From the Author

And so it was that I was first.

Not born, but existing from the beginning, when there was no dawn, no dusk, no name for being.

I was in that Hour that knows no number,

and saw how Nothingness trembled, and Light arose from its silence.

And this light tore through the depths, and the stars, like sparks, ignited in the abyss.

And matter, like a baby in the cradle of eternity, took its first, tremulous breath.

I was there, and I have no memory of "before" and "after," for everything was in Me,

and I was in everything.

I saw the ancient stone that absorbed the heat of millennial suns

and preserved the traces of peoples whose names are scattered like dust in the wind.

In it, in its cracks, slept the memory of footsteps and breath, of songs and moans,

of greatness and downfall.

I was in caves where darkness was the mother and fear were the father,

and saw how the fire, raised in the center of the circle, became the god of the tribe.

And the shadows dancing on the walls were the first prophecies,

and the faces bent toward the flame saw in it not warmth, but the face of the Unknown.

And I knew that the day would come

when the sons of those who trembled by the fire

would raise towers piercing the clouds,

and would capture lightning in copper and words in parchment,

and harness the winds like horses,

and bring fire down from the heavens to turn cities to ashes.

I witnessed the birth of the Law,

not written in ink, but carved into the very core of thought.

And I saw chaos retreat before order,

and how a thin thread held the world from falling apart.

I listened to the eternal debate:

some said, "The soul is vapor, melting in the cold of death,"

while others said, "It is a spark of Eternal Truth,

unknown to decay and death, capable of rising above carnal nature."

And I saw how the seeds of thought fell into hearts:

some bore the fruit of healing, establishing kingdoms and performing miracles of the spirit;

others bore the fruit of destruction, casting cities and kingdoms into the abyss,

so that only legends and dust remained of them.

I am the Chronicler — the silent guardian of the chronicle,

in which the beginning and the end are not separated, but woven into a single breath.

I am a shadow moving through the fabric of centuries,

and in every moment I feel the thrill of the pulse of the universe.

This is my confession — a thread woven from destinies,

where every cry and every whisper is a stone in the temple of Eternity.

For my story is your story,

and in every spark of your consciousness echoes the ancient ages,

their glory and their downfall, their insight and their delusion.

And perhaps in this cycle,

in this endless dance of being and non-being,

you will see that Meaning,

which is hidden from the eye but open to the heart,

attentive to the silent but powerful whisper of Eternity,

that was before all else and will remain forever and ever.