OL'MUO

L’uomo, the man, opened his eyes. Looking at the dawn of time, he whispered the Word that had spawned him. He tried to stand on his feet but with little success. He was stopped by a feeling of powerlessness, which he would learn to call pain. So he lay there looking at all the inexpressible expanse that loomed over him, frisking the origin of the malaise that smarted just below his chest. He smiled before all that space. He smiled at the primordial fever that stirred him. Something at his side began to emanate warmth - a magnificently unknown form that suddenly made him feel less alone. He felt different, gripped by an unknown discomfort. In time, he would come to understand that discomfort is always caused by the need to adapt to novelty and change. His solitude, for example, which he wasn’t even able to conceive until the moment he felt himself divided in two. He would come to understand that his solitude therefore consisted in perceiving things and phenomena that he was unable to name. This is because - he would painfully learn - it is only by naming things that they become substantial, or even exist. If he had possessed the word sky or heaven, for example, everything would have been better now, in his strange torpor. It would have given meaning to that languid amazement that enveloped him. It would have given an absolute value to that nothingness that captivated his gaze. And maybe that inexplicable wonder breathing at his side would have acquired an explicit meaning.The Word that spawned him had designed him as an intuitive organism that had to take possession of his intuitions as he goes, and assemble them into something that makes full sense. And while he lay immersed in the nothingness of these thoughts, it was clear that light and darkness, water and earth, chaos and order, empty and full had been separated forever. It was clear that the moment had arrived. The image next to him sat up as if animated by an invisible breath. Then it looked at him, and if he had had the word smile, he would have realised that as well as looking him, the image was also smiling at him.

In that instant, the man realised he existed and had a name . “Adam,” he stuttered touching his chest.

“I know,” said the image. “I know.”