Increation
“You’re not seriously thinking about implementing this.” The blindfolded woman asked as she trailed her frail fingers on the spinning wheel. Behind them, the imaginary tree hummed and cast its golden glow upon them.
“Your opposition is not entirely surprising, my dear Khaos.” Logos weaved her hands through the flowing golden locks. When she withdrew her hand, she did not hesitate to twirl one last curl. Khaos pursed her lips and swatted her hand away. Though her eyes and eyebrows were covered by the blindfold, it wasn’t hard to decipher the indignation in her expression.
“What even is this?” Eirene interjected, the portal to the sea of thoughts closing behind her. She plowed through the red sand, her footprints fading before long, as she reached her companions. Logos’s faded yellow eyes fixed her and their emptiness would have been disturbing if not for their deeply embedded familiarity within her mind.
“Ah, Harmony, you’ve come at last,” Logos acknowledged her. “Just in time for my new creation.” Her tone was even, perhaps detached. But Khaos, the slim and tall figure beside her, was fuming. Eirene could tell.
“Creation?” Khaos spat, crossing her arms over her chest. Her tight black dress creased where her arms folded. “This is nothing but a glorified torture device!”
“Quite the contrary,” Logos huffed and sat down on the small wooden chair beside the spinning wheel. She played with the thorny, golden skewer pinned through her head. It entered through one side of her head and left through the other. Her dark blue hair often got tangled in it. Right now, it began oozing the thick black muck that was so characteristic of her powers. “It is salvation in its purest form. The universe shall have order and I as its scion will not hesitate to impose it.”
“‘Impose’, ‘order’, ‘salvation’,” Khaos repudiated immediately. “You are trying to arrange and organise something that is inherently chaotic! How can you be so arrogant?”
Eirene bit her lip as her gaze darted between the two goddesses. It wasn’t the first time Chaos and Order argued, after all as guardians and inhabiters of these concepts, it was actually quite natural for them to clash from time to time. Yet somehow, this fight felt different. Khaos fumed and Logos was simply enjoying the show, her sadistic yet eternal smile plastered on that pale, smug face of hers. She propped her chin in her palm as she crossed one leg over the other.
Eirene carefully approached them and asked, voice meek and frightened, “What is going on?”
“Oh nothing major,” Khaos shrugged, sarcasm dripping thickly from her tone. She then turned to Logos and raised her voice: “Just Logos plotting the imprisonment of life’s free will!”
“You exaggerate,” Logos interjected as Eirene stepped closer. She analysed the loom, the shining golden wheel that had yet to spin with threads and yarn, but then what kind of material would be spun on it? In the background, Logos continued talking, “I am merely giving it a set of instructions.”
“Set of instructions?” Khaos huffed and kicked the sand at her feet. The small grains scattered into a crimson cluster of dust. There was no wind in the imaginary space, nor a single trace of life. The world around them was an infinite expanse of red sand which was at times the resting ground of half-formed thoughts failing to acquire a physical form. They littered the space akin a cemetery reminiscent of failure. “They are parameters, a set of limits, not instructions! Life — it shouldn’t be forced to order itself, nor should someone else try to. ”
“We will never see eye to eye, dearest Khaos,” Logos shrugged, whatever thoughts or feelings lying underneath her visage concealed beyond any hope of decipherment. Her gaze languidly trailed up and down Khaos’s body. However, the gesture’s purpose was lost to Eirene. The two had known each other since the beginning of the universe, every detail of themselves, from the number of hairs on their body, to the thoughts swirling in their minds, their actions — everything was deeply ingrained into their souls. Their knowledge of each other had become intrinsic, instinctual. “Our very natures differ. Therefore, whatever argument will ensue, though you are free to try and be civil, will only end in a showdown which only sheer physical strength will determine the outcome of. But please, do feel free to try and convince me, I will try to at least give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Come on,” Eirene interjected. She latched onto Khaos’s arm, fingers wrapping tight around her forearm. She saw the rapid rise and fall of her chest. “You know Logos has only ever had everyone’s and everything’s best interest at heart. She means no harm.”
