Antibodies: Prologue

by DuAnn Cowart

We are a proud species, we are.

The crawl from our collective bellies to our feet to the skies- the art, the culture, the civilization, all that Man is- has lulled us into thinking that we understand what is, that we are the Masters of what We are.

This is folly.

It is the utmost arrogance to say that Man is the pinnacle of Creation. We are not all there is. On the contrary- all we know, our perception, our . . . wisdom, all that the mightiest of man's technology has seen, is as nothing when compared to What Is.

We have not even plumbed the mysteries of our own world. We do not know our own bodies and minds, we do not know our own solar system. We have barely even glimpsed what lies beyond, what the wonders of our own speck of existence contain.

There are worlds beyond our world, galaxies beyond our Galaxy, universes beyond our Universe.

And that is just in this plane of existance. All of our reality, all of this dimension is not even an eyeblink, not even a grain of sand on a seashore of All That Is.

And It is. All this and beyond, It Is. And when there is all that There Is, there is More. And Less. And More again. Everything imaginable, and everything unimaginable, It Is.

We have been granted only a scant few senses from which to perceive reality. We cannot begin to know it all, for, you see, we are but finite.

There is the Infinite.

Everything we know is simply one small sliver of one dimension of it. There are others. Some are very similiar to our own- almost parallel, a half a beat ahead of or behind our own. There might be a single difference, such as the color of a flower, or a lack of a single sense, or the addition of seventeen more. There are infinite permutations of Infinity.

Some of Infinity is very, very different. For everything we think we understand, there are myriad realities where immutable facts as we know them do not apply.

There are planes where the laws of Newtonian physics do not apply. In those realms, there is no gravity, no energy, matter or mass or anything else that we perceive to govern reality. It is simply Different.

There are dimensions comprised completely out of elements we have not discovered, and will not discover, for they do not exist in our reality.

There are places of the holiest of Light, and places of unutterable pain. Heaven and Hell, joy and sorrow. Softest sunlight and hottest fire. They are real, and they Are.

There are dimensions where color is music and thoughts are reality. Sheer existence here is far different from anything any mind altering drug can produce, swirling, pounding, shimmering and shaking in an undulation of vibrations so vivid that if human eyes were to see (hear?) it they would implode.

There are all these, and more. Infinity cannot be quantified, not even by our marvelous human minds.

And they are separate, and distinct, and they are Meant to be that way.

They are kept that way for a reason. The One put them that way. And He is over even Infinity.

The Bleed is the mechanism through which this is done. It is not the Why, it is the How.

The Bleed is the arterial wall between dimensions. Everywhere and nowhere at once, it striates reality, winding and twisting through What Is, glittering, throbbing, glistening a bright crimson as energy pulses, separating dimensions, keeping them all distinct and whole, safe from the touch of their kin.

And in the Bleed right now, in the vast passage of distinct and separate energy, shines a tiny silver spot, a mercury dot in the vivid red. It is the Carrier, a fifty-foot long alien craft long deserted by its original inhabitants. It now is home to only seven tiny humans.

Natives of the tiny blue green dot called Earth. Again, Man. Just a mote in the Infinite, but one that struggles to shine brightly. And it does. The seven humans in the tiny speck of silver are doing all they can to make that spark shine brighter, to make their part of the Infinite safe for their brothers and sisters, no matter the cost. They go on with their small lives, doing all they know to do, struggling against darkness. There is only so much the finite can do in the Infinite, but they do it anyway.

And it is Good.

And in another part of the Bleed, far from the speck of silver, nowhere and everywhere at once, a tiny, almost invisible growth begins to form out of the bright blood hued barrier.

It is black.

As is the tiny, almost invisible growth that bubbles up beside it.

And the next one. And the next. And the next, linking with the first, growing and conjoining and twining together.

And it is Not Good.

And so it goes. Everywhere and nowhere at once, so it goes, as the wall of the barrier between realities begins, ever so slowly, to bend.

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