Order and Chaos

I woke up with a start.

Apparently, this world needed to be actively maintained or it would degenerate into incomprehensible nonsense. I'd complain to whichever deity set it up that way, but they were dead already.

And, I supposed, I couldn't count on the world I woke up to being exactly the same as the one I'd fallen asleep in. With all the power I now possessed, misremembering one tiny detail could have consequences on a universal scale.

So the first thing that had to be done was granting the universe-stability functions to someone who didn't need to sleep. And it would probably be helpful if they couldn't be killed.

Oh, that's right. That was Mary, the ghoul. I granted her the necessary powers and went back to my nap.

---

I screamed suddenly.

"What's the matter?" Commun asked, more than a little confused. "I thought you were happy about your dream-girlfriend suddenly appearing out of nowhere."

I struggled with how to explain it. How did you tell someone that you were now acutely aware of the state of the universe, and that it was in grievous pain? And that you somehow knew that you alone had the power to fix this, but you didn't have the slightest idea what exactly you were supposed to do?

I made the best effort I could.

"Commun," I said, "I need to fix the universe."

"Oh," he said.

"And I don't know how."

"Oh."

He stood there for a while, as Adeline kissed me madly, not caring about my undead status. I wished I could have enjoyed it, but the universe insisted on not letting me.

"Do you, um. Do you know what about it is actually broken?" Commun finally asked.

"Yes, but our language doesn't have words for any of the concepts involved. They're very complicated, even though I seem to have a sudden implicit understanding of them."

"Oh. I was hoping it was simpler than that, like that there's something in the universe that shouldn't be in there."

"I suppose you could put it in those terms, but I can't describe what that something actually is. Also, it's rather difficult to take something out of the universe entirely."

"Is it these dreams?"

"No, the dreams are part of the universe, it's just that normally they're separated from the part we're in. I don't think I have to do anything about that, Milton can take care of it."

"Take care of what?" Milton asked.

"Not you, Milton the cat."

"Oh, that's good," said Milton. "Because I don't have any idea what we're talking about."

"I don't either," said Commun. "But I think it's bad."

So it seemed I wasn't going to be getting any advice. I'd have to take care of this indescribable problem on my own.

What was the first thing I had to do about it?