VII. The Garden of Paths That Were Not There

The traveller had been searching for the beginning for so long that he had almost forgotten what he had expected to find.

First he had looked for the first moment.

Then for what came before it.

Then for nothing.

Then for the first cause.

Then for the background.

Then for the first difference.

And each time, the beginning had moved.

Now he had one question left.

What makes possibility possible?

He walked until he came to a garden.

It was the most beautiful garden he had ever seen.

Trees grew beside streams.

Flowers opened beside stones.

Birds moved between branches.

Paths crossed one another in every direction.

At the entrance stood an old gardener.

The traveller approached him.

“Are all these paths here?”

The gardener smiled.

“Of course.”

“Where do they lead?”

“Somewhere.”

The traveller pointed to a path winding between two trees.

“Was that path here yesterday?”

“Yes.”

He pointed to another.

“And that one?”

“Yes.”

“And that?”

“Yes.”

The traveller looked around.

“There must be thousands.”

“More every day.”

“Where do they come from?”

The gardener shrugged.

“They appear.”

The traveller frowned.

“Do you build them?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then who builds the others?”

“The garden.”

The traveller laughed.

“A garden cannot build paths.”

“Why not?”

“Because a path must already be possible before it can be made.”

The gardener looked at him.

“Must it?”

The traveller hesitated.

“A path leads somewhere.”

“Yes.”

“So there must already be somewhere to go.”

“Yes.”

“And therefore the possibility of the path must already exist.”

The gardener smiled.

“You have been thinking about possibility.”

“Yes.”

“Then come with me.”

They entered the garden.

After a while they came to a clearing.

There was no path leading into it.

“How do we get there?” asked the traveller.

“We cannot.”

“Why not?”

“There is no path.”

“But the clearing is there.”

“Yes.”

“Then the path is possible.”

The gardener shook his head.

“It is not yet available.”

The traveller looked puzzled.

“What is the difference?”

The gardener picked up a stone and placed it on the ground.

“This stone can be used as a marker.”

He moved it.

“Now it can be used as a weight.”

He moved it again.

“Now it can be used to hold this branch down.”

The traveller watched.

“The stone did not change.”

“No.”

“But what it can do changed.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because its relations changed.”

The traveller looked at the stone.

He thought of the door.

A door had not been a possibility floating somewhere before there was a wall, an opening, a room, and something that could move through it.

The gardener continued walking.

They came to a stream.

A fallen tree lay across it.

The traveller stepped onto the trunk.

“Now there is a bridge.”

“There is the possibility of crossing.”

“Yes.”

“But yesterday?”

“Yesterday the tree was standing.”

“And then?”

“The storm came.”

The traveller looked at the tree.

“The storm did not create a new world.”

“No.”

“It changed a relation.”

“Yes.”

“And a new possibility became available.”

The gardener smiled.

“You are beginning to see the garden.”

They walked on.

They came to a place where two paths met.

The gardener stopped.

“Yesterday there was only one path here.”

“How can that be?”

“A new path was made this morning.”

“By whom?”

The gardener pointed towards a child sitting nearby.

The child had been carrying stones.

“She moved them.”

The traveller looked at the two paths.

“So the garden now allows a choice that it did not allow yesterday.”

“Yes.”

“And that choice did not exist somewhere waiting to be discovered.”

“No.”

“It became possible when the relations in the garden changed.”

“Yes.”

The traveller stood very still.

He had always imagined possibility as something that came before becoming.

A seed could become a tree because the possibility of a tree was already there.

A building could be constructed because its construction was possible.

A person could learn a language because the possibility of learning already existed.

But perhaps this was only half the story.

The possibility of a particular becoming depended upon the relations that made that becoming available.

The gardener led him deeper into the garden.

They came to a locked gate.

Beyond it was another part of the garden.

“How do we get there?” asked the traveller.

“We cannot.”

“Why?”

“There is no way through.”

“But surely there is a possibility.”

The gardener shook his head.

“Not yet.”

He took a key from his pocket.

He unlocked the gate.

The traveller stepped through.

“And now?”

“Now it is possible.”

The traveller laughed.

“You have changed your answer.”

“No.”

“You have changed the garden.”

“Exactly.”

The traveller looked back at the gate.

The garden had not gained another place.

The place had already been there.

But a new relation had appeared between where they stood and where they could go.

And with that relation, a new possibility had become available.

He began to understand.

Possibility was not necessarily a warehouse filled with things waiting to happen.

It could be something that emerged as relations emerged.

A path became possible when there was somewhere to go and something that could travel.

A conversation became possible when there were speakers capable of responding to one another.

A tool became possible when there was something that could be done with it.

A new form of life became possible when conditions entered into relations that had not previously existed.

The gardener sat beneath a tree.

The traveller sat beside him.

“So possibility has a history.”

“Yes.”

“But not necessarily because some possibilities disappear.”

“No.”

“Because new ones become available.”

“Yes.”

The traveller looked across the garden.

Everywhere he looked, possibilities seemed to be multiplying.

A branch could become shelter.

A stone could become a marker.

A stream could become a boundary.

A path could become a journey.

A meeting place could become a conversation.

A conversation could become an agreement.

An agreement could become a custom.

A custom could become an institution.

And each new relation opened further possibilities.

The garden seemed less like a collection of things than a living web of ways in which things could become otherwise.

The traveller stood.

“Then what was possible before the universe?”

The gardener laughed.

“You have returned to the beginning.”

“Have I?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you are still imagining possibility as though it existed somewhere before there was anything that could be possible.”

The traveller looked puzzled.

“What else could it mean?”

