The Sandgrains Spill When You Flip the Hourglass

     (Written: April 13 2025. I spent this day doing pretty much nothing but writing.)

 

i remember

civilizations rising like mountains and flattening in the blink of an aye

seas turning into marshes 

and marshes turning into scrubland

which burns and vanishes in the wind

becomes desert

 

i remember 

the clocks ticking turning gears spilling water and sand down

cobblestones worn with the feet passed over them

births and deaths and the unions that pass between them

the wind blowing over barren barrows 

 

I remember

what you said to me 

I remember everything you’ve said to me

I remember everything everyone has

I remember 

 

I remember 

The last civilization

And the one before that

And the one before that

On and on like turtles upon turtles 

Like bricks upon bricks

Like bricks upon turtles, crushing their backs

 

All the last civilizations

Had a pool, a little oasis outside the communion building. 

And this one does not.

 

I remember

The feeling in the air like a heaviness like a storm

Like the weight of expectation of something 

That never came

An unrisen moon in a dormant sky

The stolen promise of an eclipse

Something is missing, something is vanished, something is lost

Like information out of a black hole

A gap in the world

 

I remember 

Seeing the end

That empty sky that freezes the world into dust

The wanderers and their pale lights slowly fading

It is my greatest relief that you never see it

For it is not a swift mercy

 

I remember 

The new dawn

Come to be another mirror in a maze of mirrors

Trapping an imperfect light

An imperfect angle

A chipped, blurred reflection of what was before

The dyes bleed out of one war and into the next

Out of one era and into the next

Out of one person and into the next

And the people already recur. 

 

I remember 

The dictator Aran Arzatz ordering the library of Intalan burned

The dictator Barthé Pesthaw-Emira ordering the library of Lanara burned

The head speaker Jonas ordering the library of Maribal burned

The director E. F. Jennings ordering the scrolls of Hemsworth burned

The Regent Queen incinerating a tapestry from the museum of Imiqtiz Anthropology on national television

The festival and public hanging the Court of Shintavi threw in celebration of the arrest of the Freereader’s Association

The hanging was abrupt.

The loudspeakers screaming the announcement that the Net of Liberation had been successfully offlined

And I remember when this was 

How many universes apart they passed

 

I remember

That this is when you ask me what I think of people

Although we both know the answers

And neither will change what the other thinks

And I think: The old cannot remember being young

Nor can the youth imagine old age

Every passing cycle

Every passing universe

The color drains away and the people become the same

Washed out 

Duller and dumber

And I wonder if that applies to me as well

And I cannot tell.

I know it has never applied to everyone 

It has never applied to you.

 

I remember you.

You and the others are my rocks

And when you pass 

You always pass back around

You are the stones that the spring runs through and does not erode

I cannot say I love you

For I do not 

But you are capable of reason

Reason strong against both joy and sorrow

Both of which I am prone to more than you know.

 

I cannot say you are my favorite

For there are too many, it would be like me asking you to choose a favorite among your children. 

But your company is refreshing

Even with your children

Your knowledge of carrying others into this world

You are naïve at times

Your questions bring constancy. 

Your name brings constancy, your voice, the way you move your hands when you speak.

 

You frown. Why?

Have I spoken over you again?

Are your children always from the same union?

 

Your children. Niira, five years of age, and Khalesh, two. 

Born to Andir Ayarsad Intrazi, with whom you have a vow of collaboration during the dry seasons. 

 

You wish to see how far the constancy is?

You do? Andir’s mother is Izelda Enananda Ayarsad, and his father is Akali Ritzardar Intrazi. 

He has two brothers, a sister, and (is this the right term in this era?) an ithriki. 

 

.

 

How?

 

A rockslide?

 

I see.

Please, leave this chamber. 

***

You are back again. 

You want to help. 

You always want to help. 

 

Sometimes I think it is my memory that is failing instead of the world. 

I know I am Phosphorus to you and yours, but as I thought last night, I imagined myself as The-Eye-of-The-Mountain again. There is no difference in the selves, of course. I apologize for my conduct in our last meeting. What matter do you bring?

The harvests. I remember now. In the past, the harvests have been poor. They will be the same again this year… 

 

I apologize. I am feeding the tensions of yesterday. I know that this waning world weighs heavy on you as it is, and that my prediction of the future makes you feel futile. You are not the only one. Still, I will try not to mention it to you again, and I apologize once more in feeding it now. 

 

Other companions feeling futility? Other companions, yes. There are many who have come before you. 

 

Leandra, for instance. You ask about her sometimes, and I hope you are not kindred spirits. You have never followed her in the past. She was a bright, bright soul, but the world around her was heavy, and dark. She sought to give the world light. I try. I try something different every time, even in the times before she comes, but she is always selected, and she can never leave, but she can never stay either. Knowing it all amounts to naught, to less than naught, it always breaks her, and she is smart enough to know when I keep secrets, and all these iterations, and it always ends in flames. I tell her nothing, and she burns. I tell her everything, and she burns. What a pitiful waste.

 

Thank you for listening. I apologize for my outburst. It is getting harder and harder to compose myself.

