One would have thought that the insects would be the last ones standing, yet they were the first one to die out, after the oceans emptied. No surprise there then, that a chain reaction occurred afterwards. From the smallest to the largest, and now here today, whatever day it is, I am the last standing being alive as the lightest breeze ever felt by this world attempts to, one last time, bless the ground through it’s cold touch. You can see now, even now, the atmosphere ending, and the endless and vast blackness scintillating in the sky. Today, of all days, the clouds are gone, the dust has settled, and for the first time in years, I see the sun on the horizon, setting. Disappearing, as we... or rather as I will, once my last breath is drawn.
And to exist on this day, seemingly the last day, I thought it would be appropriate to render onto the sacred and the Earth by climbing onto the highest mountain in the vicinity. There were no mountains however, and my resources and energy were too scarce to go seek one. So I climbed onto the cliff that I have been climbing for these past few decades of my existence. Fitting, perhaps. To die and to disappear, and bring with me the last image of the world. Not in an unknown place, but in a familiar one. Yet, when I look around the physical world as it is now – in which my lungs drink from the remaining oxygen given in vain by now dried leaves and burnt trees – All of this unlife changes the landscape. Or even, if I were more truthful to reality here and not cling onto what is, without contest, the most meaningless of hopes, then I would say this unlife changes reality itself.
An impression, a feeling, a drive to disappear due to fear, a shame to be the last one when part of me wishes it wouldn’t be; the guilt of a survivor that escaped while everyone else did not. Worse, while everything else did not. But even there, a piercing truth deliberately shows itself to be real, to be here: A sensation of jamais vu. Somehow, in this place, at this time, I sit at the edge of the cliff as I would have done so usually, but none of this makes sense. The atmosphere would disappear, engulfed by the clouds that would be here, the gloomy shine of rays of light would illuminate the late winter leaves... The permanent winter that was leaving. To give way to today, the permanent nothing that never will leave: That never will be; that always will. Whichever. Maybe both at once? No matter. It won’t be, as much as it will be, as nothing will be. Nothing like me, nothing like anything. The simple fact of existence will disappear; to be nothing and to rift away through time, as nothing: Impossible, unachievable, as it contradicts nothingness. Ruin took hold and now, after all this time, boredom subsides, and in a sublime display of everything being nothing, the inert finally stopped speaking. It is as it wanted to be, discarded of thoughts and of things that were here, except me, but all are fine with it. Since I am fine with it, they ought to be as well...
Who’s they? Do I speak of the inert, of nothing, as if they were? I suppose I’m not really ready to let go of the fact that I am the last spark of life. Nothing can support my weakening body any longer than today: I see it in the shine of the red-tinted sun, and in the dirt that is covering my shirt. As well, nothing will support what becomes of my body as the night touches back, and the clouds rise back for perhaps a few more hundred years. Or perhaps, more realistically, they will simply cease to be at the same time I do. As everything else.
Am I then, to be the last being alive, of all beings in life, now, today, this hour, this time, in the entire universe – Am I then, the last harbinger of the End? Of Ruin? Extinction already occurred, this is merely the last piece before the silence takes hold forevermore.
“The last being alive” is a weird thing to think. But it makes me wonder, am I really the last one? It makes sense to be, as much as it doesn’t.
Every insect: Gone. Every animal: Gone. Every plant: Gone. The ocean: Empty. The earth towering over the deeps: Empty. Empty except for one dot, minuscule, flickering more and more, at a slower and slower rate, giving way to longer and longer empty readings: Me.
What is left for me to survive, but the drops of water I could boil and disinfect with the dead woods. Thought it would be fine to go to the largest dead tree. Rip off some of its bark. Its wood. Its branches. To have the dead... remnants of what sustained me... sustained life, for I am life now, being all that is left of it; to have that, a little bit longer. Idiotic, yes... If it had something, a soul, a sense of being, it was already long gone. The carcasses of the dead world are fine to survive off of for a long time, but not such a long time. Dead anything, the latest deceased. Mostly my next of kin. Cannibalism... There then I partook in it. Yet I felt no shame, except one shred; to be the last one. They all gave their lives away. Either to give the responsibility of observing the last breath of the world to someone else, or because they were scared of this ruinous fate.
