…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.