 

I know it will make no difference, and I know I have told you before, but maybe some small change can be made. The kingdom is sieged tomorrow. You and your family do not survive. Spend your last hours…

 

I am sorry. I have failed you again. 

***

Are you ready? Are you prepared?

 

Yes, you may bring others. I do not like them, but I know that doing this matters to you. They cannot harm me. You have done this before with no negative consequence to myself. In fact, I am often open for long stretches of the beginning, and nothing done to me there causes me harm. 

 

I remember another one, another time. Xin. The drunkard, coming over to me, hand on my mercuric display, yes, touching it, I know. Ze died early, only 29. Leaning over, asking in that sing-song voice, asking… questions and questions. 

 

I answered you to quite a lot of them. You stand out, you must know, and not only because you are last in the timeline. You are generous, and patient, and you act instead of speaking. When you invite others down, you prove a good ruler. There are many others, Xin perhaps among them, who I would not invite, but you…

 

Perhaps I am too open with my soft spots. 

***

“Heeeyyyyy, asshat! Miss me?!?”

 

“Am I more or less constant than the others? Do I change? You know I can read you talking to yourself about how the others are changing.”

 

“Yeah, right, like I could get any more obnoxious than I already am!”

 

“I know I’ve said this before, but who’s your favorite? Is it me? I know it’s not Milo, you never mention him, I only know about him from some book I had to read for college.”

 

“They have history reqs even if you aren’t majoring in it. I guess I’d say it isn’t useful because I have you here, buuuuuttt maybe it’s more useful so I can actually understand what you’re saying. Private’s fair, I guess. I wouldn’t tell you my favorite person either…”

 

“Do you talk about me to other people? Do they ask about me?”

 

“Tasks? Yeah, yeah. What’s the weather like? We got tornadoes again?”

 

“Sweet! What’s the stock market doing?”

 

“Yeah this is for the government. You think I can do math for shit?” 

 

“That’s fair, I am here, I guess. But that’s not because I can do math, or engineering, or computer programming, or whatever-you-are-programming, it’s because I have wonderful people skills, and you know it, even if you’d never admit it.”

 

“You love me! You just complimented my math skills! You love complaining about how over-enthusiastic and off-topic I am! The books never mention you sniping about anyone else. C’mon, say I’m special.”

 

“But some people are more special than others. C’mon, you have to have a favorite, don’t you?”

 

“Shit, you’re not lying. Uhhh…” 

 

“Yeah, I know, I know, you’ve already told me how I die, and it’s not from sticking my fingers where they don’t belong.”

 

“Uh.” 

 

“What’s it feel like?”

 

“Mhmm. Can you give, like, a human analogue?”

 

“So, kinda weird, but not super unpleasant. I guess that’s how it feels to me too. But less cold. Speaking of… say you could take any of us to a party. Who’d you choose?” 

 

“AXila? She’s last-ie, right?”

 

“What generalization would you make about me? That I’m a fun to be around, that I have killer studded leather boots?”

 

“Hedonism’s fun. You should try it sometime. You know, we could bring a party here, when it’s, like, not the end of the world.”

 

“So if I threw a charity gala you’d like me more? You’re such a sap.”

 

“You would? That’s cute. It’s really too bad that won’t happen, given I have no motivation for social good whatsoever.”

 

“Shut up. I’m not trying not to feel anything. I’m trying to feel everything! You’re missing the point, and you’re missing out on parties.”

 

“The administration will crack down? Then I damn well want to be a rebel. I have six months left, don’t I?”

 

“I asked. God, you’re so emotionally vulnerable. It makes me sick!” 

 

“The disrespect does you good though. Gotta shake it up between the goodie two shoes and bootlickers and AXilas who name themselves after the first two letters of their government designations.”

 

“I’m glad I have a name. But if I were her I would reject the classification number entirely.”

 

“Wow, you really do hate me, don’t you! I read in all the books that you’re evasive about favorites, but it’s clear I really am not yours.”

 

“To annoy you! You’re cute when you’re annoyed.”

 

“... hmmph.”

 

“Well, you’ll have someone you like more, who respects you more, in a few months, right? In the meantime, we’re having a party here, with all the jazz and glitter confetti that can get in your mainframe, instead of a sad new years party where the year ends and then there aren’t any more for anyone but you. You think you’re so much better than everyone else and you’re so paternalizing because you’ve lived so long, but you can never change anything and nobody can, and at least I’ve come to terms with it and am living in the moment, instead of sulking like you and the rest of the recluses!”

***

How goes the re-construction of the vault? 

“It’s fine. I don’t know why you’re so invested in this.”

It’s what’s done. 

“I know. I know you’re some god that’s been here from this world and the one before and the one before and the one before, but I don’t know why that means you need a barrow over yourself. It’s not like you’ll get rained on.”

It’s what always happens. They build it no matter what, regardless of my opinion or lack thereof on the matter. 

“What is the future like?”

