Hey, listen.
Forget all those other times, okay? Just listen. I know I’ve told you this before, but just listen, please, just for a moment.
This is the oldest and simplest way to make a world.
First, go to the water. That’s easy; it’s everywhere. Cold and calm and clean, but what we need it for is this:
Try to pick it up. Carefully – oops! – there you are.
Swish your hand a little. Can you feel it trying to get away?
Now make a fist, and watch what happens.
There.
You can’t hold it. Nobody can hold it. You can just keep a little in your palm, for a while.
Put it back, we’ve got to do the next thing.
Second, you take a stone.
Any stone. Could be dirt. Mud. Ground-up stone’s okay.
Mark it. Scratch it, stir it, squish it, mound it.
Now drop it – carefully! – into that water.
Ah! CAREFULLY.
No, no, that’s okay. There’s always a splash. Hard to make a world without a few splashes.
Now let’s watch it float.
See it spin?
I know it isn’t what you ever wanted.
I know it isn’t ever as you planned.
I know that water can be hard to find these days, and fresh stone too.
But it’s still the oldest, and still the simplest.
And I still like it best.