I asked for a flash fiction prompt on Twitter today and my friend Sophia was kind enough to provide one. The prompt was to write a creation story including a willow tree, an ocean and shooting stars. Here’s my attempt:
Long before the world was as it is now, there was only ocean and the sky above it. There was no land, and no vegetation, no animals and no birds. In fact, there were not even fish or any other living thing in the sea. Then one day, a shooting star fell from the sky and dropped into the ocean.
From the spot where this star fell, a tree grew. It was a willow tree, but it was different from the willows we see now, for only the trunk grew at first. For many years it grew straight up, and widened all around, until it was so tall we cannot imagine its height and so wide we cannot imagine its width. Once the trunk had finished growing, from it branches sprouted and from those, leaves began to grow. Slowly they grew down toward the surface of the ocean. When the first leaf touched the water, all the underwater plants came to be. When the second leaf touched the water, all the small creatures that live in the ocean came to be. When the third leaf touched the ocean, all the fish came to be. When the fourth leaf touched the ocean, all the whales and other sea beings, which do not lay eggs, came to be.
All these new beings swimming around made the sediment at the bottom of the ocean move. It swirled up and became stuck around the roots of the first willow, and became the continents, the mountains and the valleys and all the lands. By the time the fifth leaf of the first willow reached the ocean’s suface, there was no longer ocean there to greet it. Instead, the leaf touched the new-formed land, and when it did the first grass came to be. From then, as each leaf touched the ground, came the trees, then the insects, the birds, then the snakes and lizards and other beings who lay eggs but do not fly. Then came the toed animals and then the hooved animals, and finally, when the last leaf touched the ground, the first humans were formed.
And we looked up and could not see the top of the tree. And we looked sideways and could not see the bend of the trunk. And we looked all around and marveled at the beauty of creation. And we understood, for our souls sang it to us, that all these things and our very beings were one and the same, for everything was planted by the same seed, and watered by the same ocean, and nourished by the same sun.
This was a bit of a quick job but I’m pretty happy with it. I always enjoy writing this sort of thing and should do it more.