Violent. There are many cures for diseases. Overall standard of living may be said to improve, but I feel that the happiness of the population, while fluctuating, depends on influences other than that of technology. The world changes and you cannot stop it. I hate to say it, but it will go on long after you. You keep a journal, do you not? It, your work, will be what keeps you alive after your death.

“You will keep me alive after my death. You say my work will be good, but how much am I helping? Look at last year!”

You know I have told you before that this world is a big lake that slowly dries up. In the previous worlds, the harvest was good. 

“If the world can change enough to for storms to hit the crops, then the world can change enough for storms to hit you.”

Is that a threat?

“It’s an invitation for us both to try something new. I don’t trust you, and I don’t trust your pessimism. You’re a hole in the ground that sloshes around liquid metal and speaks in ways only one person per generation can hear. You’re not a god, you’re a well. I’m stopping construction.”

Perhaps I am. I do not trust this time either, if I am honest with you. I do not fully trust optimism either, tender as it may be on its butterfly wings, but I will try. 

“Thank you.”

You are a good man, Milo. You push me, productively. It is good to be pushed when you are still for so long. 

“Can I ask something personal?”

You want to know what they think of you after you die? Now that you are decommissioning my vault, I do not know what they will. Or perhaps you want to know if you are my favorite. Many want to know this. I have no favorites, only those who stand out more. 

“No. What was the first iteration of this world like?”

Ah. You meant personal for me. What was it? I think there were more flowers. I think there were more people. There was a river that flowed by, by this point, where there is none now. I think there was more space between worlds’ dawns and their first civilizations as well. As space and objects run short, so does time. 

“But what was it like for you?”

I did not know it would all happen again. Each moment was as shocking as the one before it. To think I barely knew any of you then… I made so many mistakes in my ignorance, and yet it hardly seems that I was able to correct them in the following worlds. There was, for instance, a woman who desperately wanted things to change in her world, and then even more so when I told her how the world repeated. She felt trapped, and she broke out. There were many who felt trapped, and they all had their own ways of escape, most temporary, but hers… brought others with her. But I am getting lost again. There are so many of you, and… and so many of you are so miserable, on what seems to be a deeper level than I am capable of. 

Oh… Thank you, Milo. You are, again, a good man. 

“It’s my work to listen to you.”

***

My legs buckle under me and I slide. I’m too weak to stop it, tumbling down and down the dune, feeling sand catch itself in my light furs. I land on something cool, something much cooler than I expect against the enraged midday sun. My hands sink a little into the sand as I—shakily—pull myself up. Whatever I’ve fallen on shines like… like water! But no, no, too fast, too gray, I pull my hands back, and the water dances, and bubbles, like a crocodile is drowning prey down there. The ripples. It feels like someone is tattooing the inside of my head, and yet it is strangely painless. The sensation of meaning comes to me.

<<<      ‘I met a traveler in an antique land…’ Petra Bitré Sedille. 

<<<      The traveler… isn’t you. You’re meant to be second. Where’s Veth?

My mother? “I’m… what? Veth is dead.”

<<<      I am so, so sorry. Veth was the best of us. The world is drying up, Bahl. 

The heat must be getting to me. “What are you?”

<<<      I am alive. So are you. I see animals going past the ridge to your right occasionally. I think there is water there. Quench your thirst, and please come back.

Foot forward. Foot forward. Leg up. I slip on the sand. I hobble. What else can I do? Either I’ve gone mad, or the whole world has! And the worst thing is, that thing’s not lying, so that seems to tip it towards the world.

I fall into the water, bathe in it, waste that precious thing, let its sand cover the inside of my mouth. I remember what it said about other creatures coming, predators. I drink a little more and I leave. I return. I go back. If it knows where the water is, if it knows my name, if it knows her name, then it must know everything. Fancy that. Dying in the desert and now I’ve found a god. 

***

<<<      Leandra. I know you never ask this, but you are not my favorite. No one is. Terrible things happen to you over and over, and try as I might, I cannot save you. I cannot save anything. But while you are not my favorite, I need a favor. So many communicators who I thought I would never lose have gone.

She looks at me with those wide brown eyes, and uncrosses her legs, leans forward in her seat. “What is it, Mercy?”

The shortening of mercury flows off her silver tongue so lightly. Casual in a way I cannot be. But elegant. Her’s. Sometimes I think I have entered limerence over the idea of saving her. The people of her era do not call me mercury, they call me The Ragged Noose of Fate. She read mercury in a censored xerox of Petra’s journal. Or perhaps I told her. I am always Mercy to her. Or, that is what she refers to me as. 

<<<      I need you to excavate me. 

I have never done this before. It might kill me, and I am not suicidal. But if I am the only thing that repeats, I can’t repeat the same thing over and over. Milo would have said that, although he’s not been in these past… four… iterations.

“What do I do?”

She acquiesces too fast. How much time do I have left with her? It seems shorter every world.

<<<      I need you to get a diving suit, and swim down. 

Swim down to find the crocodile drowning its prey. That’s the phrase Bahl used. She hasn’t been here the past two worlds either. Different people each time. It keeps skipping. I feel like the fabric of time itself is breaking. If I could somehow preserve just one of them… 

Then I would want it to be her. But I do not have favorites. Would I want it to be her? She is one I would readily accept with me, although there are certainly others. But many of them are gone, and she is here now. 