The gardener picked up a seed.

“Could this seed become a tree?”

“Yes.”

“Could it become a bird?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it is a seed.”

The gardener nodded.

“And what makes the tree possible?”

“The conditions of the seed.”

“And the soil.”

“Yes.”

“And water.”

“Yes.”

“And light.”

“Yes.”

“And time.”

The traveller paused.

“Then the possibility is not in the seed alone.”

“No.”

“It belongs to the relations.”

“Yes.”

The gardener placed the seed in the earth.

“Possibility is not a thing waiting for the world to catch up with it.”

“What is it, then?”

“A way the world can become otherwise.”

The traveller repeated the words softly.

“A way the world can become otherwise.”

“Yes.”

“And that way depends upon what the world is.”

“And upon what it becomes.”

The traveller looked around the garden.

He saw now that every new relation changed what could happen next.

The garden was continually acquiring possibilities.

Not because it contained a hidden store of futures.

Because it was continually becoming something from which further becoming could occur.

He suddenly understood why the first difference mattered.

A difference allowed distinction.

Distinction allowed relations.

Relations opened possibilities.

Possibilities allowed further relations.

Further relations opened further possibilities.

Perhaps the universe was not best imagined as a thing that appeared at the beginning of everything.

Perhaps it was more like this garden.

A world in which possibilities continually became available.

The traveller looked at the gardener.

“Then perhaps the beginning was not the moment when the first thing appeared.”

“No.”

“Perhaps it was the beginning of a world acquiring the capacity to become otherwise.”

The gardener smiled.

“That is closer.”

“And the first difference mattered because it made further differences possible.”

“Yes.”

“And the first relation mattered because it made further relations possible.”

“Yes.”

“And then possibility itself could begin to unfold.”

The gardener stood.

“Now you are ready to leave the garden.”

“Why?”

“Because you are looking for a beginning again.”

The traveller laughed.

“Where should I go?”

The gardener pointed towards a path.

The traveller looked at it.

“Was that path there before?”

The gardener smiled.

“No.”

The traveller stared.

“But I can see it.”

“Yes.”

“When did it appear?”

The gardener shrugged.

“When the garden made it possible.”

The traveller stepped onto the path.

He walked for a while.

Then he stopped.

Behind him was the garden.

Ahead of him was a road that had not existed when he entered.

He turned around.

The gardener was gone.

The traveller looked at the road.

For the first time, he did not ask where it had begun.

He asked what it made possible.

And as he walked, another thought followed him.

Perhaps the deepest beginning was not the appearance of something from nothing.

Nor the transition from one state to another.

Nor the arrival of a first cause.

Perhaps it was the moment when a world acquired a new way of becoming.

A beginning was not necessarily:

nothing → something.

Nor:

one state → another.

Perhaps it was:

a world → a world capable of becoming otherwise.

The traveller walked on.

And behind every step, the path changed.

Ahead of every step, another path became possible.

He smiled.

Perhaps possibility did not come first after all.

Perhaps possibility began when there was finally—

something that could be otherwise.

VI. The Doorway That Divided the World

After the theatre disappeared, the traveller continued walking.

He no longer searched for the first moment.

He no longer searched for the place before the world.

He no longer searched for the thing that had caused everything.

And he no longer searched for the stage upon which the universe might have appeared.

He had begun to suspect that all these questions had been asking for things that could not exist until something more basic had happened.

But what?

He walked until he came to a wall.

It stretched farther than he could see.

There was nothing on one side of it that he could distinguish from the other.

No building.

No field.

No road.

No entrance.

Only the wall.

In the middle was a doorway.

The traveller approached.

There was no door in the doorway.

Only an opening.

He looked through it.

Nothing seemed to change.

He stepped through.

Still nothing seemed to change.

He turned around.

“Why is there a doorway here?”

A voice answered:

“Because you have crossed it.”

“But crossed from where to where?”

The voice said nothing.

The traveller looked around.

Then he noticed something.

On one side of the opening, the ground seemed slightly different.

Not much.

But enough.

He stepped back.

There.

Different.

He stepped forward.

Different again.

He looked at the ground.

“What is this?”

“A distinction.”

“Between two things?”

“Not yet.”

The traveller frowned.

“How can there be a distinction if there are not yet two things?”

The voice replied:

“That is why you have come.”

The traveller looked again.

He saw the opening.

On one side was what he now called here.

On the other was what he now called there.

But the more he looked, the stranger it seemed.

The wall had not simply separated two places that were already there.

The opening had made the difference between them matter.

He walked through again.

Here.

There.

Here.

There.

Each crossing seemed to create the two sides more clearly.

He sat beside the doorway.

“So the doorway does not merely stand between two places.”

“No.”

“It makes an inside and an outside possible.”

“Yes.”

“But there was no inside before there was an outside.”

“No.”

“And no outside before there was an inside.”

“No.”

“And the doorway belongs to neither.”

The voice said:

“Nor is it simply between them.”

The traveller looked carefully at the opening.

He had been thinking of a boundary as a line drawn between two things.

But perhaps it was not always like that.

Perhaps sometimes the boundary was what allowed the two things to become distinguishable in the first place.

He stood.

“Then a distinction can create what it distinguishes.”

“Yes.”

The traveller thought of the theatre.

The stage had become a background because something appeared against it.

The light had become light because darkness surrounded it.

But now he saw something deeper.

The distinction did not merely reveal the two sides.

It made the two sides available as sides.

He looked through the doorway.

“What was here before the distinction?”

The voice answered:

“What do you mean by here?”

The traveller smiled.

