Chameleon Magazine

Long ago, before clocks and tides, there was a young world that stood perfectly still. Its mountains were mirror-flat, its seas were smooth as glass. The Sun rose once and never moved again — frozen on the edge of dawn.

The creatures of that still world were content at first. There were no storms, no night to fear, no change to challenge them. The birds forgot to fly. The rivers forgot to run. Even the trees stopped growing, their leaves unfallen, their roots asleep in the soil.

But slowly, something strange began to happen. The stillness grew heavy. The air grew stale, and songs began to fade. Dreams no longer reached the morning. The world itself began to ache with silence.

Then, deep beneath the unmoving crust, the Heart of the World — a molten spirit who had never spoken — stirred. “Why am I alive if I cannot move?” it whispered. And with a single, shuddering sigh, it began to turn.

At first, the world groaned in protest. The mountains cracked, the seas spilled, and the creatures cried out as the horizon finally shifted. But soon they saw the miracle: dawn flowed into noon, noon into dusk, and the sky filled with stars for the very first time.

The birds lifted into flight, the rivers ran laughing to the sea, and the trees stretched upward to catch the passing light. The world, now spinning, learned what it meant to live.

And from that day onward, nothing that breathed ever stood still for long.

“To stay alive is to turn toward change — for only the moving world can sing.”