ether & the unexplained were a singularity that governed itself then we too would be of a Glow.
All within The Glow are governed by it as they are composed of it.
And so it is that The Great Makers were constrained by neither body nor boundary but exist as interconnected consciousnesses. Independent yet without divide, Rul & Understanding manifested from The Glow each Great Maker according to the function of their Names. Their forms intuitively altered according to their focus so whether building planets or constructing the abstract, be it designing physical systems or intangible concepts … whatever the Matter at hand be, The Maker's vessels & forms responded intuitively to the requirements of craft.
In our realm eating is the process which sustains life. But as life was a Matter yet to be made, Beings within The Glow needed not consider any system of sustaining any sort of self. It is only in the making of Matters that any substance was required, a food as it were.
This substance is what is known in The Glow as The Making Sands.
The Boy's storied creatures often appeared static in form unable to switch or even morph vessels. He would describe them with such limitations reducing their potential to a nearly inert state. He would however describe such intricate, complex systems of mechanics within the nearly useless forms that it would result in exciting and unexpected twists & turns as The Boy's stories would unfold.
This particular aspect of the Boy's stories excited The Maker of Boundary most of all as Boundary was considered to limit potential by the other Makers, not compound it.
As it were, the natures of The Maker's consciousnesses were boundless and took form according to task. The Maker of Boundary was the Maker who spent most time confined to form. Boundary felt at rest in form where the others did not.
In one story, as the boy explained the tongues of creatures, Boundary found joyous familiarity. The tongue, bound to form but lacking any rigid definition, would effortlessly manipulate itself with magnanimous complexity & specificity according to task. Be it screaming, kissing, aiding in chewing, yawning or whistling, tasting or taking temperature, singing or whispering words the tongue, Boundary considered, to be most familiar.
The static forms rife with limitation which his creatures were bound to is but one of many differences between the Boy's storied creatures and The Beings of The Glow. So much of his stories were unfamiliar yet inspiring to them. Even the manner in which experiences seemed measured within the stories was a concept intangible to most Beings, difficult for most The Makers to consider and to Rul & Understanding, of tremendous discomfort to grasp. The Boy was aware of this so rarely would he speak of Time and it's linear vastness.
Emotion too was a perplexing Matter that, while far more familiar than Time, befuddled the Beings in The Glow. The Great Makers (as did all the Beings) experience joy, fulfillment, gratitude in ways that the creatures of the Boy's stories could not possibly endure. But they did not experience the solemn beauty of individual emotions as the creatures might. The Makers & other Beings instead experience a unified sensation within The Glow. And as The Glow surrounds, courses through and emanates from them so thus does what they feel, consider and experience. They are each the center of their own awareness but also are they in tandem within the echo of each other's selves.
So as a being of The Glow experiences joy, curiosity, harmony, excitement it also exudes these qualities into each other as well as back into The Glow.
The Great Makers, the Stewards, Aids & all other manifested Beings were connected to The Glow in this way. Each manifestation's relationship bore different boundaries and purposes yet commonly to each consciousness was their interconnectedness through The Glow.
So while all the Makers & Beings absorbed The Glow, it never diminished. Quite the opposite, the more The Glow was used the more it glew.
Where The Glow came from and is intrinsic to the very existence of The Maker of Measure & The Maker of Understanding. The Glow originated in and is the origin of all joy, inspiration, harmony… all things Good. The Glow manifests as The Making Sands through the Makers as the Makers laugh & experience together, as they exchange curiosities & consider possibilities, as they help each other create.
The more The Glow is absorbed and used by any being, the more it radiates around them, within them and exudes from them. How it exudes is specific to the Being it exudes from so it does not manifest for The Stewards as it does The Makers, as it does the Aids, other Beings or even The Boy.
But it is through the Makers that The Glow manifests The Making Sands. The Sands materialize from the Makers vessels like pollen shaken from the wings of a bumble bee before being gathered up and formed into something more beautiful than the golden dust.
That is what a Matter is made of.
That is what The Making Sands are.
This is where Matters come from, the Good ones anyway.
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The Sands are gleaned and stored accordingly, recalled and formed as needed by The Makers as they Make.
The boy often told stories of how Matter in Matter would make Matter so the Makers wouldn't always be making so much. The Boy's greatest joy was reaped in the delight imparted to those who'd gather around his creations, the matters of his imaginations. In fact, had Wish been a Matter already made The Boy's only one would have been to always be delighting everyone.
