the God Factory

He could not remember the academy. The years of classes preparing him mentally; they all seemed like a dream now. The processing in the genetics lab to prepare him physically, truly miraculous feats of science given the conditions he was to endure; he wondered if they had ever happened at all. How long ago was it? How long since he was dropped out the airlock, naked and alone, into the depths of space?

He felt no cold, his body long since numb to the void.
He saw nothing, for in space nothing is visible because there are no particles to refract light.
He heard no sound, for there the same lack of particles deprives sound of its essence.
He smelt no odors; out here there was truly nothing.
He tasted no flavors. They had removed from him long ago the need or desire for sustenance.

For most, it is easy to differentiate between the physical, temporal world without, and the mental, spiritual world within. The former is what is perceived by the senses; what is seen and heard and touched. Here is the realm of time and space and logic, which shackle the mental world with its linearity. Because of this world and the input provided by the senses, the mind remains separate: if it does not exist in the physical world, then clearly it must only be in the min

But for him, the world without is a non-issue. Without sight, or sound, or touch, there was truly nothing to perceive except for what was in his mind. Every thought he had was the totality of existence. For how long? Without the changing of seasons, the rise and fall of a sun, the turning of a clock time had no meaning. He could have been there for 5 minutes or 5 millennium. Maybe he was always there, and the life that he knew before being dropped from the ship was simply another thought created by his mind.

For every thought was a universe unto itself, created from nothing and encompassing all that is, was, and ever shall be before fading and giving rise to another thought and another universe. Was it instantaneous, or did these evolve over the course of seconds or centuries? A moot question: both answers are one in the same to him and not even something he considered as all of being spiraled within his body.

The confines of his body, also irrelevant, drifting there in the void. Perhaps he did not even have a body.

Was he dead? If he was, how would he know? In a previous life he had feared death but now he understood that death is merely the removal from the physical world; a retreat into the mind and into eternity with the power of ultimate creation. He had truly become a god.