Portals

There are portals

which sounds so much more magical than doors

or zones of correspondence

or transition points

between the different

and hierarchically arranged

realms of existence

first, there was the realm of non-existence

which existed before any of this existed

and there was nothing except the laws of physics

and even those were unknown

because there was nobody to know them

and energy  could not actually act upon matter

because there was no energy and no matter

but the laws were still the laws because that’s just the way it is

and ten seconds before the   big bang was ten seconds before the big bang

even though nobody was counting

and five seconds before the big bang was five seconds before the big bang

and then there was the big bang

and that was the first portal

and then we were in the realm of undifferentiated matter and energy

but things   bumped into things and soon clouds of gasses formed

and from those clouds stars and from those stars planets

and then boom, just like that, we were through the second portal

and the Earth was formed, and the moon, and the Earth was covered with volcanoes

and getting bombarded with meteorites, and some of them had water

and then some chemicals in the water got hit by lightning,

or maybe just got tired of lying around doing nothing

and  started consuming all around them and reproducing

and became alive, and we were through the third portal

and life evolved, and grew, and plants became plants and animals became animals

and some of those animals became really huge and ate all the other animals

and then a meteor hit and killed almost everything and the cycle started again

and that happened a few times

until eventually, creatures evolved who could think, and use tools,

and communicate, and imagine an existence different than their own existence

and that was the fourth portal, about a million or two years ago, and that was us

and we spread across the Earth, and killed and ate  other animals

and planted crops,  and cut down  trees and built houses,

and cut stone from the Earth for tombs and temples

and  built empires and made new inventions, always trying to get ahead of each other,

and we made machines, and powered them by steam, and then electricity,

and the machines printed books, and wove cloth, and molded metals,

and plowed the fields and harvested the crops far better and faster than any human could,

and then we built machines that could think, and in our own image created we them

and then we were through the   5th portal

and then we were done