Tales from the Tavern

Dream of Creation

'He's droning again,' Erik thought, glaring at the professor standing at the front of the room. He had figured the curriculum of this Astronomy class would be the most interesting of the term. And the curriculum, in and of itself, was. He had just the luck to get a professor at the end of his tenure, voice dry and raspy with age and his monotone perfected. Today he was lecturing on the Big Bang Theory. By name, it should have been one of the most interesting subjects of the course, but to Erik's ear, it was no different than anything else the professor had ever mentioned, so he tuned it out -- all of it.

Erik doodled briefly in his notebook, adding circling, squiggly lines to a page already nearly covered in graphite. When he finished, he thought the lines almost looked like an abstract star.

'At least I'm thinking about astronomy,' he thought. 'Sure beats some other days.'

He perfected a few of the edges, making it into a veritable sun. After admiring his work for a moment, he glanced involuntarily at the clock. He sighed. More than a half hour until dismissal. Hoping for a conversation to distract his boredom, he turned to the student to his left, but the kid had headphones in. The student to Erik's right was asleep. He sighed again and turned a page in his notebook. He stared at the page, but nothing seemed interesting enough to draw after the squiggly sun. The professor was still droning, on and on, like an annoying bee buzzing at an ear: after multiple swats, still refusing to go away. No longer able to ignore it, Erik gave into the insistent voice and actually understood an intermittent phrase.

"Today, like it has for more than ten billion years, the universe… Big Bang may not be an accurate… Other theories on the origin of the universe include…"

Erik broke free from the stupor and realized he was slouching; he sat up, feeling more awake than he had all class, though unsure why. His pencil had fallen to the floor unnoticed, so he picked it up and returned to the empty notebook page. He thought for a few moments, then scribbled the word 'Oberim'. Thinking it odd that such a nonsensical word rose in his thoughts, Erik spent the next few minutes trying to think of its origin. It rang a bell somewhere in a dark corner of his mind, but that corner shunned light and the memory remained hidden. With his last spark of attention drained, Erik slid down in his chair once more and fell asleep, the word Oberim echoing in his thoughts.

-- -- -- -- -- --

A much younger Erik, no more than five years old, skipped into a comfortable living room and planted himself on a couch next to an old man who was fast asleep. After waiting a few moments, watching the man expectantly, the child gave an exaggerated sigh and prodded the man's shoulder.

"Grandpa, Grandpa! Wake up!"

The man began to snore heavily.

"Stop it Grandpa! I know when you're playing!" Erik giggled. "Come on Grandpa, tell me a story!"

Erik's grandfather opened one eye. Erik clapped his hands. "Please, Grandpa!"

The man could no longer contain the smile blossoming on his weathered face. He sat up straight and patted his knee. Erik climbed up and stared expectantly into his grandfather's face; the man's eyes twinkled and he said, "You know, my boy, I think you're just old enough to hear about the beginning of the world. What do you think about that, hm? You think you're ready?"

"Yeah!"

His grandpa examined him and cocked an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"Grandpa! I'm ready!"

"Well alright, then, if you're positive."

"Come on! Tell me!"

And so his grandfather started speaking, his dramatic story-telling voice filling the room, "At the dawn of time, Caynoli who is the Creator, was alone. Ages passed, and he yet slept, untroubled by the void without. But one day, he woke, and he did see the darkness 'round his being, and he was anguished to see the void. But he felt his power, and he called up the stars from the light of his eyes, and the fire of his soul was life, and he spread it into the void. So began the time of Creation, the first breath of…"

A buzzing began to fill Erik's ears, drowning out his grandfather's voice. A wind swept through the open window and began to lift him away. He clung to his grandfather's leg, but his fragile strength failed and the wind bore him away.

-- -- -- -- -- --

Erik woke to the bell, his face plastered against his notebook. Not an inch from his eyes was the word he had scrawled earlier: Oberim. He nearly gasped when he connected it to the unfinished sentence at the end of his dream. By the time he lifted his head, the whole story his grandfather had told him as a child flooded his memory, and as he was packing his notebook into his pack, he vowed to write down Oberim, the mythological creation story, to the best of his memory, lest it be lost to time.