The Boy was never compelled to seek this joy out though.
His only compulsion was his first instinct, to assist Her & Rul here and there however he could. His stories were told when Beings would gather round him and even then only should the first two Makers be at rest. This was The Boy's nature, up to this point unchanged, unadulterated, undiluted and pure.
The Makers and most all the manifestations relished nothing more than listening to The Boy illustrate to them the stories of their efforts. The only thing that eventually compared to this delight were the Symphonies of Stewart the Steward. Though even his finestly orchestrated compositions were a distant joy compared to the engrossing & inspiring tails The Boy would tell.
Some stories stayed the same while others would be redrafted for different Matters.
The story of The Tree was one of the Boy's favorites to draft. He reinvented it over and over and over. Each time another Matter, another form would, like The Tree, sustain itself and proliferate making it's own matters that would make other matters. It was simple really although perhaps confusing considering we don't think of trees sans life, we think trees of life.
On our side of The Veil, within our realm there is one such tree that exists as they now do in The Glow. One tree that has remained since before Time was roused and will continue passed the final dawn.
It's branches spread roughly 867,530.9 million light years to the left of Earth on a planet no bigger than Fenway Park. It is good for us though that our expiration would come long before humanity harnesses the ability to glimpse this unique Tree, the first Tree. For even a glimpse would provoke such infatuation for the acquisition of The Tree that all humanity would crumble under the weight of it's unified obsession to reach what is actually just an extraordinary sculpture.
The planet (which The Boy named Snarsinkantvokenborough) was made to showcase The Tree. The Tree is of unparalleled visual beauty. It took 5 of the 6 Makers to conjure the plans and it took 5 of the 6 Makers using Making Sands from all 6 Makers to make the Matter of The Tree.
Resembling in form a Mustard Tree, it looked to be made of an ivory basked in pearl. The barks iridescence shimmered beneath a skin of crystal gleaming white light so pure it's blue broke first in the faint rainbows that drifted upon its surface. The branches were innumerable except by The Maker of Measure, each unique in form to demonstrate the infinite potential within The Maker of Boundary. They would move slightly as the planet orbited, as if their ends were tethered to the nearest star, but never actually did they change form or grow as The Maker of Integrities signature coated them all. The designs of the leaves were vast and mysterious to gaze upon, each design bore leaves too intricately designed to grasp as were the games conjured by The Maker of The Unknown. Each design was a layer specific to its place on the tree and each layer cascaded in rank creating a seemingly uniform umbrella like structure. The leaves caught in the light of the star would reflect, refract, bend and absorb the light, each design of leaf doing with light a little different than the designs above and below them so as to remind all the many purposes of The Maker of Purpose. This tree was made to twinkle, radiate, bounce … it's relationship with light is inexpressible. It was made to be a thing only to witness.
And that was just the outside view.
The Makers would regularly take to this planet so as to listen to The Boys stories under the tree's covering as Her sands had been gleaned discreetly and secretly used to build a unique Making Stage for the Boy's imagination to unfold upon.
Being under the reach of The Tree was to be floating in a scintillating ocean of prismed color, a planetarium of curiosities. It was sheer wonder to behold … to behold it was to be within the warm grasp of wonder. This tree was where first Understanding & The Boy conjured the word "Awe".
Inspired by one of The Boy's stories, The Tree was a Matter suggested by Purpose when Rul sought aid in making a gesture for Understanding. Rul sought a special Matter to show and celebrate how beautiful Understanding was to them all. Unk kept Her distracted in one of their epic games of hide & seek while The Tree was being created which incidentally spawned the ability of "surprise".
Understanding was lost to itself when The Tree was first presented to Her. The Glow then bore a quality so far, undefinable. A good quality, one which would eventually be fully realized through The Boy's makings.
But the Tree was and will always be as it is. No leaf can detach. The star tethered branches will never grow or change form, just direction. The mechanics of the tree are exactly that, mechanics. Wonderful demonstrations of the Matters Rul Made such as Physics, Science & all other Matters of Measure & Goodness. It was a wonderful demonstration of all their Natures. It was beauty personified but ultimately The Tree, just like all Matters & Beings, bore no Life as Life had yet to be a Matter made. As Death had yet to be required.
The Tree was made, it came into being and so it was. That is the Matter of The Tree … the first one anyway.
