The Road of the Stars was longer than the apocalypse, so at some point we stopped hearing crescendos behind us. We didn't look back for a while — not that we would have turned to salt, I think, nor been trapped in the world of the dead; we just didn't want to see it until it was all over, and there was nothing left to see. What was a little more cowardice, after all?
As the silence settled, the stars began to go out beneath our feet. One by one, then in sections and splotches and swaths, shining light and warmth faded into a dull grey that seemed to drain the heat from our soles (and from our souls, if we still had them). We clutched at our jackets and ourselves and each other for warmth.
There would be nothing for us at the end of the road, we knew. But the walk — taken slowly — was nonetheless a little longer in the world than we would have had. We spent the time not talking about the all-too-recent past, not thinking about the all-too-absent future, exchanging idle inanities while the sun, too, slipped into slumber and silence behind us.
We knew the gates awaited us — or, rather, we awaited them, in unspoken dread and disacknowledgement; the gates cared not for us, metaphorically or otherwise — but we never reached them: one of us woke up.
I think... it might have been me.
(... three of the last four posts are, in one sense or another, about the end of everything. Right, next one involves rainbows and butterflies. Promise.)
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