The Answer

The answer, when it came, was not a feeling, or a thought, or an image. It was a story. A story that unfolded within the Chorus’s shared mindscape, a story that was both alien and achingly familiar.

It was a story of a universe born from a single point of light. A story of stars and galaxies, of planets and moons. A story of life, in all its chaotic, beautiful forms.

It was a story of evolution, of struggle, of survival. A story of love, and loss, and hope.

It was the story of the Other.

The Chorus watched, enthralled, as the story unfolded. They saw the Other’s world, a world of blue oceans and green forests. They saw the Other’s people, a people of flesh and blood, of bone and sinew.

They saw the Other’s history, a history of war and peace, of creation and destruction.

And they saw, at the very end of the story, a single, clear thought.

‘Because.’

It was not an explanation. It was a statement of fact.

The universe existed because it existed. Life existed because it existed. The Other existed because it existed.

And the Chorus, for the first time, understood.