The First Ground

Atum put down his foot and found nothing beneath it.

Water yielded under him. Water closed around his ankle. He reached into the darkness, but there was no bank to grasp, no branch, no other hand. The waters of Nu stretched everywhere, without a shore. There was not yet a sky to hang above them.

He drew his foot back and tried again.

He had no mother who could lift him, no father who could tell him where to stand. He had brought himself into being in that vast stillness. His hands were his own making. So was the will that moved them.

Beneath the dark surface, something pressed against his sole.

Atum stood still.

A ridge broke the water beside him. A little water slid down it, then more, revealing a slope of glistening earth. He set his weight upon it. The ground held. Slowly he straightened, and the first mound rose around his feet while the waters slipped away on every side.

He climbed to its summit. There he bent and touched the earth with both palms.

It was firm. It did not flow through his fingers.

Warm radiance gathered around him, enough to show the wet clay, the curve of his arm, the last threads of water running downhill. Beyond that small circle, nothing answered the light.

Atum turned one way, then another.

He was alone upon the only place where anyone could stand.

The First Voices

Atum cupped water in his hands. For a moment it rested there, shining. Then it found a gap between his fingers and returned to Nu.

He watched until the ripples were gone.

Everything that was to come lay within him. There was no other life from which to begin.

He gathered his strength and opened his mouth. With a rush of breath he spat, and what came from him stirred before it touched the ground. It took limbs and a face. A young god stood upon the slope, wavering as he found his feet.

Air moved across Atum’s hands.

“Shu,” he said.

The god lifted his face. Atum felt the movement of his breath, fresh against the warmth of his own.

Again Atum brought forth life from his mouth. This time shining drops gathered into a second shape. A goddess knelt upon the wet earth, her hands spread beside her. Moisture gleamed on her skin.

“Tefnut.”

She raised her head at the sound.

Shu reached down. Tefnut took his hand and stood. Where his breath passed over her fingers, the drops trembled and caught the light.

Atum opened his arms. They came to him, one on either side, and he held them against himself. He could feel their shoulders beneath his hands. Their life had come out of him, yet each now moved with a movement of their own.

Tefnut drew back far enough to look into his face.

“There is so much water.”

Atum looked beyond her, across the unbroken dark.

“Yes.”

Shu turned too, and the air stirred with him.

For the first time, Atum heard a voice that was not his own speaking to another voice that was not his own. He loosened his embrace so that his children could face each other, and their hands remained joined between them.

Beneath the Sky

From Shu and Tefnut came Geb and Nut.

Their son spread beneath them as the earth. Their daughter lay against him as the sky, so close that neither could be seen apart from the other. They were brother and sister, and they held each other as husband and wife.

Shu crouched beside them.

He laid a palm on Geb’s shoulder. Under his hand was the weight of earth, the firmness that had once been no more than a little mound under Atum’s feet. Nut curved close above it. There was scarcely a space into which Shu could put his fingers.

He could feel all that breadth waiting beneath her.

Geb and Nut brought forth four children: Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys. Their voices joined those of the older gods. Atum’s family had become nine, but earth and sky still lay pressed together.

Shu placed his other hand beneath Nut.

She lifted her face from Geb’s. He reached after her, and their fingers tightened.

“Nut,” Shu said.

Her eyes turned towards him.

He shifted his knee beneath her and began to rise.

The Space Between

At first, there was only a narrow opening.

Shu breathed into it. Air slipped over the earth, cool in the deep shadow, and found places where nothing had moved before. He set his feet, bent his elbows and took the weight upon his hands.

Nut rose.

Geb’s arm rose with her. For a little while his fingers still held hers. Then the space widened beyond the reach of their clasp. Their hands parted.

Shu felt the weight settle more fully upon him. He lowered one knee to the earth. Above his bent head, Nut stretched; below him, Geb lay with his hand still raised.

The god of air drew a breath.

He pressed his foot into the ground and straightened his leg. His shoulders lifted. Slowly his arms unfolded, carrying the sky with them.

Light entered the opening.

It travelled first as a narrow gleam along the earth, finding the edges of things. Then it widened. Geb’s outstretched hand shone, and the light went on beyond it, farther than Shu could follow.

Nut arched above him. Her hands and feet reached towards the far boundaries of the world, and her great body spanned the distance between. Shu stood beneath her with both arms raised. Around him the air spread freely, filling the space his hands had opened.

He looked down.

Earth lay below him. Sky rested above him. Between them, light had room to travel.

Far away, upon the first high ground, Atum stood with Tefnut beside him. The waters still surrounded the world, but now their edge could be seen. Warmth touched the wet earth. A long shadow stretched from the mound.

Shu kept his hands beneath the sky.

Across the open world, the first dawn spread.