Sun

Before the chaos of this universe existed, there was chaos upon other and different and more chaotic chaos.

Our chaos is organized. Everything has moved in the same way, every day, since its creation millions of years ago. Ever since the universe was clothed in light, filling the dark void with the golden string of life, things have had rhythm and reason. The barren, dangerous actuality of the universe did not change overnight, as there was no night, but it transformed into something habitable. Something where things can grow and survive.

When space dust formed something greater than itself, and stars and stones smashed together with force and time larger than we can imagine, I was created. And with me, light. Hope. Life. An entire system revolving around me. That in itself is more spectacular than anything else, all but for how life grows in

this system.

Over the past few millennia, worlds have grown and been torn violently apart. Lifeforms have evolved and decayed, over and over again. And while I still exist, while I have lived longer than anything else orbiting me, I can admire the never-ending persistence of survival that comes from being brought into a place with so much chaos.

I was never supposed to be kind. Or thoughtful, or giving, or anything more than a mass of heat so powerful, deadly to anything that got too close. I was made to destroy, not build. Maybe it’s the distance that makes the heart grow fonder.

They were an accident. Pure coincidence, the dust of my dust, almost inconsequential. Almost. They were never supposed to exist, but, because they do, I’ve been transformed. They love me. They look up and see not a violent force brought to life from millions and billions of years of harsh collision, but a gracious force, who gave them life, who is nothing but good to them. They love me. And after all this time, I think I finally understand.

I understand how they can look at the sky and see only warmth. After the cold night, it must be a blessing. I understand why they worship me; I make their crops grow. I give them food, and without me, life would be frozen, and nothing would function.

So I sit, stuck in the center of my universe, having brought it to life and watched it exist for infinity times infinity years before learning what love was, watching it live as I never could, watching it fall in love in a million different ways, and learning to love in return. Each little life has a heart that is a cosmos of its own, and we are the same, and we love it. I wait for the eon when my demise will come, as has happened to my siblings light-years away, trapped in the chaos of their own creations, but until then, I watch, I grow, and I love.