“You have caught me again.”

“Yes.”

He walked further along the wall.

At last he found another opening.

This one was smaller.

Then another.

And another.

Soon the wall was filled with openings.

Each doorway divided something.

A room from a corridor.

A garden from a path.

An inside from an outside.

A place to enter from a place to leave.

The traveller began to understand.

The world did not become intelligible merely because things existed.

Things became intelligible because differences allowed them to be distinguished.

But then a more troubling thought occurred to him.

He returned to the first doorway.

“If distinction makes two things possible, then the first distinction could not have been a difference between two fully formed things.”

“Why not?”

“Because then the two things would already have been distinguishable.”

“Yes.”

“And if they were already distinguishable, the distinction would not be first.”

The voice was silent.

The traveller continued.

“So the first distinction cannot simply separate two things that were waiting for it.”

“No.”

“It must be the distinction that makes two things possible.”

“Yes.”

He stared at the doorway.

That was almost impossible to imagine.

There could not be two things waiting on either side.

There could not be a boundary waiting between them.

There could not be a completed world divided by the first distinction.

There could only be—

He stopped.

“What?”

“Possibility.”

The voice answered:

“Now you are getting closer.”

The traveller looked at the empty doorway.

Before it, there was no inside and outside.

Then the distinction appeared.

And with it came the possibility of inside and outside.

Before it, there was no this and that.

Then the distinction appeared.

And with it came the possibility of this and that.

Before it, there was no before and after.

Then the distinction appeared.

And with it came the possibility of before and after.

The traveller began to see the pattern.

Perhaps the beginning was not the appearance of the first thing.

Perhaps it was the appearance of a difference from which things could become distinguishable.

Perhaps it was not an event that happened first.

Perhaps it was the condition under which events could begin to happen.

He looked down at the ground.

“What, then, does first mean?”

The voice replied:

“Perhaps what makes first possible.”

The traveller stood very still.

He had spent so long looking backwards.

He had imagined the beginning as the earliest point in a line.

But perhaps the beginning was not a point on the line.

Perhaps it was what allowed there to be a line.

Not the first event.

The condition under which events could become ordered.

Not the first object.

The condition under which objects could become distinguishable.

Not the first moment.

The condition under which moments could become moments.

The traveller looked through the doorway again.

He suddenly realised that he had been asking the wrong kind of question.

He had been asking:

“What happened first?”

But perhaps the deeper question was:

“What made happening possible?”

He had asked:

“What came before?”

But perhaps the deeper question was:

“What made before possible?”

He had asked:

“What was there?”

But perhaps the deeper question was:

“What made there possible?”

The traveller laughed.

The voice asked:

“Why are you laughing?”

“Because every time I think I have reached the beginning, I find that I have arrived somewhere later.”

“Later?”

He smiled.

“See? I am still doing it.”

The doorway seemed to shimmer.

For a moment the traveller could no longer tell which side was which.

Then he understood.

There did not have to be a world on one side and another world on the other.

The distinction itself could come first.

And once it did, two sides became possible.

Then relations became possible.

Then sequences.

Then events.

Then objects.

Then histories.

Then beginnings.

The traveller felt a strange vertigo.

“If possibility depends upon distinction,” he said slowly, “then possibility itself cannot simply be assumed.”

“No.”

“It too must have conditions.”

“Yes.”

“Then even possibility has a beginning.”

The voice was quiet.

“Careful.”

The traveller stopped.

“Why?”

“You are about to make the old mistake.”

He thought about it.

“Because I am imagining possibility having an earlier state.”

“Yes.”

“And that would require time.”

“Yes.”

“So perhaps I should not ask when possibility began.”

“No.”

The traveller looked at the doorway.

“Then what should I ask?”

The voice answered:

“Ask when possibility became possible.”

The traveller stood silently.

The question seemed absurd.

And yet it was not.

He had begun by searching for the first thing.

Then he had searched for what came before it.

Then for what caused it.

Then for what surrounded it.

Then for what it differed from.

Now he had arrived somewhere stranger.

At the point where the very idea of something being possible could no longer be taken for granted.

He placed his hand on the edge of the doorway.

“What is on the other side?”

The voice answered:

“Possibility.”

“And on this side?”

“Possibility.”

The traveller laughed.

“Then what does the doorway divide?”

The voice replied:

“Possibility from itself.”

The traveller withdrew his hand.

The doorway was gone.

So was the wall.

There was no longer an inside.

No outside.

No here.

No there.

Only the traveller standing in a world that had somehow become full of distinctions.

He looked at his hands.

One hand was not the other.

The sky was not the ground.

A sound was not silence.

This moment was not that moment.

And everywhere he looked, possibility seemed to be unfolding through difference.

He finally understood what the earlier questions had been trying to reach.

The beginning might not be where something first appeared.

It might be where difference first made appearance possible.

And if that was true, then there was one question still waiting beyond the doorway.

Not:

What was first?

Not:

What came before?

Not:

What caused it?

Not even:

What made a difference possible?

But something stranger.

The traveller looked into the distance.

And whispered:

What makes possibility itself possible?

V. The Theatre With No Stage

The traveller had begun to suspect that every answer concealed a question.

He had learned that before was not necessarily a place.

He had learned that nothing could not simply wait for something to appear.

He had learned that a cause belonged to a relation between things.

Now he came to a theatre.

It stood at the edge of a great plain.

Its doors were enormous.

Above them was carved:

THE THEATRE OF BEGINNINGS

The traveller entered.

Inside, the theatre was filled with people.

Some were sitting in the audience.

Some were speaking on the stage.

