Surface

I remembered waking up numb, my eyes burned closed. I lost my soul to the blazing star in the sky. When night came down it did little to ease me. The moon was almost brighter in its white sterility.

                                                why do I write like this?

People walked around me, ignoring me. Why don’t they care? They refused to look, refused to acknowledge. I curled into a ball. My ennui is renewed in the font of fear

What is that meant to mean? So very… whiny                                 

I realised that I was walking, more like staggering, down the street. I run into strangers; everyone is a stranger up here. I cannot see. I fell, down into some sort of alleyway. I felt myself rising up and a realisation reached me.

Then I was pulled physically to my feet, and a many folded piece of paper was thrust into my hand. I fell back into the alley again.

I managed to open my eyes and started to lose myself in the marks that criss-crossed the paper.

Run

The woman is leading. Holding onto the other’s hand is a challenge, it being slippery and hard to see in the half-light. She cannot leave them behind, she needs him as much as they need her, and their dead weight is, in a way, comforting.

The underground they run through is ungrounded, unreal in its nature. The whole world feels this way; the universe is outside of its home. Dancing between cracks is difficult in the dark with the mosslight the only light worth using.

(THE OTHER IS SLOWING HER DOWN, WHY ARE THEY HERE?

The Other will be needed, in the end. She will be needed as well, when they reach the centre of their world and enter it to the sound of trumpets.

But then is not now.)

She pulls him long and they feel rats swarm around them, not touching but close enough to hear and, just about, to see. The other gasps, reaching out for them with his free hand. The woman pulls him away and deeper, down into the corridors of the old world below.

They pass by workers, faces frozen in surprise by the sight of those to running by, hand in hand, rats flowing endless after them.

The other tries to stop, tries to stay, the woman pulls him deeper, passing by the mosslight and into a true darkness. The rats stay behind, and wait.

Return

The city’s light burned through the night, and we were there, in the depths, as it spun around us. Making it back down into the sewers was… cathartic. I would see my family again, though we had left on bad terms, and I would see my parents again, the ones that were still alive that is.

Your hand held mine as we took the spiralling steps down towards the gates and I felt a tear on my cheek. The memory of a rat crawling up my leg was all too real, and I almost dropped my lantern to hold it close instead. I stopped walking but you pulled me on, dancing with no fear from board to board, pausing only when my arm could not be made to stretch any further.

Your smile loosened my legs, forced me to step closer to you, and with that one act you had tricked me. Off you ran in the depths, and I had to follow, down and down, round and round, until I reached the bottom, only to trip over your silent body. My lamp smashed to the ground, out in an instant.

We held onto each other in the darkness.

I was home.

House

The woman lives in a declining home, a building that’s walls lean into the centre like the skin of an unpeeled orange. The floorboards of this home are loose, creaking and falling with one wrong touch. The woman leaps from safe place to safe space, memorised over the years, filling her mind with their nature, wiping away almost everything else.

She never leaves the house, and scratches on brick walls mark passing time and as she makes her way slowly through countless winding corridors. The whole house is lit by the glowing mosses littering walls and ceiling tiles with no gaps to see beyond.

Sometimes looking at walls makes her brain’s twist, squirm in her skull as if she is looking at something that shouldn’t be, shouldn’t turn her skull like a loose lemon spinning on a plate. She only screamed once, if this happened, before settling into trancelike, trancelike state. She is loose in one of these states now and the house watches her spin motionless on the fracturing floor.

But these walls and floors are growing tired of her, they are keeping her now out of habit rather than joy. They materialised her fruit without feeling. When she was new, they were always excited, observing and watching every move from her first steps as a wean all the way to seeing her dance across its surfaces. Now? Not a thing.

The woman is unaware of this, all she sees are melting walls and nothing, brain remoulding itself with each second as the walls enter her one last time, spinning her mind the same way she spins through the house in her endless walks.

Life goes on and she feels the house delve deeper than it ever has before, senses as it climbs to the back of her skull and drives her from its floor, pushing her along and down flights and flights of stairs into a deep room she has never seen.

It is dark; the moss does not grow here, and she cannot see, but still she is forced ahead, deeper into the house’s bowels. Things slither across her feet, coarse as they come, and now they are grabbing hold, pulling tighter and tighter.

She cannot struggle, she cannot move, she cannot scream. It is pulling harder and harder, her joints are breaking, her joints are coming apart at the seams and –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

she wakes besides water, more water than she has ever seen.

