Prometheus

*****

The universe did not explode.

No, like the physicists thought it would, it fell apart bit by bit, the weight of everything inside of it slowly dragging it to a halt.

Then, nothing.

*****

Think of the insides of the universe as clockwork. Gods are gears, life is springs.

It's only a metaphor, but it might help you understand.

Because a clock large enough might do two things:

First, it might count time in the thousands of directions it runs in.

Last, it might find a way to incorporate chaos into the gears. And entropy.

It also might find a way to--

--stop.

*****

There is nothing left with which I could get drunk.

It's a sad state of affairs, because now I have to face the end of the universe sober, and that's not something anyone should have to do. Endings are hard, even for folks like me, for people who've been little gears and big gears and sometimes both at once. The funny thing is that drunkenness is one of the few universals that all life shares; where there is carbon, it will decay, and decay has transformative powers. And those who aren't carbon-based have their own methods of gaining pleasure from the misfortune of matter or energy.

If I had a glass, it would be empty. But I don't. Instead, what I have is a vaguely bipedal form with a few more limbs than I usually like, a barren excuse for an asteroid, and the universe collapsing on top of my head.

So stupid. I stole something, I think I recall. The stupid part was not the stealing but the getting caught afterwards. Chained to this rock and all I can think is, Wow, that thing looks heavy.

*****

The collapse takes time.

That's why I wanted to be drunk, you see. One roaring bender and you don't even notice time swirling around your head in frantic eddies any more. You don't mind that your limbs are numb and useless, because what is there to fix any more? Mechanics of the universe, we are.

Thing's broken. Haul her in and buy a new one.

That's what my fellows did. But they left me here.

There always has to be a witness.

*****

The problem with time is that it has only one constant: Now. Everything else is an illusion. And because I tinker with the bloody stuff, I can't believe the illusion any more.

The collapse is imminent, or it just happened, or it happened back near the beginning and it's just now catching up with me. But it's not Now. It's not happening.

Damned quantum superstition. Leave one witness so it will either end or not end, not be in both states at once. Only they forgot that sometimes, with a force strong enough, the observed affects the observer rather than the other way around.

I am so damned bored, and the universe is not making up its mind.

*****

I spend my Now hallucinating. We're not supposed to be able to, but I manage it. It's a poor second to drunkenness, but it'll have to do.

*****

The light warns me.

Everything's moving, covering endless leaps of space in flickering bounds, towards me.

I keep all of my eyes open until the very end.

*****

It wasn't slow, like they thought it would be. It was very swift, in the end.

But it did not explode.

That came later.