Creation Stories
by Rachel Wolf
Installation by Rachel Wolf
History of Reflections
Lightning has no vertebras.
An inability to gaze horizontally robs any electric dialogue between neighboring clouds. Lightning could never even just turn to catch a glimpse of another lightning, nor would it want to. A dialogue between lightnings is fatal to the architecture of the sky. As if one were to inject two golden raisins with kerosene connected by caterpillar saliva and ignite them under a dry petal.
Lightning could only stack down a spinal formation striking perfect posture never witnessing proof of its power. Lightning was never even able to lose eye contact with itself, which is the second most transcending one can do in a within a second.
Every time lightning struck it received no response from below. Like dropping pennies into a pig, clinkless. Lightning envied thunder knowledge of itself. Thunder receives responses in eruptions: whale breathes, geysers, pasta pots boiling over, sneezes.
The world could echo but not reflect. All surfaces now lustrous, absorbed like pound cake. Oysters were mute pears, fish scales were dusty almond, glass was invisible, and emeralds were deflated celery bits.
Lack of verification is discouraging like dead ladybugs. Lightning shed its glow. Similarly to shucking corn, each time lightning struck, a glow splintered away. As if a yoyo drenched in electric liquid spat when the string fell taut.
Earth: a quilt threaded with electricity. Rubber soles popularized, as people sought protection from inconvenient and unsolicited zaps to the feet.
However, the webbing of the universe should not be doubted and sometimes time creates something of magic. The edge of lasagna and nose hairs! Bald vultures that contract no diseases from carcasses they nibble. Tailless humans, for where would humanity be without the postmodern chair or commode. Ginkgoes, who protect their powers with a most repulsive odor. Artichokes, who protect their organ with hazardous teeth. And the objects that lick light like sorbet.
Over time an accumulation of electricity was absorbed into these porous objects. Mother pearls, shrimp eyes, fly wings, street puddles, beetle exoskeletons, rotten meat, snail slime, and yellow currant flesh humbly gulped brighter. Asteroids in waiting.
After a trillion volts were gulped, a white ricocheted that was brilliant enough to reach the clouds. A reflection to shock lightning itself. Now when clouds condense, earths porous object politely request: “Electrocute my quilt!”
Sculpture by Rachel Wolf
History of Jellyfish
Jellyfish are teaspoons of the moon.
Humans, coming from fish, adopted a certain dominant trait that proved problematic after the invention of waterparks. Jellyfish were an attempt to correct this issue. The universe sought to make a lineage of species whose evolution led to the child that did not pee in pools.
Unlike the modern child, the moon has nobility, chivalry, and dignity. The moon would never pee in a public pool. For the sake of those who desired aquatic fun in August, teaspoons of the moon were scooped and sent to the ocean.
Salt water condenses moon scoops and reacts to create a slimy film like that of an egg yolk in its whites. Fresh water, however, breaks this film and creates a camouflaged chaos like marbling an egg with a needle. Additionally, jellyfish in fresh water are more dangerous because they are formless making their cosmic burst sting unavoidable.
The first jellyfish swarm was born on the blood moon in March: orange marmalade bulbs. The second swarm, born on the strawberry moon of June: red leopards.
The thirds swarm born on the full corn moon of September: cobblestone tentacles.
The blue moon jellyfish: teaspoons of blueberry jam and the snow moon made the string of pearls.
Momentarily the ocean was bottled into little jam jars and served at fancy hotels in Paris. People enjoyed eating little pieces of the moon and its ability to glow brighter on the warm brioches the fancy hotels served. Especially the orange marmalade. And the moon when viewed from these fancy hotels, now crater-full, displayed a rabbit, who ironically hates marmalade. Especially orange marmalade.
However, evolution is oftentimes unpredictable. Take the ants, which are just blackberries on stilts or eyebrows, which are caterpillars clamped to our foreheads. The jellyfish did not create the prototype potty-trained child. What came after the jellyfish was the squid that not only excretes but excretes ink. And when jellyfish exit water directly, they oxygenate to mushrooms. Perhaps if toddlers had awareness of their presence in society excreting ink would embarrass them creating incentive not to pee in public pools. But they don’t and toddlers will continue to throw unattractive tantrums on trains.
The evolution of the jellyfish stopped because at the end of the day humans will continue to knowingly swim in pee as long as they can pretend it is not there. Ink is too in your face and the evolved jellyfish child would force humans to confront how truly gross they are. Water parks would be wastelands and the fancy hotels in Paris would never be the same.
History of Hail
Hail is Morse code for pear.
Due to an excess of interior design magazines made for flyover states, the definition of a perfect nook has been tainted and confused with gingham pillows and wool throws. In actuality, the coziest earthly place is within a pear.
Pears are heavenly nooks. Each variety of pear lends for a different effect. The crunchy Bartlett pear recalibrates bones and elongates spines. Bosc pears, the most regal pear, make one feel like a queen residing in gold. Asian pears create that fun downtown loft with white surfaces, tall ceilings, and movable walls. And lastly, the coziest place in the universe pear, far cozier than a cottage in Cotswold’s stocked with orange marmalade and muffins, is an old grainy Anjou pear.
Anjou pears are most loved by caterpillars and the grainier the better— a pear of pearls. To know how grainy a pear is, a caterpillar produces a little milk and spits onto the pear skin. Within moments the milk reduces the pear skin to a transparent and the caterpillar can assess the brilliance, karat, and grain. Luckily there are red and green Anjou pears. Caterpillars prefer the red ones, as they are easier to chew pearl tunnels. Once the caterpillar is inside the Anjou pear it may never leave except for when the pear grains become shriveled like golden raisins.