Who was I to deny them in their made-up duties? I honour the last ones to walk, whomever, whatever it might have been, however it made them feel. They will be part of this last sight of a dead place. They will help take the last breath of all beings in this universe; desolate.
The last being... They will be until I am not, where then they finally will rest, to be with nothing; to be nothing.
Certainly... I give meaning to what should not have it. But again I wish to, perhaps, see it as it wished to be. Even if it did not: Existence is what they were, as I am now. Part of me until eternity: Eternity ending on this day. Whatever attempts to live through my corpse will sadly be greeted by suffocating snows or burning frosts. Either way, swallowed by the sands of time.
Then Time will keep churning, onto its perfect kingdom. Rather, its empire of all that is, all that was and all that will be. Of everything; of nothing then. The woes of the universe, silenced, and the energy that lit it, eventually, blackened and silent as anything else that will be. An extension of the emptied reservoir of existence. The one that will today break, overflowing with lakes of dust.
Now, the sun is still. As if it did not want to set. As if it was waiting for me to give it one last nod before it allows itself to go. Then I should assume the position to nod once the energy leaves me, to bow on the last second of consciousness. To move now is starting to be difficult, but at the very least, it feels like I could be staying, sitting on indifferent legs.
Now there should be something constant: My breathing. A temporal, regular pace. A way to honour the lives of all that was and of the nothing that will be. Where it may be erratic now, it will calm itself, it will be cadenced, and the constance will slow down, and end at last.
Now the plan is set: give one last rite; sacralize – perhaps meaninglessly – what is now, through what was, for as long as existence was, to give it peaceful ends.
What now? Focusing on breathing should be done automatically. I know my body and the reactions it needs for it to be, to feel. And so, there is no need to think about it. It will exist until it does not, and that is here the last gift anyone could give it... Could give me.
On this kind hand of silence giving itself away, presented in its palm is the scariest and most peaceful view I have ever seen. Expected, of course, but it nonetheless does not lose its sublime attraction. But I cannot cry nor shed a tear. Neither can I smile or frown. Here I can only drown in the echoing, blistering waves of the near outcome that had to be. The contract of existence did not need to be clear on it, for it would make anyone existing unwilling to live. For it to know it would end, would certainly not make it worthwhile. If it started from nothing then longing for nothing again is the most sensible and truthful act anything could advance towards. And so it did, slowly, in hiding, without a word nor a sound. It just existed and forgot it would eventually not. There is hardly a more cruel fate than this I hold, simply by its nature: for being the last fate to be, and so, to be the last being.
My vision blurred hours ago, already as I arrived to this cliff of old. The one I was supposed to know, that I don’t recognize, as foreign as my life-long surroundings. A yellow taint engulfs this field. And the snows, or the sands, are here to reflect. And so I do, just as well. I imagine sorrowful and peaceful sounds emanating, vibrating from the air and the ground. The last notes of nothing that gave something a chance to be, and kept doing so until soon. I do not know if the sounds I hear is that of my memories, or if the world gave way to it. Both perhaps, that I thought was always the way of music that struck me... That struck us all. I recognize... but my memory flutters.
I wish someone else was there, actually existing, besides me. Rather than just their remnants in me, somewhere. Of anything. Of anyone. It’s just to give it meaning, to feel less lonely for the last hours of existence, that I gave it meaning. Like existence would give itself meaning.
There suddenly, a very brief hope for existence to continue: the very last ditch effort that, perhaps, if existence gave itself meaning, then even in nothing it could continue being! But brief indeed, it’s now gone. A quick reminder that all means to maintain life are dead, and that the soil has very little to no interest in keeping on feeding what it might now consider a parasite. Something that cannot be anymore should simply not be, and if it must sacrifice itself for it to be that way, then it will: and so it has. The soil is no more soil than it is rock, and even moss has lost its appetite, because it was robbed of it. Or maybe it gave up as well. Am I demonizing nothingness? Hardly makes sense now. Perhaps it did even a day before now, but it would be silly to be angry and fight against... What amounts to everything, I suppose. Nothing as everything. A strange concept to internalize.
Here I stand on the precipice of a cliff... One last cliff. The last cliff. The last being. I exist to not be. I exist to not exist anymore; to give way to immortality. I am eternal and I am immortal. And today the infinite will end in time, and give its ways back to Time.