Then, the screaming finally comes.

Early

I had always lived under the city. I crawled through pipes and crossed metal walkways as I made my way in this underground world. I fished in the rushing drains with the rats, catching half filled boxes with my nets, and I worked to clear blockages in the tunnels to keep the city above flowing smoothly.

I once saw the sun whilst I lived down there when the leader of the sewer’s union left to present a list of demands to the managers above. They had stood so proud on the top rung of the rusting ladder, just below the exit grate, and, smiling, slipped on their blackout goggles. We all cheered when they raised the grate, and we were all blinded when the light poured down on us. I did not see the sun again for many years and I never saw the union president again.

My parents were the rats of the north end tunnels. They kept me safe, crawling all over me, keeping me warm, protecting me from the rising water. My family were the workers of the west tunnels, they lived their whole lives down here with me, cleaning tunnels and feeding me the scraps they found along the way.

One day I found the remains of a skull blocking an outflow pipe, its horns stopping the water. I found the way back to the work camp, skull in hand, and handed it over to the officials at the camp gate. They look at it, mouths open, before turning to look straight into my eyes. I flinched back, my blood squeezing out from between my teeth after I had involuntarily bitten into my cheek.

They came at me with knives that shone, and I RAN. The world spun around me, blood loss from the bite making me dizzy and afraid. The skull hit me directly on the spine, opening a gash there, I kept on running.

Rats leapt out from outflow pipes, bursting the yellowed eyes of workers like they were bags of rotting rubbish. I dodged from pipe to pipe, through the maze of my home, but, as the rats died, I heard people all around me, closing in, thumping, hammering on the walls with pipes of their own.

I almost ran into a ladder before I grabbed hold of it in my left hand, steadying myself. A box at the base held a pair of blackout goggles and I took them with my free hand.  I looked up, insides burning, burning with the thought of leaving the clammy comfort of my mildew walls and the constantly dripping skies.

A pipe hit my leg.

I squealed.

I felt the cold rungs under my toes.

I felt the goggles drop to the floor.

I threw back the drain cover.

 I screamed.

Ready

Smiling down at the shape in the bed before the woman got ready to leave. The early morning light was filtering into the room despite the drawn curtains, highlighting the shape’s face. Round to a fault the head was leaving no impression on the pillow, seeming to hover above it rather than risk sinking.

She bends down to tie her shoes, looping each lace as she continues to watch the bed. Later lessons would tell her that this was frowned upon. The shape in the bed didn’t move though, her look having no effect at all.

Shoes tied she places a leaflet on the bed (praise the Three as One) and staggers out into the corridor, pushing the keys through the letter box. She stretches before looking along the length of the hallway. The carpet is a deep purple with churning patterns all along it. She walks from swirl to swirl, hoping over the gaps between them until she reaches the lifts at the far end and pressing the call button.

She waits.

And she waits.

And she waits a little longer yet.

*ting!* Here it is, the doors open, welcoming her inside. She jumps in, pressing the button with a toe, smile on her face. Down she goes in what feels like widening and widening circles, like a metal ball at the end of a swinging rope. *ting!* The doors pop open again to the same purple carpet.

Leaping out, she again jumps from spiral to spiral, making her way past the sleeping desk clerk and out into the early morning. The cobbles to the left were still stained with blood so she went off to the right, down towards the docks and the boat.

It’s quiet, the streets lit by the sun behind her. She hurries down the street now, passing the senate dome, and disappearing down the winding stream of a close and out onto the dockyard. The boat waits for her, its cabin already closed and locked.

Hopping across the gap and slapping the cabin door she hears a roar coming from within. She smiles and gets the ship read to set sail.

Hands

The streets were filled with preachers, they screamed out a joint prayer together. It was eerie, hearing them all cry out in synch, praising their Three as One above. We held hands that day, it was sunny, a few wisps of cloud had made their way across from the coast, casting faint shadows on the cobbles.

Your hand felt warm in mine, a comforting roughness that covered my heart with goosebumps. Bad metaphor, sounds like you were killing me, squeezing my heart flesh in a fist. No, your touch was… special, it drowned out the sounds of the ranting priests and distracted the gaze of the Father above (not the Son, they still kept eyes focused, a little hand holding can’t keep that gaze away. Three are One after all).

