It always ends up like this, I would learn. But not yet. I have exploded in a burst of hope, and, as I await nothingness to finally claim me, I feel myself being pulled back. Something's wrong. Everything is wrong. I'm going back. I'm becoming more. Point zero-zero-one angstroms. Point zero-one. Point one. I am leaving, I am leaving. One angstrom. Ten angstroms. One hundred angstroms. Point-one microns, or a thousand angstroms. One micron. Ten microns. One hundred microns. I'm almost out, but I don't want to, I don't want to. One centimeter away from you. One meter away. I can see you! Let me stay, please, let me stay. I'm being pulled back, increasingly so. One thousand metres. One kilometer. Three thousand feet. Ten kilometers away and I already can't make out what is beneath me. One hundred kilometers. One thousand kilometers. Ten thousand kilometers. One hundred thousand kilometers. One million kilometers. A billion kilometers, I'm screaming past Jupiter. One light year, Sol becomes a distant dot on the horizon. One hundred light years. Ten thousand light years. A hundred thousand light years away, and I'm moving past the milky way. Two million light years away, and Andromeda slips past me - I can't touch it with my fingertips. Fifteen million light years. The sky's gone out. All the stars my tears created have ceased to be. There is nothing. There is only the void, starless and bible black. I am being pulled away, I am going back to where I started. Trillions and trillions of years away, I am back to the Well. I am back. And I am looking at myself, as I prepare to fall all the way to you.
I am at once what I was before the fall, and yet more. Solid, yet ever changing. I was different, and yet the same. And I am here fully knowing of my folly - something my yet to fall other self does not know. I walk soundlessly towards myself, and as I approach me, I remember now when I had this conversation with myself. A wraith, thought I, here at the end of time, come to deter me. More fool I. I see myself and I see myself. There is a vague moment of wary distance, then a semblance of recognition. I have the look of one who has now just realized that I am destined to fail. Ah, but I am stubborn. Far too obstinate for my own good. I know I won't listen.
I sit down beside myself, and motion me to sit down. I look down at myself, unsure about what to do. But I end up sitting down next to me. If you think this is confusing now, wait until an infinite number of me appear on the scene. I look at myself, the one who still hasn't jumped and I tell him I have something I need to let him know. I don't listen. I lapse into silence. I break it when I ask myself if I had this conversation before with me. I say yes. And I say yes, and I say yes, and I say yes. I say we always have this conversation. I say we are having it right now and will have it again. All this has happened before and all of it will happen again. I say we haven't had this conversation yet. I say we need to fall for the very first time before we find ourselves here so that this loop can begin. I say all this, and there, behind me, there is me, and me and me and me and me. A line of those who ascend the steps to the top of the well, infinite in length, and a just as vast throng of those who have returned from the fall.
I - I - I - I - everywhere, I. I all speak. We all speak. I speak, I speak, I all speak. I all speak a jumble of words. I is cacophonous. I asks I for silence. I had but to say your name, and I all fell silent. Then I says to I, to I who hasn't yet fallen down , to I who doesn't know yet. I look at the assembled I, this council of I, and say I am going to tell me what I all know. In the infinity of the void there is a silence no deity would dare break. I am looking at myself near the well. And I say the words I heard innumerable times before. I don't care for them. I don't believe them. I say in reply that no words will change my course. I say I know. I all say I know. I say them again. She never chooses me. Never. I am not enough. I am never enough. It's never enough. I wave away the words. I have steeled myself for the fall. She never chooses me. I can't give her what she wants. I can't give her what she needs. I look back before I plunge into the night that never ends. I will not have this conversation, I say. Never. I don't know yet. I will. I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I fall. I am falling again. Now, I wait.
I all look. I ask I what now. I say I hope. I say I hope I don't come back. I say I wait. I said it all before. I will say it again. Will I say it again? I all hope I all don't. I is tired. I wants to go home. I - I - I - I - I is everything. It's everything. It's everything without a time. I time is running out. I - I - I - I end. I - I - I - I goodbye. I - I - I - I no time.
No time
No time
No time
No time
No time
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