The End

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I would do anything
To live again
Breathe again

No promises
Of golden castles in the air
Of blessings beyond my wildest dreams

No kingdom
Beyond this world
Could ever replace
The taste of the evening air
The smell of the Earth
Your touch
And the love I have for this world

(Ashar, 71)

Epilogue

The boy sits still in the middle of the endless floor.
His head is held high and his eyes have a mischievous glint in them.
Then he looks into the mirror.
His anger has drawn a spiteful-looking face upon him.
He shouts at himself, without a sound.
Then he raises his right arm and hits the mirror.
It splinters into countless tiny shining particles - like a billion stars on the evening sky.
The illusion breaks.
Once again there is only darkness.
And the boy is alone.
And loneliness is all he knows.
Because now he knows it all.
After all, he made all of it happen.
The boy starts sobbing quietly, hiding his face between his knees.
He sits like this for a while, and then he looks up again.
His head held low and his eyes humble.
He turns his head to both sides and looks around him into the abyss.
He starts picking up the pieces of broken glass from the floor.
He turns them in his hands and inspects them one by one.
Then he starts to play with them, and slowly begins to build a new mirror.
Soon he can see his own reflection again.
The reflection is looking back at him and smiles.
Then it turns into many faces.
Familiar faces.
Gradually a whole new world starts growing around him, and soon he loses himself into the world inside the mirror.
The boy forgets once more who he is - or who he has been.
He shouts out in joy at the faces, and soon he starts playing with the other characters in the mirror.
He is no longer alone.
All is forgotten.
And once again he has a smile on his face.
He’s no longer aware
That it is all his own doing
And that he alone is responsible

“I am the End.”

(The End)

“I am.”

(The I in the Pyramid)

“I am the walrus.”

(John Lennon, 1967)

“I am the Internet.”

(Lee “Scratch” Perry, Oslo, 2006)

“I am Jesus Christ.”

(“Roy”, Northwood Sanatorium, 1971)

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

(John 14:6)

Amri

Amri looks out of the window.
The children are playing out in the sandy street.
The planes have stopped passing overhead, and the rubble from the collapsed buildings has been used as temporary constructions for the children to play their games.
“I’m the king of this castle!” a small boy standing on top of one of the shapeless heaps of broken stone proclaims, smiling from ear to ear while holding his sword made out of scrap metal high above his head.
Amri finds herself smiling for the first time in the year that has passed since her daughter died screaming in the flames of the burning white phosphor.
As she smiles, she forgets her grief for one second.
If for one second only.

I am Amri.

The Alien

The Alien sits in front of the white, blurry surface that is the control surface of his ship.
He gazes into the infinity of his own memories.
Endless black eyes that have seen a billion stars come and go; species come, then crumble; galaxies die, and be reborn again.
It is the passage of life.
He knows all too much about how it works.
The ebb and flow, and ever-spiraling illusion of time.
Still – every time he has a tiny glimpse into the destiny of any given creature in the cosmos, it makes his heart pound with pure enthusiasm, as he is reminded of the wonder that Life is, and has always been.
And how one is all, and all is full of love.
If only his lips would have allowed him to smile – he would.

I am The Alien.

Sebastian Melmoth

Sebastian Melmoth is walking slowly along the riverbank.
The Seine floats gently by, as if to assure him that history does likewise, bringing fresh water and hitherto unthinkable changes into this world.
He wonders how many of his pains could have been spared him, if only he had lived further down the stream, maybe even all the way down, where the river spread itself out into the vast open seas.
But what about all the thrills, then?
Would they, too, have been lost?

And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.

I am Sebastian Melmoth.

Eric Arthur Blair

Eric Arthur Blair fights for his life in the cold water.
He clings to the underside of his boat, which is floating overturned in the middle of the much-feared Corryvrekan stream.
His son Richard clings to his father's arm, and is terrified.
Eric tries to look calmly back into the boy’s eyes, but knows that the frothing waters around them will swallow them both at any second and spit their dead bodies far out into the Atlantic sea.
The black cliffs at the shore surrounding the frightening maelstrom make the chances of reaching land and surviving this seem even more impossible.
He knows that he might just have to accept their fate.
But still, he feels that it would not be right.
He has important things to do.
Tasks to fulfill.
He cannot give in now - not so close to the goal.
Suddenly Richard loses his grip and goes under.
Eric dives after him, and somehow manages to get them both above water again.
And then, as if by magic, he is filled with the most profound feeling of peace.
And, as he lies there, in the middle of his own Nemesis, clinging on to his beloved son, he just knows that they’re going to make it.
It’s going to be alright.
He just knows.

I am Eric Arthur Blair.

