The end of the world as we know it

What I had genuinely expected, was that the news of “a great one” being this close to us would cause quite some chaos. Talking about a philosophy is one thing, but living accordingly is something completely different. But in fact, there was no uproar or anything like that. Some people seemed a little concerned, but sill not as much as people should be in my mind if they were told that death was knocking on your door.

There were no big conferences about how to defend their home, how to get away from this place or how to find a new, safe space, but nothing happened. The people kept on living their lives. Nothing could be done, so nobody even tried doing something. What might seem like a wise decision felt strange to me. Like the people here were not simply not afraid of death but had no true wish to continue to life.

But there were still some events taking place during this time. One day after we had learned about the presence of the great one in the nearby waters, there came a delegation of people into our village. Their clothes looked like they had been made to deliberately contrast the ones of the people here and should leave no doubt that whoever they were, they didn’t and did not want to belong to the people from this village.

They were greeted by the old woman and accompanied by several guards while making their way to a somewhat larger building on one side of the village, which was used as assembly hall for meetings or as public space for times of bad weather.

The leader of the other people was of a quite round figure, especially compared to his fellowship, which all in all looked like they could use a little more food before being regarded as healthy-looking.

I, of course, wasn’t invited to a meeting of such kind. In fact, I had felt like they even tried to hide me from the strange delegation, which in the end didn’t stop me from lurking around the meeting hall. Privacy was not really a word that should be used on talks that were led inside there and so I could, just by casually standing at the backwall of the building, listen to what they were talking about.

“We have to guide Oomisi away from here!”, grumbled a male voice I had never heard so far, likely the leader of the other group.

“Oomisi has always guided herself. Also, how should you do such a ridiculous thing? Put a chain on her and pull on it? Just like you do it with your people?”

“I won’t wait to be eaten alive!”

“And still, you don’t have any influence on it. Even if you guided Oomisi away, there would be no way to tell if the great one wasn’t faster. Likely he would be. Or if we wouldn’t guide her directly into the jaws of another one, this time one that is hungry and just immediately ends this discussion.”

The following conversation was quite meaningless. It was clear the man wasn’t willing or ready to die and the old woman had prepared herself for everything that might come. I could understand him. Nobody wants to die. I myself had learned that lesson the hard way. But trying to change something about a situation like this was like tilting at windmills.

I left and made my way to the beach. This time I didn’t want to be the cause for yet another festival, especially if it meant eating bitter fish and bread. The smaller fish, as I had been told, tasted way better anyways. So, there was no real reason to even try and catch a bigger one. Sitting at the beach and looking at the sea always was something calming to me, probably like to every human being, but this time it felt strangely reassuring. Everything would return to the sea eventually. We took the fish from it and one day the fish would take us. The circle of life.

A fish started to slightly tug on the bait, then left again. Shortly after another fish came and continued where the other fish had stopped. He took the bait and started trying to fight his way out, before he seemed to accept his fate. I pulled it out of the water and placed it into a bucket with some other fish that had been caught today already.

Maybe that was the correct way of living. Having the wish to live but being prepared to die every day. Not accepting death as long as there was a way out, but at the same time being able to die without regrets. Was it actually possible to live like this? Probably not. Whenever you started something and truly put your heart in it, you would regret not finishing it before your death. If you started a major project, you would want to live to see the end of it. If you start a family, you want to be there for them. Accepting death in such moments would mean to not care enough about these things to not regret leaving them behind and undone.

Death always comes along with regret. Regret the dying feel and also the regret of those who stay behind. But one can control how much regret one has to feel as soon as it happens.

It took me way too long to understand that my whole life had been one of regrets. One that in the end led to my demise. If I hadn’t been given the chance to start over, I would likely have returned as a ghost, bound to the company building for all eternity.

Looking back now, these chances, these new lives hadn’t changed me as a person. They just changed the way I acted. I finally acted according to what I thought was best and what I thought was needed to be done. Instead of just thinking about it and then rejecting the thought for requiring me to act, I just did it finally. And if I didn’t, then I learned my lesson. Maybe I could have survived my encounter with Miwako, if I just had acted like I forgot an appointment or something and firmly made a decision to finally leave instead of humbly accepting her every plan.

Maybe I could have stayed a little longer with the people of new branch town and Casey, if I had come up with a better plan. But in the end, I at least acted and prevented further bloodshed. So, it wasn’t a complete waste anyways.

As I thought about this, I, for the first time since I could remember, felt at ease with myself. And that was also why I didn’t feel any panic when I first felt the earth under me start to shake and some giant jaws coming out of the water, swallowing the sunlight until the sky disappeared between them and covering the whole world in black.

I took one last deep breath, which smelled awfully like dead fish and closed my eyes, waiting for the great one to pull us underwater.

There was no uproar, no screaming. The people knew, their time had come and nothing could be done about it.

And like this, I died another time.