Infinity

Mina walked. She always seemed to be walking, always on this road of hers. No matter. She would find its end someday. And while she waited, she could think. Her feet moved, and her mind was free to ponder the world that surrounded her. 

She looked up from the muddy road, admiring the soft blue of the sky and the contrast of the sharp black mountains that cut into it. Below the mountains were deep green pine trees, the space between them covered in wildflowers of every color imaginable and then some. People rarely had the time to admire such things, in a world that moved as quickly as this one; who stopped to pick flowers when there were crops to be sown, animals to be fed, houses to build and fix and maintain?

It was a pity. The work, yes, that was infinite. There would always be more work, more to do. The flowers, though…they had only a few weeks left, at most. Why should something so young, so fragile, so precious, be ignored in favor of a loop that would always be there? Infinity. But no, no, lives were not infinity. The farmers would pass on, and their children, and their children’s children. Nothing was truly infinite.

But nothing truly ended, either. Did it? Mina paused, stepping lightly to the edge of the road, the tips of her boots right on the line between mud and grass. She bent, the wind blowing her hair out behind her as she gently plucked a tiny yellow flower out of the ground. She lifted it to her face and continued walking. Then she grabbed the blossom and crushed it. The flower’s life was over, now. A short, meaningless thing. It had ended, and if one thing had an end then all things must have an end. But…it had seeds, didn’t it? And sending its seeds on would be allowing it to continue, in a way. Infinitely.

So, eyes curious, Mina opened the hand with the broken flower inside it. Smears of yellow stained her palm, the lifeblood of a creature that could not even comprehend life. Her hand burst into a small flame. The flower dissolved into smoke and floated away.

There. Now the flower truly had an end. It was gone, completely gone, and it could never again be remembered or noticed. Humans, Mina considered, must therefore be the same way. We cannot be infinite, because we can be destroyed easily, so easily. All things end. If a flower can end, its seeds destroyed, so can a person, with a tad more effort. And if a person could be ended, then why not a country? Why not a world?

But the world, she reasoned, is surely infinite. 

How many years to infinity? Could a mortal comprehend infinity? Surely not. No mortal could even imagine the time it took for a world to be born, to live, to die. Just as a flower could never comprehend the time it took for a person to live, to die, to cease to exist. 

Mina took another step forward, and suddenly the empty road in front of her filled with people dressed in pure white. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye and knew that they were behind her as well. They held daggers, bows, swords, quarterstaffs. Mina kept walking as if she didn’t see them.

Mina couldn’t comprehend infinity, she realized that now, but perhaps the flower couldn’t comprehend the idea of a century; and yet, mortals could measure time by centuries. So, then, could the world measure its lifespan in terms of infinities? Eternities? Was it possible that infinity and eternity were, in fact, different things? 

Several arrows flew at her. Mina kept walking, feeling the wind as they blew past her cheeks. She was close to the strangers now, very close. Mina sighed and sat down; her feet hurt terribly, and she had time for a short break. Besides, this was the first dry patch of road she’d seen in miles. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath of fresh air.

Infinity, to her, meant eternity; the words were interchangeable, two ways of saying forever. But to a world? To a star? To an entire galaxy? A forest knew what a century was, even if the little flowers within it didn’t. A world knew what an eternity was, even if the people that inhabited it couldn’t. New flowers grew every year; they were a part of the centuries the forest lived, even if they didn’t even last long enough to see the heat of summer. New people came into the world, even if none of them lived a fraction of the time it took to form an eternity.

Mina raised a hand, eyes still closed, and snagged a dagger from the air. In the same moment she twisted it around and threw it back, hearing a yelp of pain as a body fell to the ground. Were all people, then, infinite? Even as they died and were forgotten? If a gear in a machine broke, but the machine was fixed and carried on, could the gear be called infinite? 

Mina ducked below a sword, and then her arm snapped out and she grabbed it, slashing out wildly. It caught on something…someone. She heard laughter, and looked up to see a man…no, he was little more than a boy…holding a cut on his arm. The others had gathered in a circle around them, making a sport of the moment. A corpse was on the ground next to her. That was surprising. She stood smoothly, the sword moving almost of its own accord and slicing neatly through the boy’s neck. She walked towards the edge of the circle, smiling softly, letting the sword do as it pleased.

But humans were not simply gears in a machine. That was a poor comparison. They were more like the flowers in the forest; shallow, beautiful, and completely unnecessary. But oh, how the larger, older creation was made better by their existence, pitiful as they were. The sword gleamed in the sunlight, and several heads fell to the ground. Screams interrupted the birdsong.

Could the flowers be called infinite? Eternal? They were one, but not the other, and Mina believed it was the former. The flowers were infinite, because no matter how many of them were destroyed there would always be more. A wave of blood sprayed off her sword, splattering across a patch of yellow flowers. Deep red on bright gold.

But the flowers were not eternal, she realized, taking a step back and feeling leaves and petals flatten beneath her muddy boot. Brown, and gold, and red, and green. They were infinite, never ending, but they were not eternal, never ending. One without the other. 

A dagger cut appeared on her cheek. Small droplets of red fell down her face like the tears she’d forgotten how to shed. A moment later, the man holding the dagger was dead. She yanked her sword out of his gut.

Again, Mina made a connection, formed a reason, forced logic to bow to her will. If flowers could be infinite, so could people. People were infinite, because on every world they kept coming back.  It mattered not how long, they were infinite because they kept returning.

Mina stabbed the last attacker, and he died without a sound. She tossed the no longer shining sword over her shoulder, where it sank deep into the mud. Then she took a step forward, then another, falling into a rhythm. Soon, she turned a corner, leaving the long stretch of road as lonely as she’d found it. Only now, between the emerald trees and the rainbow of flowers, there were new colors. White linen, turning slowly red. What had been pale dust before was now mud so deep a brown it may as well have been black. 

Infinite, but not eternal. That was better, Mina supposed, than being eternal but not infinite. But to be both…was it possible for any but a god? 

A crow flapped glistening ebony wings, landing silently in a growing pool of blood. It bent down, and began to feast.

Infinite. Eternal. Perhaps, Mina thought, there is a way to be both. She took another step.