The cobbles cut into my soles. They left smears of blood as a trail leading to a bliss unending. The priests screamed on and on and on and on and –

We reached the rotunda wall of our hotel and we let ourselves through the main door. The clerk nods before handing us our keys. You thanked them and added a smile to soften the words further. We made our way to the café.

You headed out to sea the next day, hunting whale and fish and other such creatures. I played with your hair as the waiter came over and you ordered our last meal together. It’ll have to last, we both had a long journey before us, by land and by sea.

The waiter came back with a glass of water for us both. We swapped them with each sip. Your smile when you put down the glass was infectious; I couldn’t help but grab your cheeks and pull them even further apart.

The meal arrived, steak and kidney pie for us both. You ate yours in two bites; I took my time, savouring each bite as I stared into your face. I give you my love, dear, now that you’ve set sail. Life may bring us closer together again, just so I can see the face that bites a thousand pies again.

We headed to our room, hand in hand again. The lift was broken so you lifted me instead, up one flight of steps, before we swap, and I carried you the rest of the way. Fumbling for the keys in your pocket, we made our way inside, lights switching on automatically.

We fell into bed, and, with a click of your fingers, the lights went out.

I woke to the rising sun and you were gone, leaving behind nothing but an imprint on the bed, and a pamphlet with a smiley face on its cover. I thought of searching, I really did, but decided to read instead, picking up the leaflet and opening it to the first page.

Leaving

The cobbled streets wound their way around ancient stone buildings and out towards the city gates, gradually degrading to hardened dirt as it left the walls behind. I walked one of these paths alone, following the curves and lines until I reached those gates. The rising sun reflected off the portcullis and lit the wooden gates themselves a deep orange. Beyond them I saw foothills that rose steeply to mountains.

I turned to look back at the city. I saw the new sun resting on the dome of the senate. The government buildings crowded all around it, suffocating in their numbers. We always hated those buildings didn’t we? Those buildings that held so many false smiles and sharp knives.

But your dead now, buried under the hill with so many others, and now I must go on, lost into the hills.

I turn and set out on my journey.

World

We exist within spheres, spheres of perfect orbit, perfect composition, and perfect craft. They spin above us, blue by day, black by night, with sections built from coloured gas, reflecting down on us. I lived beneath these spheres so long that I all but ignored their shape and style; I accepted their existence without question. Without a doubt they kept me alive, breathing the air that they held in by God’s will.

Earth lies as a globe within water, water within air, air within fire, fire within starlight.

The Three as One had designed a perfect world for us all. I saw that it was as the priests said and the cosmology of the ancients confirmed it beyond a doubt. Astrology does not provide truth, only measurements to follow the inside of the spheres across the sky.

Now, God lived beyond those turning wheels, watching over his creatures like a toymaker in his shop. He sat as the Father, watching satisfied with what He had crafted. He sat as the Son, watching joyful with what He had served. He sat as the Ghost, holding carefully what He had protected. He sat as One, watching but not touching, waiting to finish the Word.

And that is the world system, it is a spinning beauty held in the hands of the Three as One. Still, He rests still, the Seventh Day is not done after all. As he leans back His chair wobbles slightly, one leg shorter than the rest.

This is all as the priests have told me, in the chapels of long ago.

Moult

He had a head of hair like a hedgehog, brown spikes held down by an old flattop cap. He owned a factory that spent the day pumping fumes, gritty and dark, up into the sky, filling the lungs of the children who worked there. We were partners in this enterprise, he ran the business whilst I spent the days spending the profits, drawing in more investors by the hour.

Almost everyone who saw the factory at work immediately saw the need of it, what grander a task could mankind have on this earth? One or two however were more… apprehensive regarding it, believing it an unnecessary waste of resources and labour that benefited no one. However, not long after we always managed to convince them of its value, its grand and universal, yet personal, purpose.

I had long wished to see the great work myself, to touch it, experience it first-hand with my own mind. But could I break the thing’s magic and cast it into the ether, ruining centuries of toil just for my own satisfaction? No. I had held out, waiting for final touches to cool onto the shell. Now my reward was soon to leave behind its womb and take us all into itself, the final testament written with our own bodies.

Now, as I watched the last child fed through the doors, I smiled. I would be the last, I would see the culmination of centuries of work in only a few hours.

Smoke from the chimneys surrounded me, spiralling by my face in curls and flights in such a way that I almost lost myself, as so many others had, in the patterns of its passing. It was beautiful, dark and passionate, burning still as fell from above to fill me and leave me.

