You know what it's like: an endless void, nobody to talk to, nothing to do. You're sort of floating, not even existing — and then she comes along.

There's a fullness to her, all curves and depth. You could reach out and touch her, shape her. She's as soft and pliable as putty.

"Please," she says, and holds out a hand. You reach across the dimensions, tug at the gap between you. It folds, collapses till it's smaller than an atom. A spark ignites your core as you merge with her skin.

BANG.

Particles shoot across the darkness in a thousand vibrant colours. You watch as they collide — create clusters of spinning orbs, clouds of gas and molten rock. They stretch to your limits, to your beginning and end. In less than a second the void is gone.

"What's that?" she says, points to the planets spinning on their axis.

"It's then," you say. "It's now." You study a galaxy forming under you reach, the glittering pinpricks in the darkness. "And that?"

She laughs. "It's near. It's far."

You love the weight of her, the flesh, the texture of her skin — the way she twists beneath you, melts to become a mountain, a river, a stream.

"Before I met you I was rigid," she says. "I didn't know how to change."

"You give me substance," you say. "I'm nothing without you."

Together you smell the tails of meteorites, taste the glow of planets' moons. There's no end to your energy, to your wonder, to this place. You stumble across a galaxy, pick a star out of four hundred billion. Both are unremarkable, average, and yet a gem lies within — a tiny sapphire, spinning on a lean.

"This is it," she says. "Home."

"Let's go."

You start out small; one cell becomes two — four — multiplies exponentially. Soon a mass asserts its presence, tendrils sprout, membranes interlace. You give it a nudge and it grows a tail, forms arms and legs, begins to crawl. One more nudge and it straightens its back, walks on two feet.

"Stop," she says, but you can't, you keep nudging the planet forward. The ice melts as it swings round the sun, the continents rise and fall, break into tiny pieces before pressing together again. With every change she seems to shrink, her flesh hardening, curves flattening to featureless plains. You pull her closer and she pushes away.

"I need stability. Every day you're wearing me down." She shows you how the ocean bites the coast, how the wind scrapes at the cliffs.

"But I also bring you up." You show her the rising tectonic plates, the volcanoes spitting out new rock.

She sighs. "Just to wear me down again."

You try to stop but it's impossible, you can't even slow down. The suns balloon outward, glow red as they run out of hydrogen. Everything begins to blur, planets and galaxies clumping till they are no more than a milky haze.

"I'm tired," she says, her spine compacting, body folding into yours. You feel yourself shorten, quicken, your edges drawing closer till there's no room left for her. Together you turn sand to silicon, limestone to marble, compress the universe into the space of a galaxy, a mountain, a molecule.

"I'm sorry," you say, but the seconds run out, the matter vanishes. She is gone.

And you know what it's like, an endless void, nobody to talk to, nothing to do. You're sort of floating, not even existing — until she come along.

"Please," she says, and holds out a hand.

You reach across the dimensions, tug at the gap between you.

BANG.