But The Boy would tell a story of a tree with leaves that when they did not face the star would detach themselves and drift to the base of the trunk. Resting there until the light found them again, the fallen leaves would then disintegrate to become like Making Sands, reabsorbing into it's roots. The leaves would come back brighter and better every time this would happen and even the Tree itself would grow. Branches changing form, twisting themselves closer to the star, the trunk getting thicker and taller, the leaves themselves spawning themselves as the branches evolved into form after form.
The boy would tell how just as The Glow grows by manifesting through The Makers, so the Tree would grow as it manifests itself by way of the light & darkness.
But Life was not a Matter and so Matters could not make themselves. These were after all only the Boy's stories.
And so in The Glow it goes that The Matters of Measure, of Understanding & Unknown, of Boundary, of Purpose and of Integrity remained as they were made. All the more especially was this true of The Matters of Measure.
For to some degree most Matters could be modified. Contributions by other Makers could amend a Matter. But the nature of a Matter of Measure could not be amended once it was made nor could it be destroyed lest the manifestation of all that is not Good would certainly occur within The Glow.
As Rul was the first Maker, Rul's Matters set the foundations and standards upon which all Matters were made. If a Matter of Measure were altered much less destroyed then all the Matters built upon it would be corrupted if not lost to The Edge. This was unique to Rul's Matters, to the Matters of Science, Mathematics, Physics and all that measures Good. The unalterable nature of Rul's Matters were the standards and foundations for all that is of The Glow.
The Boy came to name this phenomenon as "Law".
But Law was not determined, not by the Boy or even by Rul.
As phenomena are, it simply was.
This does not mean Rul was limited. Quite in fact Rul was the standard by which all limits were measured and so it is that Rul stands outside limitation. But Understanding is one with Rul and so the limitless joys yielded by the Harmony of The Glow are all, as Her word states: Good. Rul & Understanding had no reason, no purpose, no desire or even curiosity to make what was not Good for them to make.
And so as this was as it was, so was the unalterable harmony between The 6 Great Makers.
For They alone had the capacity to grasp the nature of effect which would transpire should any foundation be altered, should any Law become broken.
If a Matter of Rul's changed or was destroyed all the Matters built upon it too would become corrupt. Chaos, a Matter bound to The Edge would manifest throughout The Glow and take hold of it. The subsequent alterations Chaos' presence would make to The Glow are most familiar to Understanding. They are horror and are beyond the comprehension of the manifested Beings except for The Makers.
But still beyond that which even Understanding can grasp were the terrors familiar to Unk on the Matter of Chaos. These terrors were incommunicable to even Her. So Unk & Understanding never spoke of what they grasped except once to impart to Rul what The Maker of Measure had to have Understanding of. Rul thus became the only Maker with full measured familiarity over The Matters which would come to be upon the breaking of Law.
It was in this communion that The Great Pain was realized among them.
This was before the making of The Stewards, The Aids and the other Beings.
Since The Makers made in harmony with boundless possibility and complete complimentary design, none of this was of any concern to any Being. All Beings were unified in the harmony of Matters, fulfilled in the interconnected, mutual dependence and joy brought about through The Glow. The Great Pain was raveled in Unk's Cloak and The Maker of Purpose formed no case for Understanding to share on this Matter with any other Beings. Instead Purpose found it to be Good for Understanding to form itself against the familiarization of these Matters in the other Beings. And so the Matter of Secret was made by and given the signature of all 6 Makers before They let manifest any other Beings into The Glow.
The Makers would experiment and try things out. It was a part of the process in the sequence to take apart their work and rebegin (except for Rul of course). Matters were often destroyed but almost always before Signatures were applied and when they were destroyed the Sands that had been used in them were simply gleamed and used again.
This tinkering was a shared joy among the Makers.
And tinkering on Matters inspired by The Boy's stories was the epitome of that joy.
"But … how?" The boy whispered staring up at the stars as his vessel yearned to stick the fish in the big hole in its face.
Rul smiled, "Eating is from your stories. You don't know how to do it?" The boy sat upright and scrunched his face at Rul.
"Nooo, how is it that eating is possible? How is even the fish possible, the smell … how has any of this been made?"
"I told you. You made this."
"I am seeing it but it's like I can't see it even though I'm looking right at it. WHERE IS SHE?!" The boy's understanding was evolving exponentially without Her but he still yearned for Her. As his body hungered for the fish his being starved for her presence. "Please Rul, just tell me … where did She go?"
"Not yet. We must discuss what it is that you may make."