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla is standing next to his desk in deep thought.
In front of him lies the recently completed drawings for the construction of his Over Unity device – capable of producing an endless surplus of electrical energy by the exploitation of earth magnetism and gravity alone.
He has accomplished his life’s most challenging task, and knows it will change just about everything when the news get around to New York – or even just as far as to Edison’s spy, lurking outside his own property gates.
Tesla takes a deep breath, walks over to the window and looks out.
The forest outside is full of life on this warm summer evening, and the air is rich with the smell of flowers in bloom and fresh grass.
He can’t help but fall into a deeply melancholy state as he stands there viewing this beautiful, tranquil scenery.
The smells and sounds resemble those of his childhood, the forest in Belgrade, and even just standing here, thousands of miles and several decades away from the source of his memories, he still feels as though he is being transported by magic back to the source by these simple impressions on his senses.
Life, and Nature, he concludes - is truly the most wondrous thing.
And far, far superior in complexity to any of the technology he has created and surrounded himself with throughout his whole life.
As he stands there, carelessly letting his mind wander, he can feel something rising within - an urge he’s been getting during the last few days.
He’s already been going through this over and over with himself, and maybe he has even known it deep down, all along the way?
It is over.
He has succeeded.
The challenge in itself was what made him approach this problem to begin with, and, now that he has resolved it, he feels content, but also somehow empty.
This is good enough.
It will have to do for his personal fulfillment.
After all, hasn’t he always steered clear of the trappings of vanity, the same vanity that clearly had succeeded in taking control over the once creative minds of some of his peers?
Why should he give in to the temptations of attaining recognition and economical success, now that he has travelled thus far with totally different intentions?
It has to be done.
Nikola Tesla walks over to the drawing board once more.
He picks up the construction sketches, folds them with both hands, tears the papers into tiny little pieces, and throws them into the open, unlit fireplace.
There they lie atop an old heap of ashes, like pieces of the most perfect dream.
Broken.
And then, even though it is a warm summer evening, Nikola lights up the fireplace.
Life, after all, is far too beautiful for this to destroy it.

I am Nikola Tesla.

Mr. Christian

An elegantly dressed, grey-haired man walks into Joe Fendley’s office at Elberton Granite Finishing, Georgia.
“Morning, Sir”, he says, and before Joe manages to drop his usual welcoming phrases, the man continues in a loud, clear voice: “Mr. Christian. Pleased to meet you”, right hand outstretched.
“Pleased to meet you”, Joe says and shakes his hand. “What can I do for you?”
“I would like to purchase about 240,000 pounds of your finest granite, Sir,” the man says.
Joe feels his face losing colour and has to support himself on the desk with both his hands.
“Excuse me?”
“You do trade in granite, don’t you?” the man asks.
“Well, yes.” Joe says.
“Good. I heard so, and I would hate to have been given disinformation of any kind. In fact I heard you were the best in the country, vast as it is.” Mr. Christian says, and gives Joe a casual look, as if he’d just asked for today’s newsaper from a street seller.
“Well, that’s quite a lot of stone you’re asking.” Joe says.
“That’s the amount of stone I actually need”, the grey-haired gentleman proclaims, matter-of-factly.
“May I ask in what shape you will need the stones.? What sizes are we talking?”
“Well. Initially I had my mind set on pebbles, but on second thought I’d rather they be about five blocks at about sixteen feet height and one at about nine feet, six at about seven feet… Oh, what the hell, here’s the written instructions.”
The man hands Joe a paper with very thorough drawings of more than a dozen pieces of assorted rectangular and square monolith-like figures with very specific information of measurement written below.
Joe studies the drawings for a while, then he says, as he looks up from the paper: “This is possible. But it’ll cost you.”
“Money is not an issue”, is Mr. Christian’s swift reply. “We will also need some inscriptions to be made.” He hands Joe a new paper.
“What languages are these?” Joe asks.
“Several”, Mr. Christian answers.
“What does it say?”
“Oh, you know, the usual stuff: ‘maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature’, ‘guide reproduction wisely’, ‘improve fitness and diversity’, ‘prize truth — beauty — love — seek harmony with the infinite’, ‘protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts’, ‘let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court’ and ‘don’t be a cancer to the earth — leave room for nature — leave room for nature’. That kind of stuff."
Joe stares at the merry gentleman standing in front of him. He looks far too sane for the blabber coming out of his mouth, and he has just secured Joe’s retirement by showing up in the office placing such an impossibly valuable order for the company.
Joe hesitates, but eventually gets himself to say: “Hope you don’t mind me asking, but what’s it all for?”
His golden-goose customer looks back at him with clear, green eyes, then he leans forward as if to answer his question in the most intimate and secretive way - even though there is no-one else in the office: “It’s for making sure our future generations remember how things were done back in our day and age - in case something horrendous should happen.”
Joe scratches his chin, then he says; “But why would someone need to remember how things were done in our day and age, if the way we do things will lead to something horrendous?”
Mr. Christian stares blankly at him, and there is an enduring pause between the two men.
Joe can see the old man’s calm, almost smug persona changing, and starts to worry that he had just blown one of his own company’s largest contracts ever.
But then the grey-haired gentleman breaks his own silence:
“Either”, Mr. Christian says, “to make them able to start building a new world in the same fashion that we have done for the last few thousand years...”
Joe can feel a drop of sweat working its way down his right temple.
“Or…” - and here he makes an almost theatrical point of the following pause, “to make sure they never ever make the same mistakes again. Either way – it’s a winner!”
Joe exhales the lungful that he’s been holding for the last half-minute.
“Hell, what do I know?” Mr. Christian shrugs. “I only do what my boss tells me to do - like any other decent working man.”
“Sure.” Joe says as he walks around the desk to follow his customer to the door.
“So. I take it we have a deal then, Joe?”
Joe feels very relieved, and says: “We sure do!”
“Look forward to see the beauty”, Mr. Christian says just as Joe opens the door to let Mr. Christian out, then he suddenly turns around and adds:
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Where will you be getting all this stone from?”
“Well, I guess the only place capable of delivering such sizes and amounts would be our own Pyramid Quarries, just a few miles west of town.”
“Good”, Mr. Christian says, and in his jolly gentleman’s manner he finally adds: “Now, is there any place nearby where a man can get a decent cup of coffee?”