Some were moving scenery.

Others were carrying lamps.

A play was being performed.

The traveller watched for a while.

A man entered.

A woman spoke to him.

A door opened.

Someone laughed.

The scene changed.

The traveller turned to the person sitting beside him.

“What is the play about?”

“A beginning.”

“What begins?”

“The story.”

“And what was there before it?”

The person pointed towards the stage.

“The stage.”

The traveller nodded.

Of course.

A story needed somewhere to happen.

A stage needed somewhere to stand.

A performance needed a theatre.

He watched until the scene ended.

Then another began.

This time a tree stood on the stage.

The traveller saw its roots descend into a painted landscape.

“Where did the tree begin?” he asked.

“In the ground.”

“And the ground?”

“On the stage.”

He smiled.

Everything had a background.

A tree grew from the ground.

A building rose from its foundations.

A person entered a room.

A conversation began among people who were already there.

Even the actors who appeared to be alone were surrounded by a stage.

The background was always there.

So naturally the traveller began to wonder about the background of the world itself.

He waited until the performance ended.

Then he walked backstage.

There he found scenery everywhere.

Hills.

Forests.

Houses.

Roads.

Seas.

He approached the stage manager.

“What is behind the scenery?”

“More scenery.”

“And behind that?”

“More.”

The traveller continued asking.

Behind the house was a painted street.

Behind the street was a painted city.

Behind the city was a painted mountain.

Behind the mountain was another painted landscape.

The traveller laughed.

“You have made the world very large.”

“We have made it very deep,” said the stage manager.

“But surely there must be a final background.”

The stage manager looked at him.

“Why?”

“Because every scene needs one.”

“Does it?”

The traveller pointed towards the stage.

“There.”

The stage manager shook his head.

“What?”

“The stage.”

“And what does the stage stand on?”

The traveller looked beneath it.

“The floor.”

“And the floor?”

“The theatre.”

“And the theatre?”

The traveller hesitated.

“You see the problem.”

“Yes.”

The stage manager smiled.

“You are looking for the stage on which the theatre itself stands.”

The traveller walked outside.

He looked at the building.

It stood on the earth.

He looked at the earth.

It was surrounded by air.

He looked towards the sky.

There was space.

He began to imagine what might lie beyond it.

But the thought stopped him.

If there were another region of space, it would still be space.

If there were another place beyond the universe, that place would belong to whatever larger universe contained it.

He remembered the Gate.

He had done this before.

He had taken a boundary and turned it into a landscape.

He returned to the theatre.

The stage manager was waiting.

“Suppose,” said the traveller, “there was no background.”

The stage manager nodded.

“Can you imagine it?”

The traveller tried.

He imagined darkness.

But darkness filled a space.

He imagined silence.

But silence existed where sound could have been.

He imagined emptiness.

But emptiness required something that might have been there.

He imagined a blank stage.

But a blank stage was still a stage.

He sat down.

“Every time I remove the background, I seem to leave another background behind.”

“Yes.”

“And if I remove space, there is nowhere for the background to be.”

“Yes.”

“If I remove time, there is no duration in which it can remain.”

“Yes.”

“If I remove everything that distinguishes one thing from another—”

The stage manager interrupted him.

“Then what would make it a background?”

The traveller looked at the empty stage.

He suddenly understood.

A background was not simply something behind a thing.

It was something against which the thing could be distinguished.

The stage did not merely sit beneath the actor.

It made the actor visible as an actor.

The silence did not merely surround the sound.

It allowed the sound to stand out.

The darkness did not merely lack light.

It made the light distinguishable.

The ground did not merely lie beneath the tree.

It gave the tree a place from which to emerge.

The traveller walked onto the stage.

“So a background is not nothing.”

“No.”

“It is a condition of distinction.”

“Yes.”

“And a foreground cannot exist without some background against which it becomes a foreground.”

The stage manager nodded.

The traveller looked around.

“What, then, was the background of the universe?”

The stage manager did not answer.

The traveller waited.

At last he said:

“If the universe is everything relevant to the question, there cannot simply be another region behind it.”

“No.”

“There cannot be another time behind it.”

“No.”

“There cannot be another state behind it.”

“No.”

“And there cannot be a cosmic stage waiting for the universe to enter.”

The stage manager smiled.

“The stage is part of the play.”

The traveller looked at him.

That sentence seemed to echo through the theatre.

The stage is part of the play.

He looked at the audience.

They were part of the theatre.

He looked at the lamps.

They were part of the performance.

He looked at the walls.

They were part of the building.

There was nowhere to stand outside the whole arrangement and watch it appear.

Then something occurred to him.

Perhaps he had been imagining the beginning incorrectly.

He had imagined something arriving.

Something appearing.

Something emerging against something already there.

But perhaps the first beginning was not like that.

Perhaps the first beginning was the emergence of the distinction itself.

He looked at the stage.

Suppose there were no actor.

No stage.

No darkness.

No light.

No audience.

No theatre.

Nothing that could be called background.

Nothing that could be called foreground.

Then what would it mean for something to appear?

Nothing could appear against anything.

But perhaps—

The traveller stopped.

The stage manager watched him.

“Perhaps what?”

“Perhaps the first difference did not appear against a background.”

The stage manager said nothing.

“Perhaps the first difference created the background and the foreground together.”

The traveller looked towards the empty stage.

“This is different.”

“Yes.”

“It means there was no stage before the first performance.”

“No.”

“There was no theatre waiting for the actors.”

“No.”

“The theatre and the performance belong to the same beginning.”

The stage manager nodded.

