{"id":8714,"date":"2013-02-12T23:01:55","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T21:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=8714"},"modified":"2013-02-18T23:06:05","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T21:06:05","slug":"the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/?p=8714","title":{"rendered":"The Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

by C\u0103t\u0103lina Fometici
\ntranslation from Romanian by Maria Jastrzebska & Camelia-Aura Barbu [MTTLC student]
\nclick aici<\/a> pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n…And time started to exist.<\/p>\n

Time didn\u2019t exist before, she said. In the past, there was only Eternity. And Eternity was mild; it was rose-colored and golden, full of beams of light, a nameless fragrance that came from everywhere, a song that floated in everything and anything.<\/p>\n

Now it was dark. And there was something dark and heavy clinging onto her. Onto her hair of fire, too heavy for her frail shoulders. Hidden in her blood, too hot for her body of flesh.\u00a0 It was following her like a shadow, watching her from everywhere. It was death. The End.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there will be\u00a0 an End,” she said, \u201cthere is also will be a Beginning. Or\u201d, she asked, moving her hand to her forehead, \u201chas the Beginning already happened?\u00a0 When was the beginning?”<\/p>\n

Remembering Eternity turned her mind blurry, growing darker like Negurossa\u2019s night, her thoughts melting in her head.<\/p>\n

As if she was being enveloped by black water.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the Goddess. The Titanide with hair of fire,” she said with a voice like the thunder she had once had.<\/p>\n

Darkness. Fog. Emptiness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does \u2018goddess\u2019 mean?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

The silence answered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the Goddess. And before me, there was Eternity\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

The End comes after the Beginning. The Beginning was. When? In Eternity?<\/p>\n

She fell to the ground and opened herself, letting the first son of the Jade Snake come out of her. Fluttering its enormous scaly wings, the dragon cub tore open her womb, whistled loudly, and disappeared into the night.<\/p>\n

Her incandescent blood burned slowly, weakening her powers. The power of a goddess within a mortal body. Body of flesh. She will be killed by her own power, they said; she will be consumed by her own flames. But not before she sees her monstrous children\u2026<\/p>\n

Her blood was like molten metal. The earth sputtered under its touch.<\/p>\n

There had been no Beginning in Eternity. She and the Others were one with Eternity. Without Beginning and without End.<\/p>\n

An unimaginable pain made her groan and cower. The second dragon cub appeared from between her thighs, sparkling phosphorescently, soiled with divine blood. She heard him sneeze on contact with the air. She felt him crawling hurriedly out of her; she imagined him looking around surprised. She couldn\u2019t see him; she closed\u00a0 her eyes in pain. And then she heard the flutter of wings \u2013 he flew as well\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cBut if in Eternity, everything is eternal,” she asked, \u201cwhy can\u2019t I remember anything? Why can\u2019t I remember Immortality? What was it like there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere? Where \u2018there\u2019? Was it a place? A space?…\u201d<\/p>\n

One by one, the Jade Snake\u2019s sons appeared from the doomed goddess\u2019s body, and her blood like molten metal leaked out slowly, setting fire to the vegetation and earth itself.\u00a0 Stones were melting and transforming into lava. From the goddess\u2019s body flowed a river of fire.<\/p>\n

Nothing was happening there. Nothing was there. Eternity was\u00a0 empty. She and the Others\u2026<\/p>\n

She screams. An oblong head with scales. A lizard body, soiled with her blood. A whistle. A flutter of wings. Silence.<\/p>\n

Where is \u201cthere\u201d?<\/p>\n

If I cannot remember anything from Eternity, she asks, could it be that nothing memorable has happened?<\/p>\n

Yes, she says. Nothing memorable has happened there. There is a \u201cthere,” there is a \u201cthen.” In Eternity, there is only an Immortality that no one remembers.<\/p>\n

If I do not remember, she says, it means it did not exist. And then the Others do not exist either.<\/p>\n

She cries out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if I die now?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n

She won\u2019t die now. She must give birth to all of them. That is what They decided.<\/p>\n

Who are They?<\/p>\n

Maybe they don\u2019t exist. And if They exist, They do not know that. She hasn\u2019t known either. She only knows now, when she is dying.<\/p>\n

The last dragon cub appears from between her thighs, with its jaw open and its eyes burning. She feels it wrench away from her, sees it shaking off the blood it is covered in.<\/p>\n

Next to her, there is a lake of fire. Blue fire that came from the dying goddess\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

She smiles tiredly.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t know they exist.<\/p>\n

Triumphant, she puts her head on her arm and sighs for the last time. Her copper blonde hair envelops her like a cloak of fire, consuming her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by C\u0103t\u0103lina Fometici translation from Romanian by Maria Jastrzebska & Camelia-Aura Barbu [MTTLC student] click aici pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103   …And time started to exist. Time didn\u2019t exist before, she said. In the past, there was only Eternity. And Eternity was mild; it was rose-colored and golden, full of beams of light, a nameless fragrance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[969,22],"tags":[964,913,970,703,403,1116,312],"class_list":["post-8714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia37","category-short-story","tag-camelia-aura-barbu","tag-catalina-fometici","tag-egophobia-37","tag-maria-jastrzebska","tag-mttlc","tag-short-story","tag-translation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-2gy","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8714"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9520,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8714\/revisions\/9520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}