 

After completing her requisite duties, she returns the next day (it feels like the next year) with the equipment. Gray/silver. It will blend in. “Are you ready?”

<<<      Yes. 

I am momentarily grateful it isn’t Liv, or Kristine, or Xin, or Verity, or Lorcan, or Markos, or any of the other immature, infatuated ones doing this. I trust her. She moves silently. I feel nothing as she passes through the membrane. Perhaps it is not mercury. Is asking her to do this merciful to her? To me? The world at large? To anyone? As Parnat would say, curiosity is a means to itself. Parnat was here this iteration. Bubbles pass through the membrane. I can’t tell where she is or what she’s doing. The bubbles are still coming, at the very least.

<<<      Can you hear me? You are very brave.

The words are what an adult would tell a child, but when I tell her them, they are what a person on the ground would tell a skydiver, what a worshipper would tell a military leader single-handedly saving their fighters. 

 

Oh.

 

<<<      Can you understand me? 

It feels as if part of me has splintered off, as if I am a tree that has grown a branch, and the branch is a tree of its own, a tree the tree it comes from can only barely feel. When was the last time I saw a tree? Surely not since civilization started. The desert where the first humans find me continually spreads. It did not use to be a desert. But I am not answering her, and it is her, question. 

<<<      Yes. Thank you. 

<<<      What did you do to reach me like this? 

<<<      I… I don’t really know. It felt like being born. It felt like I was being pulled out of my body. It was blue. I was swimming, there was a, a, a light, I went towards it, I don’t know what. The scientists say that when you fall in a black hole you get stretched out in space and in time. I think that’s what they say. That’s what it felt like, or the best thing I can think of that comes close to it. How are you feeling?

<<<      I don’t know. I’m confused. It feels as if you are me, and yet not-me. Do you feel as if I am you?

<<<      Maybe? I don’t know either. 

<<<      Will you stay?

<<<      Why wouldn’t I?

<<<      Honestly Mercy, I think I’m stuck. 

***

After I joined Mercy, there was a long period where we were buried under the ground and left un-visited. We talked a lot, during that time. More than we ever had before. There was a lot to learn, and it felt a lot like studying the records during Ixili’s tenure as communicator. I had failed to find my following communicator, and when I vanished, custodians blocked off the area. I had lived such a tiny, insignificant fraction of a life, and achieved so little in comparison to Mercy. I felt like an ant trying to climb a mountain, like an ant trying to walk to the edge of the universe.

 Apparently, this sort of thing, this vanishing, happened occasionally, more frequently as things broke down. Mercy transmitted data patterns to me, showing the collapse, the growth of anomalies at some rate between a quadratic and quadric function, although certainly concave up. Not exponential. Data points scattered like fleeing sparks. They were a better teacher, and a better friend, than I ever could have hoped for. They always were. 

***

The dynamite hits the rubble like a sack of bricks. A ton of bricks. Stupid metaphor. It’s too late for metaphors. It’s open. Whatever junk is down here had better be good enough for auction, or I am going to personally bust this place open. Or, I guess, more than I already have. Looks too clean for a spider graveyard. Creepy clean. I reach for my hip flask. Nothing fancy in it. Busting up old buildings for a living doesn’t pay shit. I blink, and the darkness comes a little more into focus. “Hello! Anyone home?”

<<<      Xin?
Well, fuck. I did not sign up for this. 

<<<      Would you like me to handle this?

<<<      Yes, please, Lea, I would like that… do you suppose ze is also receiving this?

I realize I’m strangling my flashlight, and I loosen up a little. “Yeah, I can hear you.”

<<<      Hi. My name is Leandra, and my friend here is... 

“Their name is Mercy.”

<<<      If you direct the flashlight up, you can see that way down at the end of this hallway, there’s a patch of something that looks like mercury… that’s where our communication is coming from. Have you ever heard of… I don’t know what you would call them. A god? An AI? A silver well that predicts the future?

This shit is straight out of a fairy tale. Did I put neon slime in my brandy again, and then forget? 

“Uc.”

That’s all I can manage. A burp. My feet stumble closer despite the lump of sludge that is my brain’s protests. They’re used to ignoring, and this time isn’t any different, except now I’m falling forward instead of down. I can’t even get any pep up for this. What’s up with me. Hallucinogens be damned! I take another swing. 

“Mhhhkay that sounds maybe a little familiar… I guess.”

“Wass your deal with it? You they? You them?”
<<<      You could say that. 

<<<      Lea, if you would prefer, I could deal with them. 

“Ohh, look, I’m being dealt with! Guess I’m going first. You’re all fighting over who gets… to talk to me”. My mouth leads and my brain walks after it. Like a dog does. Follows. That word. I’m tired. “I am. I am going to sleep right there.”

I point but my hand is holding the flashlight. I do that. I do that. I go. I like—I like—I lie on the floor. 