The traveller felt the strange vertigo that had accompanied him at the Gate.

He had been trying to imagine the first thing.

But perhaps there could be no first thing without a background against which it could be distinguished.

And perhaps there could be no background without something to stand against it.

Foreground and background were not two things, one of which existed first.

They were born together.

A distinction created both sides.

The traveller walked to the centre of the stage.

“Then what was the first difference a difference from?”

The stage manager smiled.

“That is the question.”

The traveller waited.

But this time no answer came.

Instead, the lamps went out.

The theatre disappeared.

For a moment there was no stage.

No audience.

No scenery.

No darkness even, because there was nothing against which darkness could be distinguished.

Then, somewhere in the silence, a single light appeared.

Not upon a stage.

Not against a wall.

Not in a room.

It simply appeared.

And with its appearance, something else appeared too.

A darkness around it.

The traveller could not tell which had come first.

The light?

The darkness?

Or the distinction between them?

He realised that he had been trying to find the first thing when perhaps the beginning was not a thing at all.

Perhaps it was a difference.

And perhaps a difference did not need a background waiting behind it.

Perhaps it created one.

The light grew brighter.

The darkness became deeper.

Neither existed as what it was until the other could be distinguished from it.

The traveller stood very still.

And for the first time, even the word first began to wobble.

For what does first mean when there is not yet an order?

What does background mean when there is not yet a foreground?

What does difference mean when there is nothing against which difference can be measured?

The traveller whispered the question:

If there was no background, what could the first difference be a difference from?

The theatre remained silent.

But somewhere in that silence, the traveller sensed that the next question was waiting.

It was not about the beginning.

It was not about what came first.

It was about something more primitive.

Something that might have been there before even first could mean anything.

What makes a difference a difference?

IV. The Maker of Makers

The traveller had now visited the Gate of Beginning, the Valley of Clocks, and the House of Nothing.

He had learned that before was not a place.

He had learned that nothing was not a condition in which the universe could simply wait.

But one answer still remained.

Perhaps, he thought, there had been something that caused everything.

This seemed different.

A cause did not need a place called before.

Perhaps the first cause had simply existed.

Perhaps it had always existed.

Perhaps it had existed outside time.

Perhaps it had existed necessarily.

The traveller did not know.

But he knew where causes could be found.

Everywhere.

So he set out to find the first one.

His journey brought him to a great city.

The city was filled with workshops.

In one, a carpenter made chairs.

In another, a potter made bowls.

In another, a mason built walls.

Everywhere he looked, something was being made.

He entered the workshop of a blacksmith.

A hammer struck iron.

“What caused the spark?” asked the traveller.

“The hammer.”

“And what caused the hammer to move?”

“The hand.”

“And what caused the hand to move?”

“The blacksmith.”

“And what caused the blacksmith to strike?”

The blacksmith laughed.

“A great many things.”

The traveller watched the hammer fall again.

Spark.

Iron.

Hammer.

Hand.

Blacksmith.

One thing leading to another.

He walked through the city asking the same question.

“What caused this?”

Everywhere he found an answer.

A baker caused the bread.

A builder caused the house.

The wind caused the tree to fall.

A match caused the fire.

A farmer caused the field to be planted.

The traveller began to feel that he was getting close.

The world, he thought, was a vast chain of causes.

Perhaps all he had to do was follow it backwards.

So he walked.

Past the workshops.

Past the city.

Past the fields.

Past the mountains.

He followed the chain until the causes became harder to see.

At last he came to a tower standing on a hill.

At the top was a door.

Above it was written:

THE FIRST CAUSE

The traveller knocked.

The door opened.

Inside stood an old man.

“Are you the First Cause?”

The old man smiled.

“So I am told.”

“Did you cause the universe?”

The old man considered the question.

“I cause many things.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“No.”

The traveller stepped inside.

“Then tell me: what caused you?”

“Nothing.”

The traveller smiled.

“I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“That the First Cause would have no cause.”

The old man shrugged.

“Why should it?”

“Because then you would not be first.”

“First according to what?”

The traveller stopped.

The old man gestured towards a table.

On it were two stones.

He moved one stone.

It struck the other.

The second stone moved.

“What caused the second stone to move?” he asked.

“The first.”

“And what happened first?”

“The first stone moved.”

“And what happened afterwards?”

“The second stone moved.”

The old man nodded.

“Good.”

The traveller frowned.

“You are making my point.”

“No. I am showing you the point.”

The old man placed the stones apart.

“Here is a cause.”

He pointed to the first stone.

“And here is an effect.”

He pointed to the second.

“And here is the relation between them.”

He moved the first stone again.

The second followed.

The traveller watched.

“A cause,” said the old man, “does not stand alone.”

The traveller looked at him.

“What do you mean?”

“It is a cause of something.”

The old man pointed to the first stone.

“This is not simply a cause.”

He pointed to the second.

“It causes that.”

Then he pointed to the space between them.

“And the relation connects the two.”

The traveller began to understand.

A cause was not a magical substance called causation.

It was a role within a relation.

The old man continued.

“You came here looking for a cause of everything.”

“Yes.”

“But what would that mean?”

“The thing that caused everything.”

“What is its effect?”

“The universe.”

“And where is the relation between them?”

The traveller looked around the room.

He could see no space between the old man and the universe.

No path.

No process.

No sequence.

No relation.

The old man waited.

The traveller said:

“Perhaps the relation is outside the universe.”

“Outside?”

“Yes.”

“Where is outside?”

The traveller closed his eyes.

He remembered the Gate.

He remembered the House.

He remembered trying to find a place beyond space.