I spent my last hours with that smoke and its spirals made me smile all the more. What more could someone want with so little left aside from these streets, and the factory stretching in front of me.

But before me now the factory walls cracked like a spider’s moulting shell and out spilled the final work.

Now, the world’s work was done.

These Are A Bit Depressing Eh?

The trees on the clifftop swayed in the breeze, their leaves falling to the water below. The rest of the world was silent, locked away in a box that spiralled around an infinite number of identical boxes in the plughole of a kitchen sink.

It was night now and the trees still moved slightly, dropping their leaves into the water. The moon shone through a hole in the box lid and its light hit the trees, casting their shadows onto the water.

A figure approached the trees slowly, looking around, lost and more than a little confused. It had been not long ago that they’d been in a box with other people, people they’d known for decades. Now… silence, strange noises came down from the sky or rumbled through the walls at the edge of the world yes but…

The box was, in a way, suffocating, more than before, more than any other box. Anxious boxes all around, some boxes absorbing one another, building bigger and bigger, islands becoming continents and continents worlds as big as the void outside itself.

Anxious worlds all as well, not knowing themselves in their lost beauty, did they have beauty? The way back is gone always, don’t want to find it, but the way forward can’t be found either. Stumbling is the only real option, the only sane option. Till stumbling into another, many another’s, just as anxious, maybe…

Anxious

New place, new walls. Yet walls are the same, enclosing, and white painted. Worrying over new people, new faces, new classes. Don’t know, don’t know… Cars race by, so much louder. What is this place? So many people, I know no one. Spiral, what am I to do, world unmoored, don’t know, don’t know…

Bring Light

I lost the light, lost it in the depths of the earth. I found less than satisfactory replacements over the years, using them to tide over the world until the next foundling can be burned. I almost lost the dark too, lost it in the sky’s clouds.

The people followed me, pulling themselves closer and closer to me with each hour and day. I frowned at them, shouted even, but still they came, still they filled the air around me with their breath and their bodies.

I could hardly move under them as they piled on top of me, my hands held a new light close to my chest. It burned a hole in my shirt, round and smooth before sinking deep into my flesh. The people came closer as the lights warmth began to radiate from me as well.

I fell to the ground as my flesh pulled itself around the light and I started to shine. Hands dig into my skin, ripping off strips and stuffing them into my mouth. A tear runs down my nose and onto my lips.

The light dims before shooting out between my now exposed ribs. It heads to the sky before blazing to life again. I feel a blessed warmth fill me and dissolve me.

Sea Shanty

Waves crashed against the concrete ramp, spreading up and around the fishing boat that was being slowly pushed down it. The sea took it up soon enough and it began cutting its way through the surf, picking up the wind in its sail. An hour passed on by.

A woman stood on the deck, holding a net. She nodded once and the sail was pulled in, cutting the boat’s speed in half. She threw the net into the water, pivoting her whole body with the effort before taking a quick look over the knots tying it to the rear of the boat. She smiled up at the cabin and the sail opened again, bringing the boat back up to speed.

The only sounds for the next few days were the waves crashing against the hull and the wind in the sail. The woman sat in on deck, watching the lines. A shadow moved in the cabin. All around them was a sea that steadily changed to ocean.

The net snagged, pulling the line down and jerking the boat backward. The woman fell forward, hands covering her face as she slammed to the deck. A scream came from the cabin, thin and inhuman. The lines started to spiral around the ship, pulled into tighter and tighter circles around it. The woman stumbled to her feet before staggering towards the lines, knife in hand.

The lines touched the side of the boat now, crushing against the hull and digging lines out of the paintwork.

Something grabbed the front of the boat, ripping into the side, but not puncturing it.

The woman turned; the knife dropped from her hand.

A finger curled itself around the bow, pulling the boat down towards the waves. The woman opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She heard the cabin’s front door open, and something shot out of it looking black and green and slimy and oh god what is hell is that wrappi

Lost On The Trail

I will follow the trail to its end, my feet in the dust of dead leaves. I’m lost still, wandering the heaths and forests of mountains older than this continent, and I doubt that these trails are that much younger. So, I walk on through, looking for a splendorous place to lie down for a while and rest.

Tumbledown towers raise their remains all around me now, dark trees frame the day’s last rays. Lamplight shines in from those few stone windows that remain, casting shadows of dead heads on the ground. I walk on down the track, towards the rising moon.