“Harmony — an extension of order.”
“Case in point,” Logos drawled out.
“And chaos.” Khaos continued despite the interruption, “ It is a balance. Just like the fractal patterns in snowflakes or coastlines emerge from a fusion of randomness and structural rules. I do not negate the fact that you are essential to the universe and to the miracle of life itself, but you are overstepping your authority and your dominion.”
“But isn’t all life’s purpose a pursuit of definition and order? Take for example animals, the majority of them strive to create communities in which to live and profit from protection and food. Or human life, the many philosophers scattered across countless worlds desperately trying to give their existence a concrete definition, a law by which it can abide, a way to make it predictable, only to then descend into madness. If their outcome was predetermined, if their every move was mapped out for them, wouldn’t you think they would be all the happier for it? No more questions of their origin, no more fretting over the meaning of their existence, no more desperation and conflict. Death will stop being feared, it will instead be earnestly embraced.”
“I do agree that death is inevitable and the cause of many crises, but even if the outcome is predetermined, how one chooses to get there should be entirely up to them. Yes, life is a failed cycle of self definition, but it is the very chaos that it grows in which allows it this beautiful freedom.”
“And this same chaos is the cause of its demise, is it not?” Logos lazily arched a brow and tilted her chin. She barely suppressed a satisfied grin when she saw how Khaos practically snarled. But as always, her voice was even as she continued: “Let’s look at it this way, my fiery and beautiful Khaos. Order is coherency and Chaos is incoherency. Do you agree with me?”
“I won’t acknowledge or denounce anything until you have finished your argument.”
Eirene crouched down and scratched her head. She furrowed her brows before expressing her dismay, “It annoys me so much that I have trouble keeping up with you guys. But don’t we all need each other to exist? Just like Khaos said, I am the balance between you two, Order is what people strive for when they have known Chaos, and Chaos is a precursor to the birth of new order. Isn’t that how things are? Isn’t that how they should stay? In balance? …In harmony?”
“Eirene, you’re as sweet and comforting as a summer breeze,” Logos patted her on the head. And though her gesture was meant to be affectionate, it failed to deliver any warmth. “But it is pointless to worry your pretty little head with our petty disputes. Just like in the past, they will be resolved.”
Eirene blindly leaned into her touch. “I don’t want to see you guys fight, especially when I don’t see a point for it. We have been born for the benefit of the universe, and I know both of your hearts and I know you both strive for the same thing.”
“I very much doubt that,” it was Khaos this time who brushed her aside. “Logos,” she cocked her chin in her direction, “You were saying?”
“I’m sorry, where was I?” Logos lifted her chin to gaze at Khaos. “Whenever Eirene looks so cute it is hard for me to focus on anything else,” She pinched Eirene’s cheeks, “Ah, you’re such a cutie! I could just gobble you up for lunch!”
Eirene’s eyes widened and she pulled back, her hands playing with her hair in search of comfort. “Please, don’t do that.”
“But they’re so squishy and adorable,” Logos crouched down and snuffed at her, before her eyes closed in a warped depiction of serenity. “And you smell so delicious!”
“I know I am the youngest of you, but please do not treat me as you would an infant!”
This time she rose to her feet, brushing off the sand from her loose white tunic.
“Ah, I’m sorry,” Logos straightened herself again. “I cannot help but still see you as that little girl we stumbled upon in the sea of thoughts.” She cupped her own face and whimpered. “How I miss those days when you called me Aunt Logos!”
“Ah, please don’t remind me!” Eirene blushed furiously and turned her head away. “They’re still a source of embarrassment for me!”
“Enough!” Khaos roared. “For goodness’s sake continue your argument!”
“I forgot!” Logos pouted which made Khaos grimace with sheer disgust.