“Perhaps there is no outside.”

The old man smiled.

“Perhaps.”

“Then perhaps the cause exists beyond time.”

“Perhaps.”

“But then what does cause mean?”

The old man said nothing.

The traveller looked again at the stones.

He realised that every cause he had ever known belonged to a world.

A glass broke because it was dropped.

The wind moved the tree.

The fire spread because the flame caught the wood.

A builder made the house.

In every case there was something that caused and something caused.

There was a process connecting them.

There was a difference between what happened and what followed.

There was a world in which the relation could occur.

He turned to the old man.

“I think I have done it again.”

“What have you done?”

“I have taken something that works here and carried it beyond here.”

The old man nodded.

“You have enlarged the map.”

“Without knowing whether the country continues.”

“Exactly.”

The traveller sat down.

“But surely everything must have a cause.”

The old man looked at him carefully.

“Does the match need another match to cause causation?”

“No.”

“Does the fire need another fire to make causing possible?”

“No.”

“The cause explains the event.”

“Yes.”

“It does not necessarily explain the existence of the whole order in which causes and effects can be distinguished.”

The traveller looked thoughtful.

“So when I ask what caused this…”

“You are asking about an event.”

“And when I ask what caused everything…”

“You have changed the question.”

“How?”

“You have taken a relation within the world and asked it to explain the existence of the world in which that relation has meaning.”

The traveller looked at the two stones.

“Then perhaps the First Cause arrived too early.”

The old man laughed.

“That is a curious way to put it.”

“But it did.”

“How?”

“You placed it before the universe.”

“Yes.”

“And outside the universe.”

“Yes.”

“And made it produce the universe.”

“Yes.”

“And in doing so, I assumed before, outside, and producing.”

The old man nodded.

“All of which may belong to the very world you are trying to explain.”

The traveller stood.

“Then there may still be a First Cause.”

“Perhaps.”

“But we cannot simply infer it from the fact that things inside the universe have causes.”

“No.”

“Because local causation does not automatically become cosmic causation.”

The old man smiled.

“You have become cautious.”

“I have been visiting strange places.”

The old man opened the door.

Beyond it was the city.

The traveller looked back.

“One last question.”

The old man waited.

“If causation is a relation, what must already exist for a cause to be a cause?”

The old man pointed towards the city.

The traveller looked.

There were people building houses.

Children opening doors.

Trees bending in the wind.

A fire burning in a workshop.

Everywhere, things were affecting other things.

Everywhere, causes met effects.

Everywhere, relations were unfolding.

The traveller understood.

A cause did not simply need a cause.

It needed a world of distinguishable things, processes, and relations in which causation could take place.

The First Cause, if there was one, could not simply be assumed into existence by extending the word cause indefinitely backwards.

The traveller stepped outside.

The old man called after him.

“You came looking for the cause of the world.”

The traveller turned.

“What did I find?”

The old man smiled.

“That you should first ask what kind of world makes a cause possible.”

The traveller walked down the hill.

He no longer looked for the first link in the chain.

He had begun to wonder about the chain itself.

Not:

What caused everything?

But:

What kind of background must exist for a cause to be a cause?

And somewhere, far beyond the city, he sensed that another gate was waiting.

Not the gate of beginning.

Not the gate of nothing.

But a gate marked with a word he had not yet learned how to question.

POSSIBILITY.

III. The House of Nothing

The traveller left the valley of clocks with the two stars still before him.

He had learned that before was not a place.

It was a relation.

But this did not satisfy him.

For there was another answer people gave when he asked what had been there before the universe.

“Nothing.”

He had heard the word many times.

It seemed, in some ways, simpler than everything.

Perhaps, he thought, this was the answer he had been looking for.

So he went in search of Nothing.

He walked for many days.

At last he came upon a house standing alone in a field.

It was an enormous house.

There were windows but no curtains.

Doors but no signs.

And, as far as the traveller could see, no one lived there.

Above the entrance was a single word:

NOTHING

The traveller pushed open the door.

Inside was a vast empty hall.

There was no furniture.

No people.

No sound.

No movement.

The traveller smiled.

“At last.”

He stepped inside.

“This must be Nothing.”

A voice answered from somewhere in the hall.

“What do you see?”

The traveller looked around.

“Nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“What do you see?”

“An empty room.”

There was a pause.

Then the voice said:

“An empty room?”

The traveller stopped.

He looked around again.

There were walls.

A floor.

A ceiling.

A doorway.

He had imagined Nothing.

Instead he had found a room.

“This is not Nothing,” he said.

“No.”

“It is a room in which nothing is happening.”

“Yes.”

The traveller walked further into the house.

Perhaps, he thought, the room was merely the first layer.

He opened another door.

Behind it was a great dark chamber.

There was no furniture.

No light.

No sound.

Nothing moved.

“Now,” he said, “there is truly nothing here.”

The voice answered:

“Then what makes the chamber dark?”

The traveller frowned.

“Because there is no light.”

“And how do you know what light is?”

He looked towards the darkness.

“Because I have seen it.”

“And so you know darkness by contrast.”

The traveller said nothing.

He opened another door.

This room was filled with white mist.

He could see nothing inside it.

“Perhaps this is Nothing.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I cannot see anything.”

“Then perhaps you have found something you cannot see.”

The traveller sighed.

“You are making this difficult.”

“I am only asking you what you mean.”

He moved on.

The next room was completely silent.

“There is nothing here,” he said.

“What about the silence?”

“Silence is the absence of sound.”

“And what is sound?”

“A difference.”

“Between what?”

The traveller thought.

Between one vibration and another.

