After the Conclusion

…and then came the end of it all.

The universe had served its purpose, taught all it had ever been intended to teach, and as such it was time to pass on into the great void beyond that which is real.

It held no ill will with regard to this fact. Even if such thing as a universe could count itself capable of ill will, it held none in this case.

The people went first, those in the background, followed closely by those you’d grown to know and love, growing pale and wan before, finally, laying down where they were and dying, allowing their bodies to turn to dust and blow away in the wind.

Nobody fought, none railed against this process, they knew there was nothing they could do in the face of entropy itself and, when their time came one by one, they accepted it with as much dignity as they could muster.

Which, by the time their time came ‘round, wasn’t much. There wasn’t energy enough in their body to muster dignity, indeed not enough for much of anything.

The world, now untethered from its population, was then free to begin its own slide into the abyss. Cities crumbled, mountains fell into the sea, but slowly, sluggishly, slouching toward nothingness not with a bang, but a whimper.

And as it did, in the night sky above, first the stars, then the sun and moon winked out of existence, like lights being one by one switched out, until finally there was nothing.

It had been a good universe, one who’s creator might once have been proud of it, full of life and vitality, but it had served its purpose and, as it would never be visited again, there was no longer any need for its existence, nor any need for sentimentalism at its passing.

It had run its course, and its course was through. It was time to go and there was nothing more to it than that.

So it went.

And, as the last of the earth fell into itself, and the last of the stars vanished from the sky, leaving nothing but abyss in their wake, the universe said its own silent goodbye to whomever might be listening…

…and the story, gone but never forgotten, arrived at its conclusion.