Within a grainy Anjou pear a bulbous world cradles the cat napper. The closest a human has come to taking a nap so intense was during a six-hour classical music performance in 1967. A grainy Anjou pear also glows within when hit by the sun like a lantern. Each grain eats the light and produces warmth to make the napper snugger. Also nappers wake up feeling reborn because of the vitamin D. The crevasses between each grain shift within minutes to fit ones figure and can even be molded to make another figure for propping or spooning. However the best nap if spooning is desired is within a papaya.
The issue however, is a pear is too small for a bat nonetheless a human. The goal was to give humans the delight of being surrounded by pear. Partly for the sake of their pleasure but also to show them how little the market for interior design magazines should actually be. The goal was to create a pear world.
A pear has two parts, the grains and the skin, the skin, which contains the grains. Earths atmosphere was a good substitute for the skin and the only ingredient of this equation missing was pear grains. It was impossible for the universe to reproduce the genetic makeup of a pear but their attempt is applauded.
Small beads started to rotate in the sky and fall into little white balls. The quantity needed to fill the atmosphere was completely underestimated and the world looked nothing like a pear. The beads that did actually resemble pear grains only accumulated about two inches. Additionally, the small beads were cold and though they were opalescent, people did not even want to turn them into necklaces. Scientist could have easily figured out a way to collect and contain the grains to make a pear environment with a thermostat but alas, they did not. Humans simply had no idea of why there were suddenly small beads dropping from the sky. The only relationship people had with the dropping beads were that they named it hail and invented slushy’s.
There is no PA system for the universe to communicate with earth. The spoken language of the universe is deafening and the lack of a PA system is the reason why death by sound does not exist. The universe communicates through systems and signs. Some intelligent creatures understand the universe well. Cows know when it will rain and birds know which migration highways is less jammed. Others creatures, specifically humans, often times just have no clue even when the universe is blunt. Some decades the universe feels like a neglected spouse and wishes to break up with humans due to deficient and unproductive communication. But it can’t for too much history would be lost.
Impressed by how clever Morse code is, the universe trusted humans would be nimble enough to detect it. The universe drooped hail in Morse code. Hail surrounded humans with soft tapping filling the atmosphere with an echo saying: “Pear! Pear! Pear!” But time after time human ignorance is demonstrated yet again. Unsurprisingly the only species that understands this symphonic composition are bats. Sadly, they couldn’t care less about the coziest nook in the universe for they sleep upside down and do not nap.
Perhaps the tap is too far from anyone’s ears as it never hailed over five inches and when it did, people were upset with the dents in their cars. However, if they knew what being in a pear felt like, maybe they wouldn’t care so much about their cars. Perhaps humans do understand the code but think hail is saying rape or reap or erpa. Humans still have no idea that when it so called hails, the world is a ghost symphony that echo’s “Pear! Pear! Pear!” sometimes so loud which only serves to wake the bats.
Soap Dish by Rachel Wolf
History of Moss
Moss is portions of Neptune.
Neptune’s ghostly rings are composed of ice particles and astral dust. Not even a lizard could adhere as a spinner on this glassy highway. Neptune was sent to earth to make areas subject to romanticism slippery and cold. The universe, fed up with the lack of substance within this movement, concluded: areas that cannot be accessed comfortably by foot cannot pollenate flirtation.
Neptune was sent to coat riverbanks halting any more oil paintings of nude nymphs luring handsome men. A man cannot elegantly approach a nymph on a slippery riverbank, a painter cannot approach the river, and a nymph would not be nude for it would be too cold. Neptune was sent to trellises leading to balconies of Italian villas for Act II Scene II of Romeo and Juliet repulsed the universe to no end. Neptune was sent to places prone to amorous rendezvous or tempting frolics. Forest floors, roofs exposed to moonlight, and trees: mammoth roots to freeze a nook, branches to prevent angelic reading, and bark to repel the kinds of people who carve in their initials.
Earth is the only planet that pickles, the 18th most intelligent invention in the Universe. Natural solutions, emulsions, and tinctures mixed in the jar of Earth’s confining atmosphere is a marvelous spectacular. Ice and astral dust pickle in oxygen, which plumpens particles creating a plush façade: moss.
Neptune when entering Earth’s orb membrane oxygenates to a green. The ethereal traction, desired from the nature of Neptune, metamorphosed into a fibrous architecture that accumulates like pick up jacks. So, on top of a disappearing blue, Neptune lost it’s ephemeral slip.
Ranking above a banana strand and below a sleeping horses train of thought, moss became the third most silken Earthly material. Rocks became dumplings, cobblestones were granted protection, and twigs had cushioning for their fall. People at first could only think to harvest moss but plucked moss becomes dormant. Unenthused harvesters sprinkled it with sugar hoping the granular alphabet would give it voice. The harvesters quickly discovered moss was mute but with the addition of sugar they invented cake.
Sleeping moss takes a different form. Like sand dollars or corals, inactive moss fades white. The fibrous architecture of moss releases as if dense seaweed were to become trillions of plankton. The sugar acts as joints to the powdered moss to create a viscous pulp.
Moss from Japan is airy cheesecake. Moss shucked from petals in France are Madeleines, riverbank moss is sponge cake, moss from the high altitude hilltops in Peru births angel food cake, and moss soaked in cream, which when done right should looks like rustled toothpaste, is the most enchanting desert of the Universe and fit only for a divine occasions.
Coincidence is wry and the introduction of moss to romance prone spots only offered more charm. Trellises became easier to climb; thorns and forest prickers were absorbed, mammoth tree roots created cocoons, and riverbanks leveled.
The icing of pickled Neptune smoothed soil to create an abundance of idyllic spots for frolicking, popularizing picnics. Picnicking led to Impressionism, which has even more charm than Romanticism for the picnics now had cake.