And in the end, only the ocean remained, and the ocean was alone.

…and the towers did crumble then and give their substance unto the earth…

And all the four-legged creatures of the earth did drown. And the reptiles that crawled upon their bellies did drown as well. And those who walked upon two legs, they drowned too, with neither pragmatist nor faithful spared from the fury of the ocean.

And lo, the avatars did march upon the pragmatists, and from the sky came a deluge such as earth had never known, and the pragmatists were swept away on a great tide, and the lands of earth sank beneath the waves.

And as the sun rose and touched the heads of the towering avatars, the pragmatists did look up in fear and awe, and a great cry of holy terror arose, and was heard in every land.

So the faithful gathered in the forests and on the mountains and in dark caverns, and they prepared themselves, and on the night of the second day they immersed themselves in the rivers and streams. And others of them waded out into the lakes and the seas, or marched upon the glaciers. And at dawn on the third day, they called upon the Ocean’s avatars to strike.

And the clouds of war did descend upon the earth, and the great armies came together in a holocaust of fire and wind, and they fought from dawn to dusk, and the pragmatists prevailed on the first day of the great war.

And the elders of the two tribes formed their people into great armies, and the armies did gather upon the plains and the desert and the seas.

And the corners of the earth were divided, and the two tribes, the faithful and the pragmatists, named each other evil, and they each sent spies and lies to promote ruination and hatred, and so did the bitterness spread like bindweed across the land.

And a great rift grew between the faithful and the pragmatists, and harsh words flew like arrows, and the people of earth formed into two great tribes, and the land trembled with malice.

And those who opposed the pragmatists, and who called themselves the faithful, said no! The waterways and the rains are the province of the ocean and its avatars, and those who do not recognize the supremacy of the ocean over all shall be damned to wander forever in a waterless desert.

And there came a time when the Chutengodians argued among themselves, and some said the will of the Ocean was depleted, and that humans did control the waterways and the rains. And they did call themselves the pragmatists.

But in the time even the Chutengodians did become neglectful and across the land the towers of the ocean rusted and grew weary.

And the sun rose and the sun set and the waters of the earth did moisten that which was dry, and the humans did drink thirsty of it, and the Chutengodians did worship the ten-legged one and all of the ocean’s avatar’s and lo, there were times of goodness and plenty.

And so it came to be that a group of disciples set forth to spread the word of the ten-legged one throughout the land, and they called themselves Chutengodians, and for a time the ocean was content.

And they looked up and they saw the great silver belly, fat and wet, and they fell down upon their knees on the moist earth and they bowed down before it and they named it the ten-legged god.

But few humans heard the words of the ocean–to most it was nothing more than the crashing of the distant waves, the murmur of a slow creek, the muted static of raindrops falling upon wet earth. Only a few, keen of ear and pure of soul, heard the words of the ocean

At first, the humans did not understand what the ocean was saying. They heard only creaks and groans and the whistling of the wind. But one Human, great of intelligence and great of sensitivity, heard the ocean’s words, and lo! He began to speak with the ocean’s voice.

And so the ocean began to speak

And the ocean was sad, for it had lavished much love on these strange, thirsty apes. Yet they gave not the slightest gesture of respect to their maker, and they treated the great effigies as they might treat a house of wood, or a pile of stone.

One day the ocean noticed that the humans were passing by its effigies with hardly an upward glance, and drinking freely without thanks or acknowledgement.

And so the ocean sent a message to the human leaders and did thereby cause them to erect thousands of great effigies of itself throughout the land. And in each of these towers the ocean deposited a tiny portion of its pure self, and gave the humans permission to partake of it freely. And the humans gathered around the towers and built their towns and cities around them, and the towers did serve as the eyes and ears of the ocean, and the ocean watched and listened and waited, and for a time, the ocean was content.

And it came to pass that the lands and the waters became stained with human filth, and the ocean became concerned.

The ocean watched with both pride and trepidation as the humans dammed streams and rivers, dug canals, built artificial lakes, and poured chemicals into the clouds to force them to rain. The ocean watched as mountains were leveled, and shafts were sunk deep into the earth, and the liquified remains of ancient flora and fauna were sucked from deep in the crust and made to power great machines.

But a time came when even the plentitude of life failed to satisfy, and so the ocean instilled intelligence and free will in certain of its creatures, and it called them humans, and it watched as the first crude tools were fashioned by human hands, and it watched as these large-headed apes began to reshape the lands and the waters in new ways.

For three billion years the ocean watched, content, as the world evolved. It watched the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, the rise of the mammalians, the cetaceans’ return to the sea, the migration of the continents.

And the ocean watched as its creations changed, as rivulets became rivers, as hillocks grew to mountains, as fissures opened, as the floating life-units began to swim, to crawl, to fly.

The ocean created land, so that it did not have always to be with itself. And it cast off fiery bits of itself with tiny nodes of energy called life. And still it passed through time and space, but now it was not so alone.

Still the ocean was alone in time, and time was endless, and so the ocean drew in upon itself and became finite, a writhing ball of water and foam surrounded by nothingness. And the ocean passed through time and space. But the ocean was still alone.

And the ocean did not know where it ended or where it began, and so it created time. And the ocean passed through time.

In the beginning was the ocean, and the ocean was alone.