So this is what the end of time is like. Not necessarily as dramatic as usually imagined. There’s no big explosion, no asteroid striking the earth. There aren’t zombies, or demons, or deadly viruses that have killed off the population. The sky hasn’t ripped open and sucked us into the void. Elvis hasn’t come back from the dead and Michael Jackson clones have not taken over. 

It’s much more… peaceful than that. You would just be going about your day, normal as ever. You wouldn’t notice the things beginning to fade out of existence around you. You wouldn’t remember that coworker that you always sat with at lunch. You wouldn’t notice at all, until you were the last thing there is. Then I guess you get something special that allows you to remember everything. That’s me. 

Here I am, just kind of existing. Waiting for the fading to eventually get to me too. I’m not sure what comes after that, whether all those things went somewhere or whether they’re just… gone. Maybe their consciousness just winked out, and now are just in a state of nothingness. I wonder what that would feel like, being nothing. 

Is it just like when you go to sleep, and are in that suspended state right before you begin dreaming, the moment where you forget you had a body, a life, that you would need to wake up in the morning or that there even is a morning. Maybe it’s like the feeling when you get into a good story; the world kind of just melts away, and is nothing more than just what is happening in the tale. Suddenly there are no sounds from the dishwasher or your younger brother, the light no longer looks fake, because it is the sunshine coming through the branches of trees in a forest near the castle that the brave night whom you’ve known for his whole life is protecting Princess Isabell. It’s suddenly Wesley, rolling down a hill and yelling “As you wish,” and you can feel the breeze on your face and smell the warm summer air. 

Now that I think about it, maybe that’s what’s happening now. Maybe this is just someone waking up from their story, and none of this ever actually existed. Or, maybe it’s a story in the process of being dreamt up, and the person is just beginning to wake. That’s kind of a lovely thought. 

A smile tickles my lips, my arms begin to fade. I close my eyes and relax. See you tomorrow. 

I open my eyes and laugh with surprise. Tipping my head back I throw my arms wide, spinning in a circle and delighting in the feeling of my tassel skirt swooshing against my knees, the jumbled murmur of too many people talking at once. 

It is not dark, or nothingness, or the not-feeling of being asleep. In fact, it is loud, and rascous, and there are too many bodies on the dance floor and it’s just a little too warm. The jazz band at the front of the room is bopping and jiving, plucking away at their big bass, trumpets and saxophones. 

The feeling in the air is electric, like the moment right before a lightning strike when you swear you can feel the charge in the air. The hoots, whoops, and foot tapping coming from the dance floor creates an eclectic hodgepodge that you would only find in the roaring twenties. 

Weaving my way into the center of the dance floor, the music pumps through my veins like blood, my feet stomping like a heartbeat. I may not be sure how I got here, but I definitely want to stay.