Time Over and Again, Final Chapter

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Len sat shaking in the empty field, with nothing and no one around to distract him away from himself any longer. His eyes filled with tears and he wiped them away only for them to fill again. Again and again and again and again. None of them would bring him back.

Knees shaking, he struggled to his feet once more, the gashes all over his body searing and stabbing at him endlessly still. He turned and saw as the stormy lands beyond the barrier faded away into the quietude he had grown accustomed to in this strange feeling. With it gone, he longed for a chance to step into its slicing dangers once more, to feel the blows and carving reminders that he is still him. At least for now.

But it was gone. The storm was gone, and all that remained was an empty field and Len. He stumbled onward. With no trails to guide him, he wandered the expanse. Perhaps for seconds, perhaps for hours, perhaps for years, as it felt, he wandered. Time was no longer a construct to consider. There was no longer any distant object to strive toward. It was all gone.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but…”

His vision faded and his head went numb. Len lost all energy in his body and tumbled onto the ground, the burning in his body flaring horribly. After a few moments, though he could see once again, the burning refused to leave. Despite its longstanding company, Len had grown no more accustomed to the pain. It only grew worse as time went on.

Len forced himself back to his feet to continue on. He strode on through the empty fields. A tearing sound emanated from the distance. Len turned around to see what the commotion was. In the vast distance, black specks seemed to appear in the sky, albeit faintly. Len did not understand what he was seeing, nor did he wish to. It was small, nigh unnoticeable, but once seen it could not be unseen. Len turned back to continue forward once more, no longer wishing to acknowledge the strange phenomenon or consider what it may mean.

Len stared at the edges of his desk. It was—

Len stumbled and—

Len could not stop crying. His favorite toy was broken and he forgot his lunch PIN. His mom held him close and patted his head.

“It’s ok, Len. Nobody is perfect,” she said.

Len struggled. He wanted to stand, to force himself forward once more. But the pain continued to grow and grow. His arms shook weakly as he used all his strength to push himself upward once more, like the world’s hardest pushup. He nearly reached his feet once more.

“Hi!” Len yelled. He did not mean to yell, but he did anyway and there was no going back now. “Um, so would you, um,” he whispered. This was also not what he wanted. “Do you want to go to a movie with me on Friday?” Eye contact was impossible so he kept his eyes glued to the locker behind her.

“Ew, what? No!”

Crushing.

Len was crushed from behind again, face in the ground once more. He wanted more than anything to stand once more, but he could no longer even bring himself to try. His strength was waning by the moment, now.

Len shot up, drool pouring from his mouth. The whole class saw him asleep. The teacher stood over his desk, eyebrows raised.

“Good morning!” He yelled at 2 in the afternoon.

Len wanted to ignore it all. He knew he had to channel all of his focus and energy if he ever wished to continue his journey.

“I like you, Sasha,” Len trailed a bit.

“Goodness, I hope so. We’ve been dating for, like, two whole weeks now!”

Len went quiet. “Yes,” he said softly.

She buried her head in his arms.

“I like you, too.” She smiled, and so did he.

His desire to return to his feet was fading away. A strange sense of comfort began to wash over him. He lay in the field and let the beams of light shine upon him. He felt a sudden snap in his entire body, though, like every part of his being was simultaneously shattered from the inside at once.

“There’s nothing we can do…”

Len rolled over onto his back and stared up into the sky. Its swirling orange and purple colors now shifted erratically, with the cream-colored clouds spinning, shattering, combining and swirling uncontrollably, impossible to track or predict. He listened to the white noise of fuzz and static. He could hear his own thoughts but not understand any of them, and they drowned out any attempt to enjoy what quiet may or may not have existed around him.

“Stand up,” a voice said nearby. “We must talk once more.”

Len raised his head just a tad to see the old man standing nearby, staring off into the distance away from Len.

“I cannot do it,” Len said. “I am too weak.”

“You are. So do it.”

Len tried once more to shove himself to his feet. He merely managed to reach his knees, but the progress was worth excitement nonetheless. The old man turned to face Len once more.

“You must try once more,” the old man said.

“No.”

“If you do not—”

“I do not care.” Len glanced behind the old man. In the distance, he could see as the fields slowly disintegrated into dust and fell away. All around them, in the distances, the dust slowly took over as all things began to disappear. Even the skies in the distance began to lose their colors and fade into nothingness.

“This is what it is,” the old man said. “Try once more.”

Len shook his head. “I do not want to,” he said.

“It is not about want,” the old man said. “You must.”

“But what about the world?”

“Do not worry of the world right now. Try, once more.”

“I cannot stand.”

“No. Do not stand, dig. Dig again.”

“No. Not again. I…. do not want to. This is…” Len trailed off.

The world in the distance continued to fade away. The speed at which it did so was exponentially increasing. Where before the progress was barely noticeable, the deterioration could now be observed without thought or focus.

“Please, Len,” the old man begged once more.

“What about me?”

“Just dig a little.”

“I’m so happy for you, Len,” Sasha said.

“You are?”

“Of course I am. This is… it’s what we needed. Everything is just right, y’know?”

“I suppose so,” Len grinned.

She grabbed his hand and the two stared at an empty box on the ground. There were several others, all flattened, lying nearby.

“I think maybe we should get a jump on this thing now, don’t you?” Sasha asked.

Len giggled. “I suppose so.”

“Are you good?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I am. I just… it’s a bit hard to believe this all really happened.”

“Well believe it, ‘cause it happened!”

Len smirked again, then glanced at the boxes once more. “Alright, let’s do this.”

The full picture now came into view. Beautiful and terrible, important in its unimportance and infinitely finite... raw, pure experience.

Len stared off at the empty fields around him as they quickly faded away into dust, the distant skies growing blacker and closer. He turned to the old man.

“Why are the trees gone?”

“Hm?”

“They are gone. Why?”

“It’s not important.”

“No?”

“Not anymore.”

Len sighed. The old man, too, began to fade away. He gave Len a nod, closed his eyes, and succumbed to the fragmentation before finally blowing away.

The dust closed in, and the world soon disappeared entirely, leaving nothing but an endless void of nothing; no light, no darkness. Pure nothing.

Spiraling into the infinite wasn’t as bad as Len expected. There was an odd sense of serenity to the experience.

Len could feel his body begin to disappear, his toes quickly fading into dust. It worked its way up through his body.

A voice cut through the nothingness. A familiar voice. His own voice.

"In the end, what was the point?"

Len felt himself disappear. His body was now gone. His mind, his consciousness was hanging on by a thread. A single flake in a vast ocean of infinite nothingness. It, too, would soon be gone.

Len replied.

"It happened."

And everything was done.