The Garden’s Creation

Arwe

The Secret Garden

2024-10-12

It is often said that only a higher power can create a gift as beautiful as life.

Billions of years ago, a world was created by a goddess. From the magnificent tapestry of star-speckled space, she materialized from a fusion of cosmic dust. An overwhelming energy flooded the expanse to form a single entity of immense grace and beauty. 

The goddess, filled with curiosity and wonder, held an innate urge to explore the limits of her celestial knowledge. Her journey into creation began when she discovered that snapping her fingers created sparks the way flint does when struck by steel. The goddess continued snapping rhythmically to herself, allowing more sparks to flutter in the space. The sparks collided with each other causing a great fire, which took the form of a brilliant sun that kept her warm in the cold atmosphere.

It was at this point that she began to understand the power she held. She gathered the ashes formed from the sun and pressed them into a sphere. When compressed, the ashes became a crust-like rock, and the hard shell was covered with a layer of dirt. For the goddess, this was an empty canvas waiting to be adorned in her glory. She took more clumps of dirt and formed islands, mountains, ravines, and cliffs. It was finished. 

She found herself speechless as a wave of accomplishment covered her. The beauty of her work swept her away as all she could do was stare into the captivating masterpiece laid before her. 

But in a step, the goddess remembered that although she had created such a beautiful world, there was no other soul to share it with. Her tears flowed onto the dirt, and she began to sob uncontrollably.

As her tears rushed over the land, flooding the ravines and lowlands, they filled the empty gaps around her and created vast seas and oceans, lakes and rushing rivers; even the tiny divots in the land were turned into puddles. The dirt began responding to these changes. And over time, with the warmth of the sun, shrubs and herbs sprouted from the ground. The shrubs became trees and jungles, and the herbs formed lush fields of green grasses and grains. The goddess hadn’t noticed this development but when she finally gathered herself and looked back at the world, she was astounded by what she saw. How is this possible? she thought. There it was, life, the very thing she had wished for. 

She made haste, preserving the beautiful life she created. She tended to the crops, grew colourful flowers for decoration and placed soft mosses on rocks to lay her head. At long last, she was enthralled by the wonder of her world and did what she could to care for it. However, she felt overwhelmed in taking care of all of it on her own, again feeling just as discouraged as before. She asked the plants if they could help each other, but all they could do was sway in the wind. 

The goddess didn’t let this weigh her down. She picked up a handful of clay from the side of a cliff and formed a sculpture. It had arms and legs and stood at five feet tall. She blew her essence into the sculpture giving it a soul. Its clay body became flesh and red fur sprouted from its arms.

“Welcome!” she greeted the figure excitedly.This is my world. There’s much to see and I’d love for you to be a part of it.” Smiling, she extended a hand to the presence.

“What am I?” it asked.

The goddess was a bit surprised the sculpture could speak but happy to know she finally had help that could do more than sway in the wind. And most importantly, she was no longer alone.

“You’re my helper of course! I’ll name you Arwe. We’ll take care of this world together, you and I.”

Arwe was thrilled and immediately got to work. He learned many techniques from the goddess and used them to take care of the diverse flora and fauna of the world. Very soon he became an expert, often insisting the goddess take days off for him to do all the work. She was grateful for Arwe’s skills and allowed him to flourish in the environment, but the longer she was left to herself the stronger the urge to add more to her world became. While Arwe tended to the earth’s garden, the goddess made more sculptures and brought them to life. Like Arwe, each of these new helpers aimed to please the goddess. They saw an opportunity to impress her with innovation.

The helpers took resources from the land and began building simple machines like wheels and pulleys. They built shelters to protect them from the blazing sun and wet weather. Eventually, they developed functioning societies and tore down forests to build more space for their inventions. The goddess was so amazed by their skill that she began giving these helpers gifts and tools to continue their progress. 

Arwe noticed the goddess visited him less frequently and when she did, her mind seemed to be so distant. Arwe could see the other helpers working on their impressive projects diligently. He couldn’t understand exactly why he wasn’t given the same attention as the others. He felt like a child abandoned by his mother. 

One day she came to visit, and he decided to confront her.

Why do you let them tear apart our world with their silly toys?” he asked.

“Oh Arwe, don’t you see? This is good for everyone, even you.”

“I cannot see that.”

“You will. Soon you won’t have to live your life struggling to keep up with your crops. With their ideas, you’ll be able to put your feet up and relax while machines care for you instead.”

No! Arwe thought, this was what he was made for, he was her helper, and he could not just be replaced. He became angry.

“What happened to you and me? Why do you share what is ours?

“That is not how this world works,” she explained. “One day you will get tired, and we need to make way for the future of this world.”

Arwe felt a burning sensation rise to his face and the hairs of his skin rose. He did not believe she could overlook him in this way. Anger swelled through his veins; he began to see red. Was I never important to you? What was all this work for? Am I that disposable? Arwe could not see the goddess as his creator but rather as a wicked force in his existence. He decided he didn’t need the goddess anymore; he knew more. 

The goddess asked, “Why can’t you see this is good for you? I wouldn’t have done all this if it wasn’t.”

Arwe was not swayed. “You didn’t believe in me, so you made other helpers to replace me!”

He grabbed a spade he had left to the side earlier and pointed it at her.

“What are you doing? Please, put that down, you don’t need to get yourself worked up this way,” she cried. 

But Arwe couldn’t control his anger and drove the spade right into the ground. The terrain began to quake, and cracks began to form throughout the land. The very core of the earth was exposed, and rifts formed across the horizon.

“What have you done?”

It was too late. The world was fractured, split into thousands of segments all mixed up and misplaced. The goddess in her panic frantically tried to put the pieces back together but she did not have enough power as it was all lost in the destruction.

Again, she cried, “Arwe, please! This world is everything to me!”

“You cannot stop me. This is my world now. I know it better than you ever did.”

The goddess did not know what to do. She thought of the day she created Arwe, and how special it felt to share her essence with a new creation. Then she thought back to the way her tears created the very ecosystem that she had now lost. 

In a solemn moment, the goddess placed the leftover astral dust that had composed her very being in her hand and blew on it. Specs of dust drifted through the sky, and each landed on a fractured land. The goddess joined the dust. This way, she  still had pieces of herself overlooking the world she loved so dearly.