October

As the spread of the phenomenon narrowed in on the planet's last unaffected place in southwest Australia, an aboriginal kurdaitcha, a kind of shaman/executioner, sat on the beach, drawing in the sand with a sharpened bone. He was one of the immortals whose existence was deduced, but never proven, over the course of the last year. It was hard to say how old he was, since so much of native Australian philosophy deals in dreamtime, a realm where he had experienced far more than in his centuries walking the Earth.

Through his mastery of the Dreaming, the shaman had been monitoring the actions of one particular individual on the opposite end of the world, with a mixture of amusement and sorrow.

What a strange story this Ore wove, with himself as its only character, befitting his name that meant “I.” Shrouded in grief, moving like a ghost, he had not once talked to another living person after the tragedy of his own making. What ego, to think he could save everyone, when he couldn’t even help the one person closest to him. What hubris, to force his guilt-poisoned wish upon the world.

By speaking only with the dead, he had forged layer upon layer of psychic shells for himself, inwardly, like a nesting doll that got smaller and smaller, until what was left of him was crushed and only the shells remained. What a heavy price the world had to pay for one man’s solipsistic nightmare.

But then, most musicians are like that. The shaman stuck the pointed bone into the sand.

Back in New Jersey, Ore stumbled back out unto Volcanic Hill, his vision blinded by the light after a year in darkness. When his sight returned, he had difficulty believing his eyes. The sky was a surreal mix of violet, crimson, and orange, as strangely shaped clouds sailed lazily upon the wind. Ore wished Yuri could see this new sky he had painted. Tropical flowers bloomed out of season where once was only manicured lawn. A brightly plumed parrot was grooming itself on the branch of a nearby pine tree.

A short distance down the hill, he saw a group of returners in late stages of decomposition that had been circling the volcano, searching for a way in. As he approached them, he heard them humming his song. So that’s what Yuri meant, yeah, they don’t look happy. He looked up at the beautiful, new sky one last time and smiled. He would see her soon.

“It was me,” he proclaimed loudly, before the returners tore him limb from limb.