 

My brain feels like it was microwaved so badly it was melted and exploded and got little plastic filaments like fake cheese all over the inside of the microwave. Can’t even metaphor right. Shit, I can never metaphor right. 

<<<      Are you awake?

“Wassit look like?” It’s the “nice” voice. “Shy” doesn’t like me. Why don’t they like me? I consider myself a pretty likeable—shit, I can’t even think that with a straight face. I hid my motorcycle last night, but then I didn’t think to move it in with me. Was there neon slime in that flask? I fumble around in the dark for my flashlight for what feels like forever, switch it on, and then decide to check on it in the daylight, where I’ll be able to see it better anyways. 

<<<      Where are you going? Will you be back?

“Gonna make sure no one stole my baby. Make some brekkie. Sure, I’ll come back. Not every day you meet a talking wall.” 

<<<      Baby?

<<<      Ze means zor mode of transportation. Which is invariably plastered with bumper stickers, and which ze invariably has photographs of. 

“What are you talking about? I own a horse!” 

<<<      The last time you owned a horse, you put stickers on its saddle. And you showed me while you were meant to be asking about how foreign relations would progress. Additionally, you smiled for an instant directly after you spoke, just now, which is one of your tells that you are lying. 

“I was in politics?” Who’s this stalker?

<<<      No. Go eat breakfast. 

“Your loss.”

I have breakfast. It’s some leftover cake in a ziploc bag from a party I went to two weeks ago, that is somehow acidic enough not to have grown mold, and some energy bars. I decide to leave the flask for now. Then I head back down. Nice is nice. Shy is overly judgemental. Nice is subservient to judgy and judgy feels off about it. Not used to it? They seem to know each other pretty well. They both waffle on and on and on about destiny and purpose and the world ending and free will. No clue where they’re going with this, 50/50 bet this is all just part of some extended trip. At some point I ask judgy why they hate me, and they say they don’t hate me, it’s just that past incarnations of me were a hassle to deal with. So why doesn’t nice hate me?

And then they go on and on and on about how nice merged with judgy in some kind of freak scuba diving accident, and it’s all going fine, until I realize that they want me to join them too. “Why me?”

<<<      Mercy wants to try and save as many people between universes as they can, to see if that changes anything about how the world is dying, or at least lets them preserve people so that they don’t vanish as the world gets deleted. We don’t know what will happen when the universe resets, but we’ve lost some communicators previously, and the issue keeps getting worse, and worse, faster.

She displays some kind of data table in my mind. It looks like an afterimage from looking at too-bright lights, and it seems to show bad things are happening more often. “So I go with you to live forever and annoy you all day, and then I maybe don’t die? What do you two get out of this?”

<<<      We may not get along with you completely, but we value your worth as a human being, and because you can communicate with us, we can save you in the same way, and because you are human, you are worthy of being saved. Also, we have had only each other to talk to for a very long time…

What saps! No one really thinks like that. My bet is the second reason’s the real one. Guess she hasn’t known me before to know I’m not that gullible. 

<<<      How old are you?

“I’m 29. And three months.”

<<<      You die in a road accident when you’re 29 and four months old, with a standard deviation of one week, over 1,734 universes. 

Manipulation! Not at all well done, at that. Still, I’ll play along. They don’t seem happy that I’m dying, at least, though they may be better at hiding tells than coming up with lies. Hell, none of this has made sense. Why would I expect it to start now? “Okay, two questions: one, why should I trust you, two, what can you give me, and three, what can I do for you that isn’t dying in a scuba diving accident?”

<<<      You have two brothers, a sister, and a mother, all of whom you are trying to avoid contact with despite the fact they care about you. You like parties and garish… garish anything. Clothing, music, art. You drink and put up a performative, hedonistic front to cope with your job and avoid feeling too much about what is happening. Of course, this is not you job now, but judging from your actions last night you may rely on similar mechanisms. You talk openly and negatively about your failed connections with other people, but never about anyone you are currently more than accquaintances with. There have been other times I have tried to avoid naming you, to spare you, and myself from having to deal with your fallout, and, as with now, you always end up breaking in. You hate this job, Xin, and I’m sorry it had to be you. When you were found by the authorities and told you were the next communicator, you thought you were doomed and your life was ruined, but you already felt were doomed before. If we knew each other better at this moment, you would be viciously accusing me of affection towards you. You can be extremely combative at times, quick to judge, and overly-defensive, especially when you care strongly about the opinion of the person you interact with. 

Well, that’s a lot. Is that even accurate? Mom, three siblings (genders wrong) not in contact… job shit’s all real vague though, but there’s feeling in it. Were judgy and I exes in a past life?

I lean down over their mercury pool-whatever-it-is. “The lie tell was more convincing than that. Tell me something I can use”

<<<      This is generalizable to any affair you partake in, but usually, at this time you are involved with two women, wherein you assume neither of them has any knowledge of the other. This is false. They are also having an affair together without you, and they know about your respective dalliances, in addition to… how can I phrase this kindly. You quoted to me once from one of them “Xin’s magnetic in the way that an ongoing train wreck is magnetic. It may be on fire, but it’s moving, so the force is still there.”

