The Celebration
by Mario Montani
translated by Gabriel González
In the vastness of the void, the atoms were restless. Electrons and neutrons sensed a preannouncement. Swirls of particles searched for their place in the expanse. In it, protons, leptons, and pi mesons arranged themselves with meticulous precision. Within that gaseous and formless matter, neutrinos, fermions, and bosons began to take on forms that resembled not what they were but what they would become.
In regions that were inconceivably vast, tauons, hadrons and quarks, which had accumulated over the course of countless ages, came to understand themselves as part of a whole. Neutral pions whirled about the bottomless end of the void. Gluons and gravitons alike grasped that within them resided in embryonic form the spinning of worlds, the edges of galaxies, and the contours of the universe.
There was not yet outside or inside, up or down, front or back… But in the long night of preparation, the sound of a new beauty was heard. In the timeless palaces, order took shape, and new melodies helped to bring together the substances of the universe so that they could respond to the call of a divine festivity. The harmonies in the depths and in the heights overflowed all spaces. The echoes of music caused avalanches of cosmic energy that swept over the cold abysses.
In concentric movements, particles and antiparticles prepared for a creative dance in the forthcoming, vast wheel of stars. All matter came to know that within it existed an innate lifeforce. This faint knowledge, which grew surer and surer, spoke to some saying that they would lay down roads of stars and would be servants to the comets, and to others saying that they would take part in the seas and mountains. Some would bind into molecules and tissues to constitute the delicate skin of life and to be witnesses of yet-to-come Easters and yet-to-be-celebrated Christmases.
A joy, an igneous cheerfulness, spread everywhere. This was the long-awaited-for feast. The banquet. The celebration…
Suddenly, the void was no longer void. The photons expectantly got ready. From the vast halls and spacious mansions of Eternity, from the abyss of Time, came a deep voice.
“Let there be light!”
And there was light.
This piece was published in 2024 as part of the Holiday Lit Blitz by the Mormon Lit Lab. Sign up for our newsletter for future updates.
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