An Enormous Breath Being Held

The universe didn’t start with a bang.
It started with a breath—held in silence, then slowly let go.

In the beginning, it felt like being underwater.
There was no up or down. Just stillness—soft, endless.
The cosmos floated like a body in the deep sea, quiet and waiting.

No stars, no time, no light. Only the feeling that something was about to begin.
Like the moment before a whale sings. Like the ocean holding its breath.

Then came the first flickers of light.
Not a flash, but a slow pulse—like a backward heartbeat.
Not a star yet, but a hint of fire.
Not sound yet, but the shape of a voice forming.

As it moved, it left behind threads—gravity, time, and early patterns of matter.
Not quite laws, but the start of something taking shape.

Life didn’t appear all at once.
It started in the dark—creatures made of light and movement, drifting through warm underwater caves.
They glowed. They shifted colors. They dreamed.

And even now, in some distant corner of space,
the breath continues.

The universe is still exhaling.
Still becoming.