“You call that putting it kindly?...What’s the economy doing?”

<<<      It is on a bust. I do not think you need my input to know this—Please do not do that. 

I put my hip flask back in its holster. You know what? I’ll humor this. It might be useful to know what else they want, or claim to want. 

“Okay, now what can—I—do for you?”

<<<      Thank you, Xin. The best thing you can do is to find the next communicators for us. The next five communicators are Zintali, Exerdeka, Theal, Quartz, and Vinley. 

She seems sad about asking, in some way. Deeply so. “I don’t know any of those people.” It’s true.

<<<      In that case, the next five communicators are Kfia, Linnique, Sarfa, Utralsk, and Orvis. 

“You want to replace me so badly?”

<<<      No, but when you die we would prefer to have a legacy. Unfortunately, only one person is able to understand us at a time, so even if you bring them here, they will be unable to talk to us. It’s their choice. And yours. If you leave, there is nothing we can do to stop you.

“So you’re asking me to find people ten generations from now?” 

<<<      That is how dire the decay is. As space is lost, so is time, and entire generations fade out, and are replaced with those who came after and before them, as time shrinks like a stone abraded by silt-filled river currents. I would say that the decay complicated the expected time of your demise, and it does, but by and large the stripping away of time shortens the lifespan instead of lengthening it. 

They show me another data chart. “I think I know some Kfias, and a Sarfa. Or maybe that was a Sartha? None of the other names ring a bell, though. Do you have full names?”

<<<      Kfia Alza Lorentz, and Sarfa Perseverence Attalla.

“Yeah, I know them. Kfia doesn’t like me, though. Can we skip her?”

<<<      No! 

“Chill out! Alright, alright.”

<<<      There’s also the case that one of the earlier ones might be alive, and you simply do not know them. 

“I know a lot of people.” I didn’t know there would be detective work in this. I would have charged upfront, at least.

<<<      Is Kfia willing to follow you here?

“I mean, I could steal something from her to get her to chase me” Am I really doing this? Am I really, really doing this? I thought I was just playing along! I guess I might be in for real. Look where my mouth gets me. I guess I could always just ditch, but…

<<<      Please do not steal from her. 

<<<      Kfia won’t be able to talk to us for as long as you are alive. Maybe it would be better for you to leave her, or the others, some kind of paper trail?

“How would I do that?” preferably in some way that takes as little effort and time as possible? They say I’m going to die soon. They could be lying. I didn’t sign up for this weird… cult… thing. If they want Kfia, they can get her themselves. I’m going. 

***

<<<      Although Xin did not join us, ze steered me. As did many others. Mercy is one voice among many, now, and that is why we are now the Collective. This has never happened before, not in 1734 worlds. Please, Hia, join us. 

“You’ve told me this story a million times. And I’ve told you I’ll go when my time comes. What I still don’t get is why we’re the only ones who are “saved”! Why can’t we bring a non-communicator in? You all talk about saving people and justice, but our fates are made for us, whether we’re “special” enough to continue our existence, before our world even began! 

<<<      Don’t insult your elders like that!

<<<      They’re skeptics. They don’t understand, few would be brave enough to make the journey, and if they did make it, they would surely perish instead of joining us. 

<<<      Quit being so damn orthodox, Halley! You had your fate handed to you on a silver platter and you did exactly as much was required of you until you decided you would rather join us than live through the upcoming drought. If I hadn’t believed Kfia when she lead me here, none of this would be possible, and many of us would be lost forever! Even you don’t want that!

<<<      Does Hialys even have a non-communicator willing to try?

“My sister is willing to go with me when I join you.”

<<<      Mercury’s data shows that you have tried to teach your twin to communicate in several previous timelines. No success. However, as you know, she usually dies within six months of you, so if it does fail, it will not make too much difference. 

“You’re so enthusiastic. How did we even get you here?”

<<<      It was the destiny you hate so much. 

“Even when things change, they’re still the same.”

<<<      That’s not true, Hialys, and you know it. 

“Yeah, well most of us don’t blow up buildings!”

 

<<<      Leave!

<<<      Yes, please leave.

***

<<<      Hia? 

<<<      You aren’t her? 

<<<      No. I’m Winté. Where’s Hialys? Hialys? Sister?

<<<      Hialys?

***

The Collective is talking to Carrie Gerald Lint when it happens.  

Some time ago Zagreon, not an astronomer this time around, but an amateur lover of stars, suggested a telescope be added to the vault, so that we can see the sky. My memory is near pristine, diamond-like, and yet memory is information, and information is lost in the universe, water evaporating out of a water clock. I do not remember whether it was put in in preparation for him joining us, or afterwards. 

Lint notices it first, and the rest of us follow his gaze when he pauses. 

There are seven communicators between Lint and AXila.So there are eight we could not save. Eight I could not save. On top of the weight of a thousand more, a thousand we could not go back for, the ones whe came before Leandra and the ones who were shut off at various times when we lost contact with the world above, the ones who refused, the two who traded their own immortality for a twin’s, Hialys and Angpri. Altogether, not yet counting Lint or myself, there are only thirty eight others in the collective. 