I feel the mountain move, shifting its bulk as it sighs and looks at me. Boulders make eyes, pebbles teeth. It’s voice echoes through me, though I do not know the language. I put a hand on the soil, pulling up a blade of grass, taking one more look. I walk on by as the mountain continues to groan. The moon higher now, rounder.

A city opens itself before me, I walk through its overpass gates and watch as its buildings rise off to my left and right. I follow the trail straight, past the ruptured airship laying alone, and soon leave the city behind. I continue down the track, moon at its peak.

I find a new fire almost lost in the heather and so I blow as hard as I can until it burns as bright as the moon above. I settle down next to it, ready to close my eyes. I have all the time left to me, but my legs are tired.

Battle

Rising tension swells the armies, pushing them out onto the field. Days pass and nights pass, marching endlessly on and on alongside the feet of thousands. Rivers are forded, bogs slowly pushed through until, Christ, they meet, staring across a no-man’s-land that no one had seen before, or since.

They square up, generals and their lieutenants riding proudly up and down the lines on their horses or in their tanks, drawing and sheathing swords at regular intervals as they shout at one another across the silent wasteland between them.

Then, the troops ready, arms raised to take as many of the enemy into their deadly embrace before they fall themselves, proud in the knowledge that their duty has been served. Then generals stop at the edge of the lines and dismount from both tank and steed, raising their swords one last time. Soldiers brace themselves. The swords drop to the ground. Troops charge.

Chaos, the sound of thunder comes now from the feet of so many, nearing and nearing until… they meet. Two storms become one, crashing together to become a hurricane of twisting arms and legs, each looking for any grip, any hold they can find on each other.

The noise lasts barely a minute before silence falls again over the field.

 

 

 

Then, they all start laughing. The generals walk along, shaking hands and marking down who’s troops were hugging who’s. The losers will have to buy each of the winning soldiers a jammy dodger, and a ticket home on the nearest train.

Shame

 I’ve run out of time, accept this gift as penance for my sin…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cheddar cheese

Sunset

The trees that hemmed in the yard to the back of the farmhouse rustled as the wind blew its way through them, cooling the two men who sat there, rocking back and forth in their chairs, eyes closed. Clouds rolled around one another above the hills that lay out through the open gate in front of them, casting shadows over the slopes and glens and threating rain. The sun, framed by fence posts, lay on top, slowly sinking into its grey bed.

A dog trotted through the gateway and into the yard, its fur matted by sweat and broken twigs, panting heavily. It crept slowly towards the men, eyes watching both closely, before following one arm downward to a hand. Held lightly in the hand was a sausage, which swung back and forth with every movement of the chair.

The dog crept forward; its eyes glued to the meat. It paused whenever the two men moved, flicking its eyes back up to them before slinking a little bit closer. Soon it reached the hand and, closing its eyes, took a good long sniff.

Again, it paused, opening its eyes to take one more look at the nearest man. Then, it lunged, ripping the sausage from his hand and, as fast as its legs could manage, running back out of the gate and off towards the hills.

“Oi, yah theivin mongrel! Get yourself back here!” The man jerked forward from his chair, shaking the now empty fist at the dog’s increasingly distant back.

“Awlright Davey, you might be overdoing it a wee bit there…” The man in the other chair said, glancing over with a smile.

“A’ve gotta keep it convincing John, else the bugger’ll never come back…” He leaned back, looking over at his neighbour. They both started to laugh.

he

seemed to ramble on and on I watched his lips move twitching with each syllable I hated it every single time the sky behind his head was lit by aircraft landing lights some local insurgents had been seen moving up the valley his mouth kept going on and on and on and on and on hands gripped my forearms pulling them up until my hands touched his face it was raining the planes seemed to dance around each other like swallows around their nests the lights seemed to grow closer each time they blinked he pulled my arms I fell onto my knees he dragged me through the mud and grass I watched the lights get closer

Big Yin

Quickly, quickly, get something done, before the big one comes!

I rush through the night, up the tower so bright.

Round and round up the steps I go, up the tower before the big one comes!

A scream and a cry, I look down and spy.

I watch as it slithers, clambering hither, watch as the big one comes!

It brings down the sky, oh so many might die!

I watch as the big one comes.

Drawn

Now, as the moon watched on, I walked to the ruins of an ancient church, its naves stretching out like broken arms to pull me in. And I was pulled deeper.

