Memories of the End

by Marshall Bowles

You float in the black soup. You have no body, only your eyes, your consciousness, suspended on the metaphysical plane. Small dots of glowing light surround you in all directions, millions, billions, too many to imagine. You feel the weight of them and it makes you claustrophobic.

Your thoughts are hazy, and you struggle to focus. You can't remember who you are or how you came to be. There is no past, future, or present. There just is. After an instant and an eternity, you move. Your consciousness brushes against the closest points of light—

My wife sits across from me in our booth at the diner. Today is our 50th anniversary, and we celebrate in the place where we had our first date. I smile at her as I take a bite out of my toast, and that's when my heart stops beating. I fall face-first onto my plate, unable to move. I hear my wife screaming in the last few seconds before I lose consciousness.

I'm seven years old. The kids in my neighborhood play baseball in the yard in front of a light blue house with white trim. Eric—mybest friend since kindergarten—hitsa long one. It's easy to do, because the yard is small. I jump as high as I can, but the stupid ball flies by just out of reach. I run into the street to get it. I only see the car briefly in my peripheral vision before it runs over me.

I trudge through knee-deep snow. My hands and feet have been numb for the last hour, and I'm barely going anywhere. The camp is less than a mile away, just over the next rise, but I don't think I can make it. I'm so tired and—that's odd—I'm not cold anymore. I stopped shivering at some point. Huh. I'm going to take a break, just for a minute. I lay down in the snow to build up my energy. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

You spiral back into the black soup, your mind reeling from the intensity of the visions. You were those people. Are those people. Will be. Their pain is your pain, and their deaths cut razor sharp into your soul. You don't want to move again.

You wait.

And wait.

You have no way to measure the passage of time. Nothing exists except the lights. You grow weary of staring at them. The lack of stimulation is painful.

You drift toward the closest lights.

I check the clamps on my harness to make sure I'm secured to the tower. I'm hundreds of feet up in the air, a maintenance technician repairing a radio tower. The wind picked up unexpectedly in the last few minutes, and the tower is swaying. I've never been afraid on the job until today. I call it early and start my descent. I'm going faster than I should, not being careful, and I don't secure my harness. A heavy gust of wind throws me off balance, I lose my grip, and I fall the last ninety feet onto the pavement below.

I'm the lookout for my boy Thomas while he does a drug deal. He's one of the bros from my frat, Kappa Sig, and the dopest fucker I've ever met. We came up with a plan to pull off a big score while we were doing an 8-ball one night, and Thomas made it happen. I hear yelling from the alleyway behind me, where Thomas went to meet the dealers. I pull the .38 out of my jacket pocket and run towards the noise. I round a corner and all I see is a gun barrel pointed at my face. The shot is loud and brief.

I lay in the hospice bed, all three generations of my family standing around me. Every breath hurts, but I am content. It is my time. I look up into the sad, heavy eyes of my children and grandchildren. I try to speak, to tell them it is ok, but all my cancerous body can manage is a croak. Tamil, my eldest, places his warm, strong hand over mine. "It is ok, mother," he says. I smile and the world fades away.

You lose something of yourself with every death, a part of your essence that you don't understand but you know is important. This bothers you. Boredom bothers you more.

You move again.

I run through the jungle, holding my rifle vertically in front of me so it will not get caught in the undergrowth. The other men from my village are close behind. I hear them yelling to each other, tightening the noose, trying to surround me. They believe I betrayed them to the government troops. I did. I wanted a better life for myself, something other than being a guerrilla fighter in a hopeless war. Mugabe is suddenly in front of me, appearing out of the dense jungle like a ghost. I raise my rifle to shoot, but I cannot pull the trigger. I've known him all my life, and I consider him a friend. He has no such qualms.

The mountain road is icy. Driving in the snow terrifies me, so I go slow. Tim is in his carseat in the back, playing with his rattle and giggling. My tires skid for a second, my heart almost jumps out of my chest, and I once again curse my husband for moving us into these mountains. Tim coughs. In the brief second that I turn to look back at him, a car speeds around the corner ahead. I turn around in time to see it lose control on the ice and slam into me. I scream as my car flies off the edge of the road and down the steep cliff. Oh God, what have I done to my child? The rocks below rush at us.

The asshole prison guard straps me into the chair and lowers the dome onto the top of my head. This is it. Ain't going to be no call from the governor, not for me. There's people watching from the other side of the glass, but I don't recognize none of them. They'll all sure be happy to see me die. But I ain't giving them no satisfaction. I smile, best I can do with all my missing teeth. "See all y'all in hell!" The man pulls the switch and electricity burns through my body.

This is all there is now. Death. Nothing else exists, no meaning, no purpose, no escape. You can stop, just for an infinite instant, but you will eventually move again. You have to. There are no other choices.

The lights beckon to you. You go to them.