The World XXI

Old myths remember Ancient Jörmungandr, the serpent that swallowed the world. And the roots of Yggdrasil, joining heaven and earth, devouring them both. Before forests knew leaves, before mountains hardened into stone, a phosphorescent spark in the dark. It fed without intention. It grew without ambition. It drifted without purpose. Then everything became... The Hidden Worm [Dramatic Choir Chorus] Mundus est unum. Unum est multa. One becomes many. Many become one. Radix ad mare. Mare ad stellas. Everything circles the Hidden Worm. The lifestream is sleeping, dead but still dreaming. The reefs are cathedrals, built from the entrails of a serpent that ate itself. And every living thing, from the smallest cell to the tallest tree, moves to an impulse older than sound. [Bridge] Once, it was a passenger. Now... Somewhere beneath all living things, an eye is waiting to blink. It borrowed so much of the world that no one remembers where the world ends and the Hidden Worm begins. [Dramatic Choir Chorus] Mundus est unum. Unum est multa. One becomes many. Many become one. Radix ad mare. Mare ad stellas. Everything circles the Hidden Worm. Just a colony so vast that distinction became impossible. The leaf and the branch. The branch and the forest. The forest and the valley. The valley and the river. The river and the ocean. The ocean and the storm. And everything between. Still drifting. Still growing. Still dreaming. Through us all. Siphonophore. [Dramatic Choir Chorus] Mundus est unum. Unum est multa. One becomes many. Many become one. Radix ad mare. Mare ad stellas. Nobody remembers Siphonophore. [End]