The End of All Time

There will always be those who skip ahead to the final pages in order to see how things end. Various religious authorities will tell if asked, and sometimes if not, on what the end of days will amount to. They showcase their ignorance and limited perspective upon the universe for even the most widely presented of their holy books tell of Armageddon and then of the aftermath. I believe the phrase is The meek shall inherit the Earth, but therein is the lie. They speak not of the end but merely of an end and thus is the difference and flaw in their plans. To speak of singular endings with such gravitas is to waste time and effort. An ending of all life on earth is of no more monument than the ending of a fly. On the cosmic scale all things pale to insignificance.

Once upon infinite lifetimes, the universe ended. It did not end with biblical plagues or with fire and brimstone falling from the heavens. It did not end with the combustion of every star in the sky, nor in the slow inexorable death and decay of all atoms. It ended with story, a story of mortal men and women, clawing and climbing their way up the sides of the great Mount Olympus and taking the power of the Gods for themselves. I am speaking with some artistic license but the fact remain this to be true. Man and woman, taking the power to reshape the universe to their whims. Tearing out the embroidery placed by others and replacing it with their own, over and over and over this happens. One day the fabric of things becomes too full of holes, everything is holding on by the slimmest of threads and then, someone, somewhere pulls and it all begins to unravel. Previously firm and sound now becomes slack and wavering as the fabric ripples and tears apart.

This is not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. Beginnings lead to endings as endings lead to beginnings. When one universe ends, that which remains is then woven into the new universe...those who have attained the heights and grasps the power of the gods are the creators of the new world. It is not, nor has it ever been, a task for one. It falls to the many to create, and because there are too many cooks in the kitchen, the finished meal is bred from conflict and opposition. The new universe, like the old one before, will not even have existed for a single second before the struggle once more begins and men and women look to the heights and desire to go there and claim what they believe belongs to them. They don't care how it changes them on the journey, they don't care how much of their humanity they must leave behind simply to get where they want to go.

Why should they care of what they leave behind when they are gaining so much. The gods, Those Who Reside Above, The Pillars of Creation, The Invisible Clergy, The Grand Archetypes, The Eternal Residents, countless names have been given them over the centuries, some even have remained between universal iterations. They exist both above and below all of existence, the encompass it and guide it in a way that defies quantification even as it lends itself so easily to being numbered and classified. Smarter men and women than I have delved deep into this and found there is a number that resonates with them. Three-hundred and thirty-three. Whether this is a limit or a warning I do not know. I am but an author, a writer, putting pen to paper to chronicle what I can in my current unstate of being. But what I do know is that this number, and others, are map and signpost both during the large stretch of middle story.

This is how the world ends, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with The Algebra of the Soul.