Between noise and quiet.

Between one event and the next.

He began to see the pattern.

Every time he tried to find Nothing, he found instead an absence.

And every absence depended upon something that could have been present.

He entered another room.

This one was empty except for a glass standing on a table.

He looked inside.

There was nothing in it.

He picked it up.

The voice spoke.

“What is absent?”

“Water.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the glass could contain water.”

“And if the glass could not contain water?”

“Then I would not call it empty of water.”

The traveller put the glass down.

He suddenly felt that the house was becoming smaller.

Not physically.

Conceptually.

Room after room had seemed to open onto Nothing.

But every room had contained distinctions.

Empty and full.

Dark and light.

Silent and loud.

Present and absent.

The traveller looked back along the corridor.

“Then Nothing is not what I thought.”

“What did you think it was?”

“A condition.”

“A condition of what?”

“Of the world before there was a world.”

The voice was silent.

The traveller continued.

“Something was absent.”

“Was it?”

“Yes.”

“What was absent?”

“Everything.”

The voice waited.

“And from what was everything absent?”

The traveller froze.

He looked down the long corridor.

He had never asked that question.

If everything was absent, then there was nothing from which it was absent.

No room.

No space.

No time.

No boundary.

No observer.

No distinction.

Nothing.

The word suddenly seemed to collapse beneath its own weight.

He walked into the final room.

It was smaller than all the others.

There were no walls.

No floor.

No ceiling.

No darkness.

No light.

No silence.

No sound.

No distance.

No duration.

Nothing could be seen.

Nothing could be heard.

Nothing could be touched.

The traveller stood there.

For a moment he thought:

This is it.

Then he realised something.

He was standing there.

He stepped backwards.

The room disappeared.

He was once again in the corridor.

“What happened?”

“You imagined Nothing.”

“But I was there.”

“No.”

“I was.”

“You were imagining that there was a place in which Nothing was.”

The traveller shook his head.

“But if there is no place—”

“Then Nothing has nowhere to be.”

“And if there is no time—”

“Nothing cannot wait.”

“And if there is no boundary—”

“Nothing cannot be distinguished from anything else.”

The traveller sat down.

He was beginning to understand why the house had been built.

Not to contain Nothing.

To show that Nothing could not be contained.

He thought of the first answer.

There was darkness.

But darkness required light.

There was empty space.

But emptiness required something that could have occupied it.

There was nothing.

But absence required presence.

He thought about the beginning again.

Perhaps the familiar story was wrong.

Perhaps we had imagined the beginning as a passage from a simpler state to a more complicated one.

Nothing.

Then something.

Absence.

Then presence.

Emptiness.

Then fullness.

But perhaps nothing was not the simpler state.

Perhaps it was the harder idea.

To say that something is absent, you must already know what it would mean for it to be present.

To say that a room is empty, you must know what could fill it.

To say that something is missing, you must know what counts as there.

Even absence needs a world of distinctions.

The traveller rose.

“Then Nothing depends upon Something.”

The voice answered:

“Not exactly.”

He waited.

“Nothing depends upon distinction.”

The traveller looked towards the doorway.

“Distinction between what?”

“Between this and that.”

“Presence and absence.”

“Yes.”

“Something and nothing.”

“Yes.”

“But then—”

He stopped.

The thought was forming.

Nothing could not be the beginning of distinction.

Because the idea of Nothing itself required distinction.

He walked slowly towards the entrance.

Outside, the two stars were still visible.

He looked at one.

Then at the other.

There they were.

Separate.

Different.

And suddenly the traveller saw something he had not seen before.

The two stars did not need to be compared with Nothing in order to be different.

They simply had to be distinguishable.

The difference came first.

Not first in time.

There was no clock here to measure such a first.

First in the deeper sense:

before this could be called that,

before present could be distinguished from absent,

before something could be contrasted with nothing,

there had to be a world in which distinctions could be made.

The traveller turned back towards the house.

The word above the door had changed.

It no longer said:

NOTHING

It said:

ABSENCE

He smiled.

The house had never been the home of Nothing.

It had been the place where Nothing learned that it needed something else in order to exist as an idea.

The traveller walked away.

And as he went, another question began to follow him.

If Nothing was not the beginning—

if Before was not the beginning—

if even the distinction between Something and Nothing required a prior possibility—

then perhaps the oldest question was not:

How did something emerge from nothing?

Perhaps it was:

How did the possibility of nothing become possible?

And the traveller began to wonder whether, somewhere beyond the House of Nothing, there might be another house.

A house with no name.

A house where the first distinctions were made.

II. The Keeper of Before

The traveller did not forget the gate.

For many days he walked beneath the sky, thinking about what the voice had told him.

Do not ask what happened before the beginning.

Ask what must already be possible for anything to begin.

But the old question kept returning.

Perhaps, he thought, there really had been something before the world.

Perhaps he had simply not found it.

And so, one morning, he set out again.

This time he carried no map.

He had learned that maps were drawn inside the world.

Instead he carried a single question.

“What was there before?”

He walked until the road became narrow.

Then the road became a path.

Then the path disappeared.

Still he walked.

At last he came to a valley filled with clocks.

There were great clocks and little clocks.

Clocks with hands.

Clocks with bells.

Clocks with pendulums.

Some ran quickly.

Some ran slowly.

Some had stopped.

And some had no hands at all.

In the middle of the valley sat a woman wearing a robe made from strips of calendars.

The traveller approached her.

“Are you the Keeper of Time?”

“No.”

“Then perhaps you are the Keeper of Before.”

The woman smiled.