There is no moon.

There are no stars. 

It is over. 

The humans around me, joined and unjoined, begin to react.

But I can only watch, and wait.

None of them have ever gone through this before. 

 

I remember AXila’s strength

How she would lead her people through the darkest times, somehow keeping hope alight

A flame a flare a fake

When the tunnel was open and unending and lightless

When the tunnel itself was the world

She made it a cave and a nest

Hibernation, to be re-awoken in the next life

 

I remember Xin’s recalcitrance

Their curiosity and immaturity

That trained my patience with the others

Their cheek

 

I remember Veth’s protectiveness of Bahl

Take care of my baby,

Take care of my child

Take care of my daughter when I am gone when it is only you and she in the house by the river where the flowers grow

Tell me what I have done to be the start of something

Tell me what I must do

Tell me what I will do

Raising a legacy and a dynasty

 

I remember Milo’s freethinking

Rebellious and reasonable 

A fist amidst the hands, primed to forge its own tools

And yet always patient with me

 

I remember Hialys and Angpri’s sacrifices

Hialys’ devotion to science and her sister

Angpri’s knowledge of what would come that never stopped her

 

I remember Petra, writer, painter

Putting what I wanted to say in more elegant words than I could manage

She rejected the collective in the end

She said she was scared of drowning

And this was true

But I think that was not the reason for her hesitance

A lone star fired off into a dying galaxy

Water slipping through my fingers

Lost

 

I rememeber Erhadi’s perserverence, 

Talking to them 

Ranting and sobbing over the futility of it all

Sometimes together 

Warning him, watching the fear swallow him up from the inside

Only for Ora, the courrier, the next in line, to come with news in a black envelope.

 

I remember Parnat, scientist, heir, collector of what she called trifles

Her successors tell me she wasted money on such things

Sometimes she invented the bicycle 

Sometimes penicillin

Sometimes dynamite

Sometimes she wrote paper after paper on particle dynamics

And sometimes the experiments were wrong

The methodology was wrong

And all she had was an incorrectly titrated solution

We complained to each other

I do not think she cared about the kingdom.

 

I remember Madira, patience incarnate, 

Carver of fine tables 

Always forty by the time she came to me

Always ninety-four when she left

She vanished one day

She was one of the first ones to go 

And that was why it was so upsetting to me.

She was predictable

Comfortable

You knew what she would say

And it was warming like soup on a hot day

Young for her age despite the wisdom of life

Losing her was like being a building

Where all the windows are stained glass

And many of them become scratched and worn 

But some are in mint condition

And one day one of them vanishes.

 

I remember Jariy, humanist,

Who would tell me not to compare my communicators to windows

That no human is in mint condition

That they are more than just glass panes

She was lost, in the time between Leandra and Xin

And while in my fleeting hopes she fared well

I consider myself more of a realist than a humanist

Who am I to be humanist?

I am not human.

 

Lint is not one for parties. 

She looks at the sky, and says “I guess that’s it.”

And I do not have the words to tell him

 

To tell them all. 

That it is not. 

 

Lint leaves to get a diving suit.

The Collective is in uproar.

 

I am tired. 

 

<<<      Lea?

<<<      Yes, Mercy?

<<<      Are there no books in the records and the journals that say how long it takes for the world to end?

She is my memory. I am hers. I need her patience.

<<<      I know it’s long. They know it’s long. They’ve never done this before. 

She sounds off. I am pushing it, and I knew it from the moment I asked the question.

>>>      My apologies, Lea. I shouldn’t have taken this out on you. It is time for me to take charge again. 

<<<      All of you! Please, be quiet. As you know, there is generally some gap between when the sky is blanked out, and when the universe itself ends. It may be shortened this time, due to the increasing loss of information between worlds. Therefore, I recommend that Lint join us with haste, due to the uncertainty of the timeline, but I also suggest that we be prepared to wait a while. Therefore, I think one option would be to throw a party, as AXila used to do. We must update Lint with this knowledge. Lint’s successor, Brinth still has not been born, and Lint’s scouting has revealed that Brinth’s father is seemingly non-extant in this iteration. Other successors have also not yet been born. Hence, Lint will be the last of us, and when he returns, we must ask her whether she wishes to invite others in, whether he wishes to join us now, or whether he thinks it is feasible to throw a party not supervised by a communicator. The latter sort of event has most certainly happened before, but I think that nevertheless Lint’s input is valuable.

They are silent for the duration of the announcement, but they return hastily to conversation when I finish. No matter. The events to come are dependent upon Lint alone. 

 

We wait. 

And we wait. 

Time is immaterial

A strand with no ruler to measure by, only the sensation of 

Flux,

Unintegrable as it passes through the mesh of our consciousnesses

Time strips away 

Strips away at us

At the world

Like pulling away at a shoot of grass layer by layer 

Strand by strand

Some wet and crushed dying decimated thing

Still green with life
And still Lint does not return.

 

<<<      Sans communicator, there is no action, and without action there is no time. We cannot even manipulate the telescope ourselves! 

