Teacher told my parent that I am the slowest youngster in my class, but today I made a star in the third quadrant of kindergarten.
Teacher was suprised. Teacher tried to hide it and said the solar phoenix reaction is artistic, but is it practical?
I don't care. I think it's pretty.
Today I made planets: four big ones, two middle-sized ones and three little ones. Teacher laughed and said why did I make so many when all but three were too hot or too cold to support life and the big ones were too massive and poisonous for any use at all.
Teacher doesn't understand. There is more to creation than mere usefulness.
The rings around the sixth planet are beautiful.
Today I created life. I begin to understand why my people place creation above all else.
I have heard the philosophers discussing the purpose of existence, but I thought it was merely age. Before today, joy was enough: to have fun with the other kids, to speed through endless space, to explode some unstable star into a nova, to flee before the outrage of some adult - this would fill eternity.
Now I know better. Life must have a function.
Teacher was right: only two of the middle-sized planets and one of the little ones were suitable for life. I made life for all three, but only on the third planet from the sun was it really successful.
I have given it only one function: survive!
The third planet has absorbed all my interest. The soupy seas are churning with life.
Today I introduced a second function: multiply!
The forms developing in the seas are increasingly complex. The kids are calling me to come and play, but I'm not going. This is more fun.
Time after time I stranded sea-creatures on the land and kept them alive long past the time when they should have died. At last I succeded. Some of them have adapted.
I was right. The sea is definitely an inhibiting factor.
The success of the land-creatures is pleasing.
Everything I did before today was nothing. Today I created intelligence.
I added a third function: know!
Out of a minor primate has developed a fabulous creature. It has two legs and walks upright and looks around it with curious eyes. It has weak hands and an insignificant brain, but it is conquering all things. Most of all, it is conquering its environment.
It has even begun speculating about me!
Today there is no school.
After the pangs and labors of creation, it is fun to play again. It is like escaping the gravitational field of a white dwarf and regaining the dissipated coma.
Teacher talked to my parent again today. Teacher said I had developed remarkably in the last few days but my creation was hopelessly warped and inconsistent. Moreover, it was potentially dangerous.
Teacher said it would have to be destroyed.
My parent objected, saying that the solar phoenix reaction in the sun would lead the dangerous life-form on the third planet to develop a thermonuclear reaction of its own. With the functions I had given that life-form, the problem would take care of itself.
It wasn't my parent's responsibility, Teacher said, and Teacher couldn't take the chance.
I didn't hear who won the argument. I drifted away, feeling funny.
I don't care, really. I'm tired of the old thing anyway. I'll make a better one.
But it was the first thing I ever made, and you can't help feeling a kind of sentimental attachment.
If anyone sees a great comet plunging toward the sun, it isn't me.