The sun had just gone below the eastern horizon, though its light still cast long shadows across the freshly plowed fields. Two figures walked behind the horse as the trio took the long bladed plow back to the ramshackle old barn down by the small house they called home. The taller of the pair behind the horse, a man of middle years with hair bleached almost white by the hot sun, guided the plow and the horse on a predertermined path from their fields to the barn. Beside him walked a boy of not quite ten seasons, his hair almost as white as the man he walked beside. Both wore overalls stained and dirtied, with dust filled hats fallen back off their heads, held around their necks with a roughly twisted length of leather rope.
“Dad?” The boy glanced at the eastern horizon with its streaks of red and purple and green and the ever darkening blue. “How did all of this get here? Where did it come from?”
“Well,” Dad answered with a long, drawn out word. “Grab a handful of dirt son, and toss it in the air before us.”
Confused, the boy did as instruction. As they watched the dirt get blown away as a small cloud, the boy looked back at his dad. “Well?”
“As I was told when I was no older than you, the earthen and the heavens above us live and die just as we do. Once, long, long ago, a universe got so old that it faded and died as universes do.”
“Did it turn to dust and blow away like the dirt I tossed?” The boy looked at his dad with amazement growing in his expression. “And you said that grandpa would turn to dust when we buried him last winter. Is that what happened?”
“Sort of,” chuckled Dad. “Except, when universes die, the stars and suns and worlds like ours die as well. With no light in the day or night skies, the universe sort of fell asleep and didn’t wake up, kind of like grandpa.”
“Did the universe’s children and grandchildren get sad like us?” The son asked after a short silence.
“They say that the universe was so old, all of it’s children were dead, so it was alone,” continued Dad. “But when the universe died, everything became dust that simply floated in the nothingness.”
“Did flowers grow on the universes grave?” The son exclaimed quickly, though likely because they were passing some at that moment.
“Kinda like flowers,” chuckled Dad. “A new universe, maybe two, sprang to life just like flowers seem to do overnight.”
A Minotaur's Musings 