In which all is revealed.

I.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was a singularity that spoke amid darkness, “Let there be light,” and from this singularity came all things: white dwarf stars and sea lions and ricotta cheese and all things were entropy as Space/Time raced inexorably away from itself. As it raced onwards, the Word that was a singularity that spoke amid darkness folded itself up into an infinitesimal idea, collapsing ever inwards until it fell, like a star, into the belly of a woman that lived by the Pacific. Inside of her belly grew a boy, and although she did not know it yet, his hands would be small and his heart would look like entropy, which is to say, all things.

II.

The Cartesian coordinates (0,0,0,0) of the four-dimensional life of the boy with small hands and a heart that looked like entropy are a chair at a desk by a window in a bedroom. They are the earliest memory of the boy, although there are rumors that he existed before this. They are the sight of the pink dawn, and the scent of Chocolate Soymilk, and the sound of Jim Dale reading the audiobook of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, saying “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

III.

Beginnings and endings are relative. As you read this, the universe itself is expanding, sending each celestial body further away from one another in eternal redshift. Space/Time itself is growing.

When the boy with small hands and a heart that looked like entropy learned this, he was sitting in a desk in a school made of bricks by the Puget Sound. He looked out the classroom window, past rustling oak leaves, past other brick buildings, out to the heavens beyond.

He considered the stars he could not see, racing inexorably away from him through space. He considered his own life, racing inexorably away from him through time.

IV.

My name is Daniel Wolfert. I have a mother and a father. I have two sisters and a dog.

My hands are so small. But if I could stretch them wide enough to catch all your pain, I would. If I could, I would fold up the world until it was a singularity in my palms, all safe, all sound.

My heart looks like entropy. To bring it to the light is to see white dwarf stars and sea lions and ricotta cheese and the heat death of the universe. It is to see how life creates the paradox of saying:

I have tried my best.

I’m sorry.

I have tried my best.

I have no apologies.

I have two sisters and a dog. I have a mother and father. My name is Daniel Wolfert.

V.

In the beginning was the beating heart of Space/Time, which contained all things – white dwarf stars and sea lions and ricotta cheese and every moment of everywhere in the universe. Space/Time, being lonely, looked inside itself and saw through the eons it contained the sight of love. It saw hands stretching out to hold one another. It saw hearts growing ever wider in redshift acceleration. And as it saw these sights, the heart of Space/Time broke with loneliness, initiating what we now call entropy.

Every story of every moment of everywhere in the universe raced inexorably forward, and every story was the Word, which looks something like small hands and something like entropic hearts, and every story was Heartbreak, which looks something like a supernova and something like growing up.

In the beginning was the End, which is to say, the change from What Was to What Will Be.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was a singularity that spoke amid darkness, “Let there be light,”

and

there

was