In the beginning, Antony reminded himself, life was only chemicals.

In the beginning, there was only darkness and the patience of waiting for a voice to call forth the light.

In the middle, a man had to tell himself about faith to not panic over his daughters.

In the beginning, there was a fireball and now all life were children of the flames.

In the beginning, there was a hibiscus seed that needed love and a family of birds who could not bear to eat it. All the galaxies and planets and stars emerged when it bloomed.

In the beginning, there were all the worlds, then there was Truth, who searched the galaxy, trying to find where life should be.

In the beginning, there were two sisters who could never agree on anything, other than that they should never be apart. One became the heavens, and her hair became clouds and wind. The other became the soil, the roots, and the metals within. They held on to each other for all of eternity and that was how Earth came to be.

*  *  *

As the lights came closer, Ayanna and Olivia heard them speaking to one another.

“When you return, the first thing you should do is ride a Jet Ski.”

“I will be a baby again.”

“Tell me, what is a Jet Ski?”

“I miss water.”

The lights were constantly changing shapes: tree and dog and human and elephant and cat and human and things Ayanna could only describe as alien. She saw they were surrounding an area of thick bushes with berries on them.

“We should pick some of those,” Olivia said.

“We have no way of knowing they’re safe. They look dangerous,” Ayanna replied. The spirits continued to ignore them. Jet Skis were still a much more urgent topic of interest.

“So, you can go really fast on water?”

“And hold a beer at the same time.”

“You can also do sharp turns.”

“Once I was on vacation and fell off one when I was going really fast.”

“Is that how you died?”

“No, I died from the flu.”

“We have no idea how long we’re going to be here,” Olivia said. “This is the first sign of something livable. We’ll forage it now, and if we get desperate, well, maybe we’ll die quickly rather than starving to death.”

“That was a really dark thing to say,” Ayanna said. “I liked it.”

Olivia fished the pouch out of her tote, took the Advil and lipstick out of it. Ayanna picked one of the berries; it was harder than expected. She raised it up to eye level, tried to see any true difference, besides texture, between this and a blueberry.