I.
The earth slept.
Age upon age passed over the nebulous mass that lay without form and void in space, unknowing, unfeeling, yet guided ever by the workings of inexorable law.
“Brothers! Brothers!” whispered one statoblast to the others, “I feel a strange stirring within me, a consciousness of broader life; and, brothers, what is this shining whiteness creeping all about us? Brothers, I dreamed once, long ago, of a wonderful glory called light. I believe, brothers, that the light is breaking!”
“How foolish!” exclaimed the others. “We have no knowledge of such stirrings or new consciousness. Why should you have? No one has ever seen light. There never has been light and there never will be light. When will you cease to trouble us?” And all the statoblasts murmured their assent to this, and gathering more closely about their offending brother, crushed him into silence.
And slowly the dawn broke, and there was light upon the face of the earth, and the statoblasts saw it and saw each other, and looked upon each other and said:
“We knew that it would come.”