Fiction: Stories We Tell Each Other in the Dark

There was a couple and their children that I witnessed, sitting all together around a silent pit. The wind howled, and the trees shook, and the storm clouds gathered above them.


One said: "Father, Mother, I am afraid."
One said: "Father, Mother, I am weak."

They could not see themselves, nor their siblings and parents, though the couple knew where their children sat as surely as they knew what place they themselves occupied on the logs. Whether fog or smoke obscured their eyes, or the clouds above hid away the sun, I know not. Only that the darkness was there, and that what I saw, I did not see with eyes that saw with light.

Two replied: "My son, my daughter, gather close. My children, my children, gather close, all you myriad hosts, and listen to this story."

And God spoke.

And the story, the Story of billions of stories, was told.

And there was light.

And God saw that it was good.

Follow-up: And why these stories?