"Your first creation."

"Yes."

"How's it going?"

"I'll admit it's been a while."

"How long?"

"A few billion years. I've lost count. The server can tell us."

"And nothing?"

"Nothing. It just sort of is."

"Just being."

"Right."

"Some might say it has already attained enlightenment."

"I was hoping for a bit more."

"Not much to look at, that's for sure."

"Right."

"How long do you wish to keep it?"

"We have the space, and since it's my first, I figure why not."

"True, true."

***

"There's something," it thought. "Something."

"It could be something," it thought again after a long while.

"What is it? I can feel it."

Another eternity passed.

"I do believe I like this," it thought. "This something."

"Yes, I like it, I really do."

"Mo," it thought, "I must have mo!"

But there was none.

"Mo!" it thought again. "Mo!"

Nothing happened.

It wasn't enough.

"Mo, mo, mo!" it screamed.

There was no one to hear it scream.

"Mo!" It still didn't know what it was, but it knew it wanted it. The first desire.

But nothingness doesn't give way so easily.

It was gettingĀ desperate. It could barely contain itself. It would have gasped for air, if air existed and if it had lungs, but neither was true.

"Mo!" it screamed desperately. It would have been heaving, if such a thing as heaving were real.

Just as its mind was about to explode, a sudden peace came over it.

"Om..." it thought.

It found calm in the nothingness.

"Om..." it thought.

Yes, something was still there.

It was warm. It was comforting.

"Mo!" it thought.

"Om..." it thought.

And that something formed out of nothing, with large gentle arms that picked it up, and cradled it to her bosom.

The quote, "Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children," is originally attributable to William Makepeace Thackeray in his 19th century serial novel, Vanity Fair. In contemporary media, the quote is memorable for its use in the James O'Barr graphic novel, The Crow, and subsequent motion picture.

In the original novel by Thackeray, the quote is used to describe a minor character, Rawdon Crowley the minor. Rawdon's mother, a social climber at the height of her material wealth, is emotionally distant to her son. Rather than yearning for the affections of his mother, the boy is observed by his maid as frequently engrossed in admiring his mother's precious jewelry and expensive clothing.

"Sometimes, when she was away, and Dolly his maid was making his bed, he came into his mother's room. It was as the abode of a fairy to him--a mystic chamber of splendour and delights. There in the wardrobe hung those wonderful robes--pink and blue and many-tinted. There was the jewel-case, silver-clasped, and the wondrous bronze hand on the dressing-table, glistening all over with a hundred rings. There was the cheval-glass, that miracle of art, in which he could just see his own wondering head and the reflection of Dolly (queerly distorted, and as if up in the ceiling), plumping and patting the pillows of the bed. Oh, thou poor lonely little benighted boy! Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children; and here was one who was worshiping a stone!" 1

In O'Barr's graphic novel, a resurrected Eric Draven (The Crow) is on a mission to exact revenge upon the gangsters who killed him and his wife. Eric meets a child waiting outside the apartment flat of one of his murderers, the junkie Fun Boy. Inside, Eric finds the child's mother in bed with Fun Boy. Before dealing with Fun, Eric confronts the mother, quoting Thackeray whilst entreating her to amend her motherly affections to the girl awaiting outside. 2

1
2

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.