The Story of E

There was only Energy.
There was no space: E was at once here and there.
There was no time: E was at once now and ever.
E was only a seed of virgin consciousness...

Then energy materialized, bubbling out from effervescent fields of forces. Frenetic motions, stunning velocities, prodigious collisions filled the void.

Particles surged and vanished. E gathered some into a proton. An electron joined, and E took the helm of the young hydrogen atom. Many others surrounded it. Together they formed a swarming cloud.

Slowly, the cloud began to contract into a globular mass. After millions and millions of years, pressure grew to a critical point. The star ignited. A fiery nuclear fire burned at its core.

E sojourned long in the heart of the furnace. Protons were fusing into helium. The midst of the star was turning ever more massive and dense. E’s helium transmuted into carbon.

The star had swollen into a reddish sphere when it collapsed. In its center, compressive forces became overwhelming and the star exploded. The flash of this supernova was brighter than a million suns. Gigantic amounts of gas and dust were blown outward.

E was thrown into space. Soon, four lonely atoms of hydrogen bonded with E’s carbon. Their methane molecule went whirling into the infinities of the Cosmos.

During eons, E witnessed from afar the birth of millions of stars gathered into a spiraling galaxy. Eventually, E’s own cloud of matter slowly condensed, and E beheld the emergence of a stellar system. First, the flaming up of a sun; then, the gradual accretion of particles into a carousel of planets, satellites, and asteroids.

All these celestial bodies were being bombarded by meteorites and brushed by comets, but they changed little. Except one.

It was initially cloaked in gray and shrouded by a dull, gaseous mantle. Over millions of years, it metamorphosed into a magnificent halo of deep blue and ocher, partly concealed by ever changing swirls of a pure white. E felt attracted toward this planet.

Entering in its upper atmosphere, E gathered oxygen atoms and molded a structure of carbon dioxide. Such atomic mutation was good. It prepared for the great adventure of organic life.

There were long periods of idleness, here within a rock, there deep in sediment. Yet, E progressed from structure to structure. E experienced life in mineral molecules: first within a crystal and much later within a coral.

Washed away from the reef, then tossed up into marshland, E assembled a long chain of cellulose in a giant tropical fern. As time went by, E migrated through many vegetables, assuming the leadership of always more intricate substances.

A reptile fed on E’s plant and, for the first time, E experienced a large animal. When the beast died, E remained buried with it at the bottom of a muddy river. During the next several millions years, the riverbed slowly rose in a high mountain range.

Eventually, melting snow eroded E’s mineral prison. A bird ingested E, along with some herb. From then on, E visited a variety of other animals, each time learning to shepherd greater numbers of less experienced particles.

E’s knowledge had started with the simplest atoms and molecules. With the construction of cells and whole organisms, it had expanded to an astounding amount of information.

Two million years ago, E entered the body of a simian-looking creature. The creature was less than five feet tall, walked upright, and had nimble fingers. Within this strange creature, E found surprisingly advanced companions. They taught E a great deal and everything accelerated.

E went through a succession of the strange creatures. E even participated in the evolution of the extraordinary tool the creatures had in their skull. This "brain" was being progressively refined so that the creatures may share a larger part of their makers' consciousness.

After billions of years of schooling within so many different structures, E had become responsible for a reproductive cell of one of the sophisticated, brainy creatures.

E’s reproductive cell became fertilized. For the first time, E could follow the entire construction of a new creature. E even experienced the full workings of its consciousness.

That was thirty thousand years ago. Ever since, E, the Eternon, has been leading some of these intelligent creatures that eventually chose to call themselves: "humans."