:eden
- or, epilogue

It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.

-

:the world

There is a lovely road that runs out of the city of Atmosia, where the streets are dirty and the people are wan. But the road itself is glowing and sweet, and it leads into the hills, still unspoiled. If you fast-forward the years, the entire terra becomes covered with buildings and smoke and cold, hard roads of asphalt, and it will be a waste.

But for now, all is good.

There is a clearing where a platform once stood, and the indentations of a thousand blood-thirsty humans’ footprints still linger; soon, the wind and time will unite to erase them, and they will disappear, as all things must.

But for now, all is good.

And a little beyond the clearing is a tree; no one knows what kind it is, but it’s small and a little scrawny and gives no shade. And in half a century, or possibly even a full century, it will grow up and be big and the children of the city will climb it. Go even further and some machine will cut it down and it will be made into a cross, to be hung inside a church, to be prayed to and wept for.

But for now, all is good.

Below the tree is a marker; it is small and flimsy and made of one plank of wood. Someone painted it white, but the paint is flaking, and if you go forward in time, the rain will wash the white paint away, to be taken into the earth so that the grass dies.

But for now, all is good.

There is nothing on that marker, nothing save the white paint and maybe a few ashes. The ashes remain, no matter how hard the wind will blow on it. Below them and the earth is a box; it is not so deep, so that in a million years, when the terra is empty and the great city has decayed, as all cities and faithless ventures do, the sky will deem it necessary for the box to resurface.

But for now, all is good.

She is in the box, she the evil one, she the menace. In the end, she was just a human, always a human, blown out of proportion. Eve has closed her eyes and become what she was always destined to be: dust. Time will never fast-forward for her, never. She is caught here. Maybe that is Hell. It certainly is not heaven.

But for now, all is good.

Somewhere in the Wastelands are the ashes of a book, a spell-book, that belonged once to Death, but now is dead itself. And not far from it is another body, this one finally at peace, and the bones will burn eventually, yet the soul is cool and free at last from running.

And in Eden runs the river of Pison, and at Babel the bricks molder, and that road from Damascus, along which the blind men run, is decaying as I, The World, speak. Goliath is dead; he always was.
I want you to remember: I will weep, as soon as you turn away, I will cry and bleed and retch onto the ground; my body will sweat and rot, and I am you, don’t you understand? The earth claims us all in the end.; ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I will scream as I die; I will not go easily; bile, mucus, spit, sweat, blood. I will shudder and disappear, because I will have poisoned myself with myself, at long last, the best returning to the worst, the well deserved end.

…

…

…

But for now, all is good.

-

In the beginning, there was Eden.

-

Amen.

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A/N: Yeah. So that's all, folks. Hope you liked it. Now I'm off to finish off the next chapter of Perennial Rose.