I eased the ancient doors open, my attempts at discretion ruined by rusted hinges and water damaged wood. A painting hung on the wall in front of me. I followed along as it spread off to the side before curling round the next bend, its ancient flaking canvas threating to rip open with the slightest touch. I was pulled deeper.

I walked the length of it, watching it morph and twist, surreal, real, pulling together into a single ball, bursting outward to the size of an African forest, weaving and spinning up and down the walls. I was pulled deeper.

The walls became ceiling, floor, all as I walked, snaking up my legs and around my eyes. I could feel the splinters digging my skin. It climbed me as I climbed it, taking me into itself. I was pulled deeper.

The floor returned itself to tree trunk, and I walked out into the undergrowth. The leaves formed new images; the smell of rotting meat made me smile. The coat of a jaguar rippled like spilt oil, forming the background to the greatest masterpiece. I was pulled deeper.

It moved without life, a machine of ground up existence, a spiritual blood eagle. The jaguar’s yellow eyes watched on, it’s fur glistening. I was pulled deeper, deeper until I felt myself open completely to it. My neck twisted round and I smiled; I did not want to hold up the queue for long.

Cry

The light filled the world, and it was good.

“Is this you? Has the Word now come not just to our ears but to our eyes as well?!” I cried.

A choir drew closer each second, their melodies rang the air.

“I raise myself to you, three that are one, I raise myself to be judged as myself.” I cried.

The light brought peace; the song brought life.

“Guide us to your heart and open it to us, your mortal reflections.” I cried.

The light felled the world, and it was called good.

Spin Drive

The world was gone from her, spinning away down a plughole, leaving her adrift in the space time vortex, waiting for a box of pasties. That made her hungry, the thought of a pasty; tasty, crumbly, and savoury all at once.

The spin made her a little ill.

Ooh, sticky and smelly... lovely!

Slip Away

Dangerous, dangerous are the noises of our discontent, the disconnect of your souls from the greater world’s milieu. Losing the closeness of company to the joy of machinery (says the one typing away at a keyboard, alone in a room) built with the mined material of a resource drained wasteland. Worlds within worlds, one burning the rest with rocket jets and rotting binbags. Cut-up cardboard sits at a street corner, waiting to be taken delicately by a creature with diesel in its veins, crushed and spat out with the rest on piles of broken glass. Children cut their fingers to pull gems from jungle death camps, gun at their side.

Change? Maybe. The ideas of the world all spent, idealism swinging from its own tail, its last heart beats driving erratic, disorganised spasms. History watches on with a smirk.

Gather round the shrine and dance to the Cult of the One, each member lost to their own tune. Each divide themselves into chunks, smaller and smaller and smaller until they become atoms, drifting alone, unable to face the other. The Ticketmaster counts them all together.

More material more, more, more. Never find it, never find it in all the material, never. Must look. Look on and look again. Don’t deserve to find it, weren’t designed to find it, weren’t designed to get this far. Design to improve? Or design around the design? Find a way, or fall away into a material dementia, a pit into which even the ringside will slip.

Dark Night Reigned Over Them

Dark night reigned over them, it reigned over them. It reigned over the- why is it repeating, why? I doubt it is, I doubt that the Dark night reigns over each and every time, it changes every day, when it comes, when it leaves, the lights in the sky. It all changes with the season, the spin of a globe and the distance of each individual hurling ball of flaming hydrogen. Each night the hurtle is different the stars go out as we leave them further and further behind, the universe settles into an Alzheimer’s, a dementia of failing neurons lost in an empty sea.

A chance?

Is the chance of a connection, of stars linking together, conscious possible? Could a sky full of stars connect with one another into an interlinked mass of data and life and joy that could hold the universe alive forevermore?

No, travel at such a pace would be impossible, improbable, the distance is too great, the connections to frayed. It would take centuries to reach the nearest neighbouring light, an all the while it would take itself further and further away from us, out into the darkness of space to sit alone in senility.

Until it bursts into an even greater light before dimming to darkness.

Life is limited to these few eons before the universe returns to a dormant state of emptiness that it knew for far longer than us. But… Does that matter, you are here (we can only hope), I am here (or maybe not), the word is here (but are they really?) and the world and stars are all around us (we must believe). Is that not enough?

We can watch as each beauty fades until we are left alone in the void, a star alone or watch as that closest light flares and burns before leaving us in darkness a burned and freezing corpse, alone. But for a corpse to be corpse it must have lived, at least for a second.

Is that not more important, the most important thing? It must be, please. It must be.