Outside of Time, We Exist
A 500-word poem for the Nov. 2nd fiction prompt because sometimes I’m a rebel.
The end of the world, in its explosive glory, had
a bit of a bite to it, sharp teeth that tore my eyeballs, like a
dog’s squeaky toy. I stood outside of time when it happened.
Reality is merely time and space — now both are gone in a lazy fireball, rolling toward nothing.
Or does time still linger, lifeless among the lilac energy of
one-on-one encounters with the dead?
I remember dandelions on the wind, not the evening news.
I remember a baby with long, skinny fingers, not the way proud nations raged against each other.
I remember a kitchen table littered with junk mail and the folded hands of family members.
Outside of time, we’re all buoyant, glad of our own silence, and the way we occasionally bump into each other, spirit against spirit. Had our spirits touched inside of time, the fireball would have rolled itself backward into understanding. Had reality been tempered with the wisdom of quietude and humility, like yellow dandelions closing their faces to produce puffy seeds, life would still linger on the edge of a field, contemplating sunshine.
Life ended with a bang and a whimper.
Life ended with its eyes pulled wide open and shut like slamming doors.
Fire dies quickly, replaced by awe and glory. Ash floats against the cold darkness of space without time. The event horizon is a cone after all.
Do you remember standing in a vacant lot where weeds competed with empty beer cans and other scraps of someone’s life, rocks buried in the crevasses on the bottom of a lone gym shoe? The grass was always dry and brittle, giving off an August heat that warned of the world’s end, the flames and resignation. Neither of us had much to say, then. Our throats kept eating the words, filling our stomachs with acid and decay. I wish I could go back and free my tongue to speak a silent offering. We would have prayed for the health of each other’s souls. Our hands would have found each other through the air that stood between us.
Time is bouncing away to the corner of the universe and the blazing light that lives beyond.
And here’s another mystery — who am I and who are you after our names burned up in the inferno that was everything we ever built or knew?
I remember pearls around a neck.
I remember a jar of pickles.
I remember my feet next to yours on white sand and the sunset glow of time growing old.
I remember the sound inside my soul.
Eternity used to tease us out of thought, but now it’s all there is and to imagine otherwise is to move backward to a time where we were bound by flesh, bound to each other by misunderstanding and our own persistent selfishness.
Of course, we still exist — we were made to be eternal. We are spirits, after all.
And the flames of a dying world grow cold.
What do you remember?
Author’s note: I liked the fiction prompt for November 2, but I really wanted to write a poem instead. It felt like a poetry day to me, maybe because there’s a cat on my lap and I didn’t sleep well last night. So this is a 500-word story-poem for the November 2 Daily Special prompt.
