ABSTRACT
The time: 4,500 million years ago. Before the universe there was time. Only time; otherwise, the vast void held only
darkness-everywhere. Overwhelming darkness. Not dim, not murky, not shadowy, or not unlit. Simple nothingness-nothing but
darkness, a shade of black so intense we cannot fathom or imagine it today. Light had no existence-this was black of blindness, of burial in the bowels of the earth, the blackness of no other choice.
