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creatures period, much less
aware
creatures, much less creatures aware of Me. It might be a comfort to be unaware. I might decide to make only inanimate matter.
    What a waste! said Uncle. To make such a beautiful universe filled only with inanimate matter? It would be
boring
. Boring, I tell you. Am I the only one who thinks it would be boring?
    It would be boring, said Aunt Penelope.
    Yes, I said. It might be boring.
    Then we are agreed, said Uncle. There will be animate matter with intelligence, and there will be an immortal soul in each living being, connecting it to you.
    Wait a moment, I said. Only we, and the Void, can be immortal. Immortality does not exist in Aalam-104729. The thing has a direction of time, caused by the dulling of its energy, and everything in it will eventually dissipate. Nothing lasts forever in Aalam-104729, or in any of the universes I have created. I will consider a soul, but it cannot be immortal. It must follow the direction of time, like everything else. It must gradually decay and disintegrate. We cannot begin making exceptions to the rules here and there, helter-skelter, or we’ll end up with chaos again. Let me consider this … Maybe in the life of each creature I will allow a brief recognition of something vast, a flash of Me, a hint of the unchanging and infinite Void.
    And then those creatures will pass away? said Deva. Dissipate and die? And their souls with them? At least let the souls come back in new bodies. Otherwise, it is so sad.
    There you are getting mushy again, said Aunt Penelope. What do you know of sadness? What do any of us know? Sadness may not even exist. Let’s take a walk. I feel like stretching a bit.

Matter
    All of us—Uncle Deva, Aunt Penelope, and I—were feeling protective of the fledgling Aalam-104729. We didn’t want to leave it alone among the zillions of other universes flying about, so we carried it with us on our stroll through the Void. Although its mass was infinite, the infinity was a small infinity, so it felt like nothing at all.
    My aunt moved ahead, poking at folds of the emptiness as was her habit and stopping to collect little scraps of Void for some private use later on. She was in fine form. We could hear her commenting and exclaiming to herself. Uncle and I lingered behind. He had always been slower than she, one of their many marital incongruities. After every long sleep, she would leap up with plans for a new sightseeing excursion through the Void, while he would roll over, look groggily about for a few moments, and go back to sleep. Ironically, my aunt was the more patient one. She would take any amount of time for even small things (except her own appearance), whereas Uncle worked in broad strokes and easily grew upset with details. He was the idealist, she was the more practical member of the pair.
    You’ve got to put in a soul, whispered Deva. You heard what your aunt said.
    I’m thinking, I’m thinking, I answered. Dear Uncle, can we not talk about the soul for a while and just enjoy our walk? Listen to the music. At that moment, a playful scherzo was resonating throughout the Void. Listen. Yes, of course, said Uncle Deva. For a while. I have no idea where your aunt has got to.
    Unmeasured time passed.
    I am going to make matter, I announced. Inanimate matter. And then? asked Uncle. You are not going to stop with that? There is plenty of time to decide what to do after that, I said. Do you mind if I attend to this now? Uncle shrugged. I’ll be back in no time, I said. In fact, you won’t know I’m gone.
    I entered the new universe again and took stock. Matter. At the moment, Aalam-104729 contained only pure energy. But my two symmetry laws already guaranteed that matter could be created from energy—in fact, required it—so all I needed to do was to specify the parameters of a few basic particles. This one spins this much, that one spins that much, this one responds to this force, that one to that force, and so on and so