The End

At the end of the world, I stand with my back to the setting sun and my feet in the ocean, watching the last of the lands wash under the tide as the night creeps in. God isn’t here; they left about an hour ago when the sky had fallen, leaving me to say a last few goodbyes before it’s all over.

“Why?” the people had asked me. “Why now?”

“The time has come,” was my answer. I find it best to remain neutral in this sort of situation.

They cried and wallowed at my feet, begging, pleading, sobbing into my robes, shrieking, “Please save us! Please do something.”

There was nothing I could do, or rather nothing I was going to do. But I held their hands and I prayed with them, soothed them through their darkness until they made peace with their demise, confident that they were going somewhere heavenly regardless of what happened. I can’t say for sure where all of them went when they died yesterday. I could ask God, I suppose, but they don’t usually answer my questions… some of the others might know, too, but they’re much harder to find, and the apocalypse has left me too fatigued to do much more than observe the chaos from a safe distance. In any case they’re still dead, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?

The sun has taken his final bow, drawing the curtain of night over the endless silky seas and leaving me alone in the silence. Only the distant whispers of stars puncture the blackness, galaxies like neon clouds pulsing with light and colour rip through the atmosphere, leaving the planet naked to the universe; ready to return to nothing.

It's terribly emotional, watching a world end. I’ve seen it time and time again, and yet, as the ocean evaporates into the vacuum of space and the mountains crumple to dust, I feel the first tear in three thousand years trace down my cheek. Grief is only natural when witnessing the finale of a great piece, something of such immense pride or value that it clings to your soul, becomes part of every breath you take, every word from your lips, every beat of your heart. But to be perfectly honest, at the moment I can’t seem to pinpoint what I’m mourning, or what I need to let go of.

Is it a farewell to the humans? To an extent they were endearing, I suppose, mildly amusing with their predictable recklessness. They devoured the world with an admirable ferocity and dedication to their destruction. Within a few centuries of their existence, they had absolutely decimated the Earth, and no technology they could produce could save them from themselves. Their ingenuity became their undoing, and that, in a way, is remarkable. Its almost reassuring how eagerly and efficiently they exterminated themselves, even before God decided it needed to be done.

But, no, my tear isn’t for the human race. If I let the loss of every life form weigh on me, I would have caved in a long, long time ago. Just as there is no mourning a fallen tree, or a dying star, there is no point in sympathizing with cognizant death, just an acceptance of transformation. Every being in this chaos is layered and woven into the fabric of space and time, subject to any number of fluctuations, modifications or otherwise, including transference to coinciding planes of reality. Death is just another step in the cycle of life. There is no end without beginning, no loss without gain, but no guarantee of reciprocal place, time, or circumstance, either. The humans had an anecdote that went something like, “When God closes a door, He opens a window” The problem is, that window might be in the next galaxy over, or on the other side of the world, or two inches wide and thirty feet in the air. God only knows, and as I’ve said, they aren’t the most helpful conversationalist in times of need.

Earth is once more akin to Venus, her charred crust weeping magma into the cracks of the ever-changing surface and coughing up a veil of smoke that will soon form a new atmosphere. No life will spark for at least a thousand years, and even then, it will be microscopic and seem so insignificant you won’t notice for at least another thousand. Until then, she sleeps. Deep in her dreams she will orbit the sun like she has since the beginning, bleak and harsh against the memory of her splendor. My eyes prickle with tears to think of her in colour…

“Not getting sentimental, are we?” God is standing behind me, and they speak in the voice of an elderly man.

“I always was the irrational one,” I reply. Regaining my composure while I pull out a cigarette, I continue, “I guess I’m still not used to losing her.”

He steps up beside me, bearded and grey with deep brown skin and endless blue eyes. “How many times do I have to tell you? Those things are absolutely terrible for your form.”

“Oh, give me a break, this is a tough job. Sometimes I need to relax.”

“Some of us do that in ways that are beneficial for our body, mind, and spirit. Have you ever tried meditation?”

“We’ve been through this, man, I can’t do that kind of shit-,”

“Language, please.”

“Sorry,” I mutter while I light the smoke over the burning Earth, relishing the smoothing calm of nicotine in the hot, smoggy darkness. And for a while we just stand there, watching the magma roil against the rocks, devouring the shores in its fiery maw and churning up the heated leftovers behind to cool and harden to earth, beginning the cycle anew.

“You know,” God says quietly, “it's okay to miss the humans. They were an extremely interesting iteration.”

“Just because I’m a fan of some of their innovations does not mean I miss them,” I snip back, but steady my tone with a sigh before going on. “Anyway, it really isn’t about them. I get these… emotions, I guess you’d say, at every end, no matter the era. It happens every time, and it’s looking at her like this that takes it out of me. Seeing her look so… dead.”

“Hm,” God ponders with his hand in his beard, the other resting on my shoulder.

The laugh that escapes me is choked and humorless. “Am I losing it? We do this all the time and it never upsets you, so what the Hell?”

“Language, please.”

“Sorry.”

The man who is God sighs, looking me in the eyes so he doesn’t have to speak anymore, I can just hear them.

Do not be afraid of your fear, they say. Do not be upset by your sadness. Do not be enraged by your confusion. Sit in the stream of your consciousness and let it carry you forth to the sea. There is no need to hold on to the shoreline, for even through rapids and drought, your spirit shall find its way to freedom if only you relinquish control.

I open my eyes, having not realized they were closed, and both the old man and God are gone. I am once again alone with the Earth and my thoughts, readying myself for the task ahead as her horizons sparkle in the pre-dawn light.

“Terra,” it's barely a whisper, but she quivers in her volcanic cocoon and I know she can hear me. “I’ll miss you.”

There is no way for a celestial body to say goodbye, but she manages it. I can’t keep the tears in my eyes as I step back from her, slipping through a tear in the fabric to be back in the dark warmth of my room. I take my time to lay the emotions to rest, breathing in the sulfurous air of my home until the imagery of the scorched Earth settles far down in the well of my mind, not to be disturbed until the time comes once again.

A knock comes on the door, and I suppose it is as good a time as any to get back to work. I say, “Yes?”

My wife peers in with a wry smile, “Reminiscing again?”

“You had to be there, it’s an emotional time,” I tease, joining her in the doorway. “How have the judgments been going?”

“Slowly, without you,” we walk hand-in-hand toward the courtroom, the comfortable din of chatter and soft orange lighting soothing me back into myself, here, now, where I don’t have to deal with God, or Earth, or life of any kind.

She presses a kiss to my cheek as we near the immense black doors. I say, “Well, I appreciate you holding down the fort, Lilith,” the familiar wailing of wretched souls echoes through the chambers and I can’t help but smile in the glowing splendor of my kingdom. “It was a good run, this go around. But Terra needs her rest… the humans were tough on her.”

“It's still hard to let her go.”

“It is,” we stand together before the great gates, exchanging rueful grins like children, almost giddy in the rising ecstasy of our power, “but it's not over yet, is it?”

“No,” she opens the doors, “it never is.”