The Days of Love and all that Followed – Prologue

The Days of Love and all that Followed

Prologue – The Origins of Fear

At the beginning of time, at about half past four, there was some kind of soup; it was just dust and atoms with not a croûton in sight. And then along came a hand or a bang or maybe Thor’s hammer and mixed the soup up until the universe was born. And though people argue over the wrongs and the rights it didn’t really matter because this was the beginning of life.

And at the creation of the cosmos there was no fear but there was a chap called Fear and his best buddy Love. Fear was just a name all that time ago, a strange name for sure due to his parents’ fine sense of humour, but just a name. Fear and Love had a fine time with a host of Snoozefrops helping them out. Now the Snoozefrops were fine noble creatures, if a little dim, and they liked to perform musical numbers for Sunday afternoon tea.

For a while Fear and Love were firm friends indeed; Fear was still just his given name and nothing untoward, maybe his finger nails needed cutting but his heart was in the right place. But soon a notion grew firm within him, like a rotten tulip made of dung; it grew and grew larger than a beanstalk. The notion that bothered Fear the most was this business with the universe; it just didn’t make sense to a mind like Fears. How could the universe BE, when once it was not?

You know that dark feeling at the pit of your tummy? That was what Fear slowly became, he doubted and mistrusted and refused croissants on a Friday morning, and as anyone will tell you, a croissant denier, is a dubious soul for sure. Fear’s doubts sowed into something believable, and soon people started to look at him funny. Love learned to be scared of Fear, so afraid of him that she coined a phrase to describe her terrors; fear was what she felt whenever Fear was about. And so the name stuck, Fear by name and Fear by nature, his doubts had been painted a shade of regret and Fear started creeping round corners and catching butterflies in nets.