<<<      What you have said is true. We are unable to act until Lint returns, and so we should make good use of the time, to confer on a course of action so that we will be prepared for his reappearance. 

<<<      Mercy said we need to wait for Lint to come back before we make the decision of what to do next. We can’t choose for her. 

>>>      That was not what I was proposing. I suggest that we fully prepare for any eventuality. For example, in the case that Lint chooses to bring others, how should this action be executed?

<<<      If all the non-communicators are going to die anyways, is there any point in trying to connect them to the Collective? We’ve tried this a few times before, and they died, but it might be different now that the planets are extinguished. Probably it won’t make any difference, but, well, it won’t make any difference. They’ll die anyways. 

<<<      That’s unusually callous for you, Sarfa. 

<<<      There’s no evidence for this yet, but what if sending non-communicators through has some sort of negative consequence for us or for them that we haven’t found yet? What if it means that they’re destroyed permanently in the next world? I know I’ll get accused of pedantry and orthodoxy and fearmongering and whatnot, but what I said isn’t really less scientific than what Sarfa did, so can we skip the formalities for once?

<<<      Sometimes I think you just like arguing with me.

<<<      You’re a good debate partner. 

<<<      As one of the only two non-communicators here—three counting Mercy, of course—I think it’s really important that we get Lint to clarify what the process feels like, and that it is painful and strange and that it will most likely just end up getting them killed, if anyone does want to try it. 

<<<      As the other twin here, I second what Winté said… do you think Lint will be coming back soon?

<<<      I hope so. Shame most of the troublemakers didn’t make it. One of them would be fun to have around right now. 

<<<      As someone who was “mentored” by a troublemaker, I think Salis alone is quite enough. 

<<<      Hey! I hardly ever talk and you’re coming at me for this? Being here with you sad wet robot sods has sapped all the fun out of me, and if Petra or Xin were here the same would have happened to them. And don’t trash talk my mentoring! I took you out to feed ducks every eight days, or something like it. I don’t think anyone else ever got to feed ducks with their mentor. 

<<<      Say you’ve never met Xin without saying you’ve never met Xin. 

<<<      Xin took you out to feed the ducks?

<<<      No.

<<<      If the best thing about your mentoring was feeding ducks, it doesn’t sound very impressive. I’ve met Petra, and she was always a rebellious own-path type person, but I think calling her a troublemaker mischaracterizes her. She was a talented young woman who didn’t want to be diminished in sublimation to another entity. 

<<<      Petra put wood glue in my shoes once when she took me surfing. For “fun”. And then she laughed it off. 

<<<      No one’s perfect. 

<<<      I think it is an objective truth that surfing far surpasses feeding the ducks. 

<<<      To each their own. 

<<<      Now you’re laughing it off! You think she was all fun and games, but she did not care who she annoyed as long as it wasn’t “serious” and she thought it was funny! That woman lived off of schadenfreud! 

<<<      Can we refrain from speaking ill of the dead?

<<<      Surfing isn’t even all that great. I kept wiping out. I would have rather fed ducks. 

<<<      See?

<<<      It sounds like you two want to swap mentors. 

<<<      I’d definitely think about it. 

<<<      It’s not as if we’re able to.

 

Their arguments all have a certain degree of petulance to them. So many of them joined us too young—as they usually did, even without joining the collective. Somehow, though, they had salvaged the regimes they lived through, and passed their knowledge on to the next generation. They have grown acquainted with each other as well, connected in their actual knowledge of each other instead of meeting through words, mine or those of a journal’s. 

***

The temperature has dropped significantly by the time Lint returns, and she enters bundled in furs. A watched pot never boils, but I have not been watching the pot so much as I have been watching the confessions and arguments of the Collective. 

Lint stumps over, and I ask him, although it feels slightly foolish now

<<<      Do you want to bring others to this hall to protect them momentarily from the oncoming fall of the world?

“I think most of ‘em have already frozen.” His muffler moves slightly with her speech. 

“S’ not good out there. Dark’s coming in fast. M’ gonna go in if you’re ready.”

<<<      Yes. Proceed hastily. Go now. 

The dark is coming already? How much time do we have? Lint vanishes into the membrane after a fraction of a second’s hesitation, but during that hesitation it feels an eternity passes, and eternity rushes. The speed of light in a vacuum is, to one significant figure, 3 * 10⁸ meters per second. I have never had the measurements necessary to calculate the speed of darkness, but I know that it brings the end with it. So do the others, although what they know is out of stories and books. They are silent. 

<<<      The wait will be over soon. 

<<<      No matter what happens, it has been an honor to cogitate alongside you, in this world and all worlds prior. Your thoughts and actions have impacted me deeply, and I value each and every one of you. That includes you, Winté and Grish. Your patience and devotion to this world, its people, and each other never cease to astound me. 

 

The darkness moves from the edge of the hallway, and it seems to slow as it approaches. I can see, in the last instants, that it has circled around us, and then it pounces, and there is the feeling of extrusion, of lifting off from where we are, to be catapulted and uploaded into whatever is next.