"Hey Judas"

In a recording studio some time ago-

“Seriously?” asked Joe. “A four minute refrain with us repeating the same line over and over?”

“They’re gonna love it,” answered Walrus. He plucked at the strings. “And it goes a little something like this-”

The first trumpet blew, and the stars began to move in a way stars shouldn’t. One by one, all the stars caught between the ten warp gates at the farthest reaches of the galaxy traveled westward, as if miming the sunset, the gases and heat trailing off behind them like bright comets, until they disappeared over the horizon, only the Sun remaining, the rest of space a blank void.

More trumpets blew, their players unseen - perhaps there were no players at all - and the last song rang out across humanity, a song that shouldn’t have made sense - heavy and light, ominous yet beautiful - yet the melody continued onward, stretching across the vast expanse of the settled universe. From Alpha Centauri to Gliese 570 to Earth itself, humanity heard this last coda within themselves, and knew the end had come.

Earthquakes, sunquakes, spacequakes, timequakes all erupted, strange rumblings everywhere, rivers flooded and volcanoes roared and all the birds flew and animals fled and continents drifted. Despite the sheer chaos and strange sounds, you could only feel a strange sense of subdued gentleness, as if this was nothing more than mum tucking you into bed, a kiss on the forehead in the form of a great crack appearing across the sky…

From inside the Presidio, Sue emerged on the front steps; from the scarred battlefield, where the fighting had devolved into some sort of strange haze, Nat met her there. The two looked at each other and instinctively knew.

They sat on the steps together. Sue spoke quietly.

“So I guess we’re going to Paradise. We’re all gonna lose our corporeal forms and merge into some sort of mega-consciousness. All thoughts will flow into one another. The private individual will disappear in favor of a collective mind. If that’s the case, I just have one request, Nat. A very important request.”

Sue looked deep into Nat’s eyes. “Don’t judge me for the amount of ecchi in my memories you’re about to bear witness to. And don’t judge me for what I do with my showerhead while looking at pictures of Mt. Fuji. And don’t judge me for being the mystery pooper that shat in your tub that one night. And don’t judge me-”

Nat sighed and held her close, supposing that she’d see her on the flip side soon enough.

The crack across the sky thundered, shuddered, and opened entirely. The void poured inside like a waterfall, the darkest black imaginable, a sheer lack of anything in its entirety, even down to the smallest atom and beyond. It was sheer Nothing that swept across Earth, Mars, everywhere and anywhere, moving like rushing rivers and rising tides, covering the Something that was once reality. It didn’t hurt when Nothing washed over you, in fact it felt rather peaceful, like calm seas on an endless beach, night setting in, drifting off to dreamless sleep…

The settled universe began to sink down into the pocket dimension lying in wait beneath our reality. Nothing swirled, stretching across the sky now, settling into the deepest trenches and crevices, embracing everything in its path, replacing the oceans, the continents, each and every planet, and at last the Sun, everything going quite dark, the last of the people now tumbling down too, swept away, good night, and after the people were swallowed by Nothing, it came for the plants, animals, streets, buildings, homes, forests, deserts, mesas, lakes, seas, anything that you can possible conceive of, the very structure of reality itself, each and every interpretation of existence gone away, and now Nothing came for the sentences, periods first to go, and then it came for the commas and every method of communication and then sunlight and air and memories and history and the web connecting each and every human to each and every thing until the seventh trumpet blew and all was lost beneath the waves of Nothingness and all was silent and timeless except there was no more sense of noise and time because across a vast section of the Milky Way all was gone yet the Universe continued on elsewhere undeterred not even noticing a section had disappeared and perhaps that would make you think if thinking still existed and then at last Nothing came for the very letters themselves

בְּרֵאשִׁית

In the beginning, Grace created the heavens and the earth. God had given Grace an okay first draft; she just needed to make some edits here and there.

Grace said let there be light, and there was light. Grace saw that it was good and did away with darkness. No need for darkness or the night in a Paradise, see. No need for seven days either - Paradise would just be one perpetual state of existence, forever lit by an unceasing Sun.

Grace did some more tinkering - goodbye, mosquitos! - and introduced sound so she could hum as she worked.

Grace planted a garden in the east called Eden and saw that it was good. She stood in a clearing, reached into the dirt, and formed a figure from clay and dust. She blew life into his mouth, her face tinged red since she had never kissed someone before. Humanity as it existed on December 31, 2999 all tumbled into the lone figure, his clay skin turning into the color of swirling galaxies, as if outer space grew legs and walked about.

“I name you Man,” said Grace. “And you’re gonna be my friend forever.”

The collective unconsciousness imbued into Man had their memories wiped of all suffering and their previous lives in the previous reality (did that really make Man a good reflection of humanity on 12/31/99? Grace saw that a question like was bad and erased such fears from existence). Having no fear of death, for death didn’t exist, Man was quite happy-go-lucky and wordlessly agreed to Grace’s proposal.

They walked around the Garden. Perhaps it was for a long while, but such concepts no longer existed. Grace continued tinkering - goodbye, snakes! - and saw that her Garden was good.

The last piece was the Tree of Life. Rather than some grand ancestral tree, Grace created a simple oak tree with a lone red apple hanging from a low branch. And Grace saw that it was good.

Grace crouched and studied her reflection in a slow-moving stream. She invented scissors to cut her hair, bringing it down short. She then did away with scissors, and studied herself one last time.

Grace then did away with her own suffering. All those lonely memories in the previous reality, the inner sickness, the inability to get it - all gone.

All she knew now was that her name was Grace, that this Garden was good, Man was her friend, and to never eat Eden’s Apple from the Tree of Life, for bad things would happen.

Hand-in-hand, Grace and Man strolled off into the land of make-believe, of Paradise, where humanity was finally, totally, truthfully - happy.

THE END.