Myths of Origin Four Short Novels - By Catherynne M. Valente Page 0,101

churning sea, and jellyfish macerating themselves into starry foam on the wave-tips. In the beginning of the beginning of the beginning, of the tips of the beginning of the waves. This is how it was pillared in black, and it was so black, and its suspensors were strung with light like mala beads, and jellyfish crushed themselves into raw foam on the tips of the world. A bridge hung on the tips of the waves. This is how the bridge was pillared in the beginning of the world: on clouds, and mist, and the depthless sea.

It was all confused, then, the air and the saltsea, and the darkness.

In nothing, some part of nothing seemed to flow into a space that was her and a space that was him, and his eyes on the undulate sea were as the hand of her flesh on the glittering suspensors, at once through the void, the void seemed to flow into her, and in the briefest beginning of the beginning of moments, the shadows were perfumed.

Izanami and Izanagi opened their eyes on the bridge that spanned heaven, and the feet of Izanami on the floor of the jeweled bridge were strong and pale. Her hair was as black as the nothing, and the void seemed still to cling to her, into her and out of her and into her and out of her. The eyes of Izanagi, in the days before flame, were the brightest objects of all objects in the span of space. The dusk sat on his shoulder blades like clothes, and he said nothing, and she said nothing, and they were the first of all things in the world.

Steam rose from their shadows.

Together, they pulled one of the suspensors down from its anchor, and the sound of it was like a harp breaking, and the lights were upset, red and gold and green, but in the hands of Izanami, who rolled the strand like a stalk of fennel against her thigh, it became the Amenonuhoko, the jeweled spear of heaven, and it was the third object of all possible objects.

Together, neither one before the other, they plunged the spear into the churning sea, where there was no earth, and the spray wet the underside of the bridge, and their faces crusted with the salt of it, and the light-grime of the bridge, and altogether salt and spray and grime were tasted for the first time, on the first tongues. Under the light-clotted spear a thing became bulbous and green, and, after a time, it became an island, rich of dirt and loam, and there were dead jellyfish scattered on its shores like shipwrecks, for they threw themselves against the hard earth as they had thrown themselves against the sea, and discovered first of all creatures that land and sea are not the same. On this island was an empty house, an empty house with a great pillar in its center, and shadows were on the long grass, the long grass and the jellyfish like a smear of diamonds. And this was the place called Onogoro, and it was morning there. Stepping down from the creaking, starry bridge, Izanami and Izanagi’s feet squelched in the first mud of the world, and the smell of it was so new, like skin.

As they walked up the beach-head into the house, the jellyfish kept up their suicides, for the lesson of land and sea is a difficult one to learn when there has never before been any land, nor any sea, nor any jellyfish at all.

When they entered the great house, they saw that the floor was many-tiled and green as turtles would be once turtles were conceived, and on the wall, which was blue and black as the bridge had been, was written:

The Room of Eight Footsteps.

The letters were scarlet and gold, and Izanami wondered at them with eyes raw as peeled apples, while Izanagi was concerned with the pillar rising up out of the tiles like the trunk of a tree—save that Izanagi did not yet know what a tree was, so the word hung in his mind like a uvula of amber. He gestured to her, and she pulled herself away from the ember-lettering.

They touched the pillar side by side, neither before the other. It was smooth, dry, cool—and yet all these words crowded in a parade through their hearts, for smooth and dry and cool had never before been, and their scent was searing.

Izanami and Izanagi walked around the world-anchoring circumference