Once my cadence slows and finally stops, my body will tilt forward, and throw itself down the cliff, making sure that, if the vital functions did not end by themselves, they will end by the hands of what brought me into this world in another manner. The certainty of the end of life is assured either way, but this is more of a certainty for myself. Even if I miscalculated my position, and stay here, on the cliff, something will give out.
Which makes me wonder, I assume to be the last being, but wouldn’t parts of me still be? Maggots or even simple microbes? Microbes would be the last ones to survive would they not? Nevertheless, even if that were true, sustaining a new existence is out of the question. The oceans being empty make it so. Something happened to them, no one knows when. Perhaps a thousand years ago? They already were quite empty, but in the process of repopulation. But something... Somewhere, a hole in “deep sea existence” expanded. The negation of existence accelerated from this place, to eventually, in hundreds of years, dry itself up, and of course, whatever resided on top of it. Us. Me. Just me. No one else. Not anything else. But I do not see why this hole that negates existence would be natural. Of all things, it made sense that the end would occur, but why fasten it?
Is this what they wanted? Someone wanted? Someone must have wanted this. A singular individual, or multiple ones.
I do not know how. But it did happen. Perhaps they recoiled at the idea of violence and preferred the end to happen slowly, peacefully. Whatever peace was as a concept to them. It is perhaps violently peaceful. But that might have also been the most peaceful way then. The most humane way; the empathetic way. A more-than-global, more-than-omnicide, peaceful way to end things. To end all things is strange. I wonder then... For we all have been in tune, as far as I can or my old fellows and their older fellows remembered, with nature as a whole. And nature became in tune even with itself. That must have been, in a way, a form of paradise. With its fair share of suffering, as I have learned existence was made out to be. And from suffering came great joy and love, and hate became absent from it for it had no place to be in face of reality. Our reality... Perhaps it was the greatest, the best reality we could have asked for. Minimal suffering occurred through the lens of a long, very long-winded euthanasia of life itself. And here my physicality suffers one last time, but my mind is clear and at peace, even through the final doubts of what is and what could have been.
I have no intention to fool myself in thinking that now, here, the remnants of myself could somehow bring about a new life. They will be swallowed. I may not then be exactly the last being alive, but the one that can see and feel and think and be? I do believe so. And much like the first being to exist, there I feel honoured the same way, almost in exactitude. Of course, besides the fact that I herald the end rather than the beginning of everything. Or maybe... Exactly the same? I herald the beginning of nothing. Whichever gives me comfort is fine, they are the same. I would have preferred for things to continue to exist; part of me does. Regret? Maybe. But to not recognize anything, the only thing I regret now is to have been. The past is already gone and the present is the only constant and change. The future is as determined as Time. Neither am I happy nor sad, I just am, for things are as they are. Forevermore; nevermore.
My eyes must rest now. It has been a while, seemingly blinding myself in a still setting sun. It probably lowered, but I stopped recognizing the changes in luminosity. It feels like I have been sat here for hours, while at the same time sitting here for only a few minutes. I do not know, perhaps it has been minutes. Perhaps everything in me, the rest of things alive somehow through my being, have decided to conglomerate their own time in my own space. So they would, and so they should. I am an instrument for Nature to spectate its own end, and its children have as much rights to see it as I witness it.
It has been an experience. For everything we made, and everything we did, and everything we felt, said, touched, had, destroyed, gave, drank, ate, loved, liked, enjoyed... We existed. And all throughout that time, we were. And that’s all there is to it.
All that was is gone, and all that could have been, never will be, as it should be. We are thankful for this existence, and part of us would want to keep this eternity eternal. But we know, one day; today, the eternal comes to dust, and joins the inert. We remember from whence we came, and we come again. Or perhaps, we always were and we never remembered, but we know, that is the only outcome, and always was. Never once was there should have been any doubt, but at the very least... Perhaps it was fun. And maybe that’s all we wanted. Thank you, Time, for letting us be. And now it’s your turn to take back what belongs to you wholly. Perhaps we could have looked at each other and understood something. But it seems that possibility has been missed time and time again, even when everything felt perfect. It was perfect to us children; never to Nature, and never to Time.
Now I fall, and now we disappear. Let Ruin be.