“Who told you that there was such a thing?”

“No one.”

“Good.”

The traveller sat beside her.

“I have come to ask what was there before the universe.”

The woman looked at the clocks.

“Which one is before the others?”

The traveller pointed to a clock whose hands showed three o'clock.

“That one is before this one.”

He pointed to another.

“And that one is after it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the first clock shows an earlier time.”

“Earlier according to what?”

The traveller hesitated.

“According to the order of time.”

“And where is that order?”

He looked around the valley.

“In the clocks.”

The woman shook her head.

“The clocks show it. They do not contain it.”

The traveller thought about this.

“Then where is it?”

She pointed towards the sky.

The traveller looked up.

There was nothing there but clouds.

“Is it in the sky?”

“No.”

“Then where?”

The woman laughed softly.

“You are trying to put before somewhere.”

The traveller remembered the gate.

He frowned.

“But surely before is real.”

“Of course.”

“Then where does it live?”

“Wherever two things can be distinguished in an order.”

The traveller looked at the clocks again.

“Breakfast comes before lunch.”

“Yes.”

“Monday comes before Tuesday.”

“Yes.”

“Childhood comes before old age.”

“Yes.”

“And all of these are different.”

“Exactly.”

The woman picked up a small clock.

“This clock cannot be before another clock merely because it exists.”

She placed it beside another.

“They must first be related.”

The traveller nodded.

“One must come before the other.”

“Yes.”

“But then—”

He stopped.

The woman waited.

“But then before cannot be the thing that exists before everything else.”

“Now you are beginning to understand.”

The traveller stood.

“Then what was before the first moment?”

The Keeper of Before looked at him.

“Which first moment?”

“The first moment of the universe.”

“What came before it?”

“Yes.”

She pointed to the valley.

“Show me.”

The traveller looked around.

There were clocks everywhere.

He pointed to an empty patch of ground.

“There.”

“What is there?”

“Nothing.”

“When was the nothing?”

The traveller was silent.

“Before the universe.”

“When?”

“Before time.”

The woman nodded.

“And how long did it last?”

The traveller opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

He looked at the empty ground.

Suddenly he saw what he had done.

He had imagined nothing.

Then he had given it a duration.

He had made emptiness wait.

He had made nothing endure until something appeared.

He had turned nothing into an old country through which time had been passing.

“But if nothing was there,” he said slowly, “then it did not last.”

“Correct.”

“And if it did not last—”

“It was not a period.”

The traveller looked troubled.

“Then there was no empty time before the universe.”

“Not in the ordinary sense.”

“What about a cause?”

The woman handed him a clock with no hands.

“Perhaps something caused the universe.”

“Then that something came first.”

“First?”

“Yes.”

“According to what?”

The traveller stared at the clock.

He had forgotten that it had no hands.

“A cause comes before its effect.”

“Usually.”

“So if something caused the universe—”

“Perhaps.”

“Then it was before the universe.”

“Perhaps.”

“But if before belongs to time—”

The Keeper of Before nodded.

The traveller sat down.

For a long while the clocks ticked around him.

Then one of them stopped.

The silence was enormous.

“I think I have made the same mistake again.”

“What mistake?”

“I have treated the edge of something as if it were another place.”

The woman smiled.

“Tell me.”

“You reach the beginning of time and imagine more time behind it.”

“Yes.”

“You reach the edge of space and imagine more space beyond it.”

“Yes.”

“You reach the absence of everything and imagine a condition in which nothing is sitting, waiting.”

“Yes.”

“And when we reach the boundary of causation, we imagine another cause standing behind it.”

The woman nodded.

“You keep turning boundaries into landscapes.”

The traveller looked towards the far end of the valley.

There the clocks became fewer.

Then smaller.

Then they disappeared altogether.

“Is that where time ends?”

“No.”

“Then what is there?”

“Nothing that you can call before.”

He watched the empty horizon.

“Because there is no sequence?”

“Because the relation has not yet been established.”

The traveller thought about the word.

Established.

Not found.

Not crossed.

Not discovered.

Established.

He looked back at the clocks.

Before.

After.

Earlier.

Later.

First.

Last.

All of them depended upon things being distinguishable and ordered.

And suddenly he wondered whether he had been asking the wrong question all along.

Perhaps before was not a road leading backwards.

Perhaps it was a bridge.

And bridges did not exist merely because there were two places.

They existed when the places could be related.

The traveller rose.

“Then perhaps the universe did not begin with a moment that had another moment behind it.”

The Keeper of Before said nothing.

“Perhaps the beginning of temporal order is not itself a temporal event.”

Still she said nothing.

“And perhaps the conditions under which causes become meaningful need not themselves have a cause in the ordinary sense.”

The woman smiled.

“You are becoming careful.”

The traveller laughed.

“I would rather become confused.”

“That is often the beginning of becoming careful.”

He looked once more at the valley of clocks.

Then he asked the question that had been waiting behind all his other questions.

“If before is a relation, what happens before the relation exists?”

The Keeper of Before stood.

She gathered the strips of calendar around her and began to walk away.

The traveller followed.

“Wait!”

She turned.

“I still have one question.”

“You have many.”

“This one is different.”

She waited.

“What must happen for there to be a before at all?”

For the first time, the Keeper of Before did not answer.

Instead she pointed towards the horizon.

There, where the valley ended, two stars had appeared.

They were not moving.

They were simply there.

And between them, for the first time, the traveller noticed something that had not been there before.

A distance.

He looked at one star.

Then at the other.

And understood.

Before had not yet appeared.

But difference had.

And perhaps that was where the story truly began.