“No, you haven’t. But fine, I will humour you,” she leaned against the imaginary tree, arms crossed over her chest. While encased in that golden, benevolent light that thrummed with life, she spat. “Coherency and Incoherency.”
“Ah, yes. I said that Chaos and Order are like incoherency and coherency respectively. I was going to argue my point through examples and that I shall do: take for example empires, they crumble when they stop being coherent. Otherwise, when the populace’s goal does not align with the empire’s purpose, isn’t that right?”
“Go on,” Khaos replied carefully.
“So it is down right detrimental when individuals follow their own purposes, with little regard to others. This causes breaks and tears in civilisation which causes it to fall. But if everyone had the same purpose, and where aligned with each other, in other words, if the empire’s civilisation was coherent with each and every part that composed it as well as with itself as a whole, then that empire would continue to exist and would not crumble and disperse like sand among the dunes. Isn’t that right? Only through unity or coherency, ergo order, can civilisation thrive.”
“No, empires are built by civilisation, empires do not exist without civilisation but civilisation can exist without empires. Empire is when civilisation is gathered and united in one place. But civilisation will continue to exist without uniting under the banner of whatever name and definition they assign to themselves.”
“But unless united and coherent, how will it achieve evolution? Scientific pursuit and exploration can only be conducted in times of peace.”
“You are smart enough to recognise the error in your judgement. Universal history argues against you. Through order, or as you call it: coherency, civilisation remains stagnant. Chaos drives it further because of its spontaneity, or as you say: incoherency, because, as you have also said, it is in the nature of humans to try and make everything coherent. Therefore, the so-called incoherence will be deciphered and push civilisation towards evolution, in other words, in order to transcend chaos, humanity must evolve. It is chaos itself that drives it. In order, it grows complacent.”
“Hmm,” Logos hummed. “You may be right on this one. But is a stagnant civilisation so bad if it meant eternal peace? No more wrongs, no more crimes, no more cruelty, no more evil. Everyone will mind their own business as their lot was assigned. Of course, in coherence with the community or place they inhabit. But I do wonder, have you ever acknowledged that it is chaos itself that drives a species to extinction? When a species is no longer coherent with its environment, it dies out, does it not? By a simple process of elimination.”
Khaos continued for her, “And allows for new species to develop and evolve. Like your empire analogy. Sumerian. Akkadian, Assyrian, Persian, the Islamic Caliphate — these are all different empires composed of roughly the same civilisation. Evolution isn’t linear, nor is it orderly, it oscillates between highs and lows with cracks and tears in its structure and system.”
“Then, I shall forsake evolution and advocate for stagnation. For it is better to live in stagnation, a predictable assembly of monotonies than to be swept incessantly by the chaotic tornadoes of fate like a helpless leaf in the wind.” Logos’s gaze and expression had gone cold. Khaos had cornered her indeed in her reasoning, but it wasn’t in her nature to back down. While chaos was a flurry of breezes and hurricanes all concentrated into an amorphous mass of directionless movement, order was a thick, thick wall built over millennia, resilient, unrelenting, and unmoving in the face of such onslaught.
“Fate,” Khaos huffed a ridiculing laugh and shook her head. “So that is your ultimate purpose, for fate eludes even us gods.”
“I understand we are in disagreement?”
“Indeed.” Khaos let her head fall, but her lip twitched, foreshadowing the sheer anger she held inside her. With a cutting but stern tone, she said, “So you were right. A physical battle between us both is inevitable.” She began to walk away, her form growing slimmer and smaller with each step she took. However, she soon stopped, and though blindfolded, cast her enemy one final look over her shoulder. “But Logos, this time, I will kill you.”
While Eirene scrambled to her feet, Logos remained impassive, only replying a with a languorous, “Is that so?”
“Wait, Khaos!” Eirene called after her, speeding up her footsteps. And as she talked, her tone turned colourful with a whole spectrum of emotions. She followed her into the Sea of Thoughts. “You’re not serious, you can’t be! Are you? But why? Khaos hold on!”
