The End of the World and of All Things

Even with the top down and the wind beating through the cab of the convertible, James Gaviny fought sleep behind the wheel.

He felt the quiet grip of fatigue and sensed the yawning relief that would come from blessed surrender.

He turned up the volume of his car's stereo. Maybe The Clash would keep him awake... but Straight to Hell only offered a brief flash of focus, which dissolved before his wilting eyes.

His head drooped, the nose of the car drifted towards the rough of the shoulder— no rumble strips to save him here but the jolt of tires jerking through sand hammered him back to wakefulness. He tore the wheel back towards his lane, swore and swore again.

He looked at the road before him and caught his breath. Already, again, his tired eyes begged relief.

It seemed as though the road was racing towards him— zipping past him— at double the speed in the opposite direction. The strange illusion was potent and disorienting, so he scanned the horizon instead.

And just like that he found his second wind— he knew, it was his body running short of melatonin. He’d lingered in consciousness beyond the point where his internal clock felt any need to regulate.

He was breaking the routine, and routine was law. But now that the neurotransmitters that begged sleep were off shift, he felt wired.

And, almost hyper alert.

The world stretched out before him like a reflection in a polished spoon, his field of vision was blurred and warped on the edges and oddly distant towards the center- but the colors themselves attacked his eyes with vivid clarity: the clumps of grass along the roadside were so green they seemed unreal, and the dirt was so brown that it was somehow vibrant. The sky was a dark, electric blue, so boldly colored that it was painful to look at and the clouds were a noisy white. The wild flowers on the road reduced all the other colors he had ever seen in his life to subtle grays, and the whole thing looked to have been painted by an artist.

The soft, rainbow flowered hills on either side of the road climbed into forested highlands before him. Scrag-frosted mountains stood in the distance, silent sentinels standing guard against a fiery horizon.

James shook his head, the landscape was so oddly vivid that it felt vaguely wrong. Almost alien. Perhaps the suns rays were just at the right height on the horizon to bend everything he saw as if through a lens or a prism.

Did that make sense?

He wished he’d payed better attention in physics.

More likely:

He was just so tired that he’d fallen susceptible to some kind of sensory exaggeration.

Whatever the cause, the evening felt mystical. The road was new to him but it coursed with the undercurrents of a strange familiarity— it hinted at a memory half buried like some Deja vu from the vague ravines of his childhood. He knew he'd never been to this particular stretch of the USA prior, but the strangeness of the light cast by the setting sun seemed to have struck him as a repeat of a memory or dream from his past.

He’d been this way before.

He knew he hadn’t; but damn that feeling felt real.

A short nap was what he needed.

He was too tired, too overwhelmed to keep himself behind the wheel.

And he knew this one imperative: he had to be safe. Not just to himself but for any other drivers on the road.

His mind was swept in dizzying circles by the thickness of his deja vu and by the wind which beat against his scalp. he felt clumsy, so he put on his hazards and started to pull over.

James brought the vehicle to a full stop on the shoulder, but his senses still lurched forward. He shut his eyes against the illusion of motion; that helped calm the ache between his temples-- a little.

But when he opened his eyes again, he almost swooned- the road lines were blipping past him at a machine gun pace, and the forest was sweeping the sides of the road. His first thought was that he was still moving, but then he looked at his spedometer-- a clean zero miles per hour.

The blur of motion all around him could be nothing more or less than a hallucination brought on by his long sleeplessness.

But the hallucination carried the hyper-reality of a dream. He slammed his foot on the brake of his car, but that did nothing to slow the insanity of this terrible imagining.

The mountains were approaching, at a speed which defied all reason, the wind rushed to escape them.

He needed an anchor, he needed some stability. He flung his head from side to side and stared desperately at the heavens- billions of stars burned his eyes like hot diamonds on a black velvet sheet.

He shuddered and cursed, there were too many stars. More stars than he should be able to see, more than he had ever seen even in the darkest parts of the country. And they themselves were moving, not as fast as the scenery here on earth, but they were moving and they reiterated to him the fact of his utter stillness. He was overwhelmed by a feeling that the cosmos were racing towards him, through him, and passing him by.

He knew that if he stared long enough he would catch a glimpse of the secrets of the universe, soaring past him but he also condemned that thought for the foolish, impulsive reach that it was.

.... Because he knew that there were no secrets.

Secrets were impossible and he was afraid to think too long or hard on meaning.

He'd tried that before-- tried asking if life had any meaning. That question only led to crisis, and existential dread, most especially the dread of not knowing the why and of never finding an answer.

No, there could be no why for James.

Life had no grand meaning-- life was a grand accident. And he was a mere blip, a spark flying through the cold air.

But still, he yearned for meaning and in this moment he felt dangerously close to the illusion of meaning, the illusion of importance, the illusion of purpose.

And maybe the truth was he felt a bit ashamed-- and far too small-- to be so close to something which was not intended for him.

His car radio warbled and cracked. He didn't know what song had been playing, because he hadn't been paying attention, and now it was not recognizable for the interference.

He tore his eyes away from the naked sky and saw that the mountains were about to overtake him, one on each side of the road. From a distance he had been deceived as to their size, but up close he saw just how terrible and immense they were- pillars the size of continents which rose up and disappeared into infinity.

The wind roared in his ears. His body shook like a leaf on an aspen.

He wanted to close his eyes but they would not obey him. The space between the mountains was a desert, populated with strange psychedelics-- fires danced here and there, electricity chased and caressed the wind, the air churned with power and smelled of ozone.

The radio finally went dead and his headlights were snuffed out, but the land itself pulsed with light.

His engine quiet, James became aware of the underlying sound of the place, a sound which had been present the whole time but so subtle, so pervasive that he hadn't actively noticed it-- the same way one may not notice the canvas on which the painting is built. Underneath the crackle of electricity arcing through the air overhead, and underneath the rolling thunder of wind between the mountains, there was a sound like the one hears when cupping a conch shell to their ear, a roar like that of the ocean- or of radio interference. But it was like he was inside the shell, that noise girded the air around him and muffled his very movements. It was a white noise that might lull him to sleep or rather: a white noise that might wash away his conscious mind.

He had no way of knowing how long he sat. his car was dead, so was his phone, and so too the watch on his wrist.

He was overwhelmed with a sense that whatever went on here was so sufficiently beyond him that it might as well not happen at all— or even that he might as well not happen at all— but he was still intrigued by the cosmic strangeness and the utter magnitude of his surroundings.

James stepped out of his car, onto a surface which seemed to be entirely fabricated by tightly woven musical strings. The ground beneath his feet felt plucked into perpetual vibration. Or was that the tremor of his own feet?

He stumbled forward, questioning himself even as he did so. There was electricity in the air, he could feel it tingling his skin with a heavily implied threat- electrocution. His hairs stood on end. He knew he should get back to his car, and wait out this strange storm.

But something beyond the blue haze of energy in front of him demanded his attention and his curiosity; it wasn't anything he could see (because he couldn't see anything in the broad darkness beyond) but a general sense of largeness lying somewhere before him, as though he were mere steps from something so terrifyingly huge that it dwarfed the mountains the way they dwarfed him.

He felt doubly insignificant, like a tardigrade standing before a hamster, standing before an elephant.

He walked carefully— his feet burned with a constant worry that the vibrating fibers of the ground beneath him might pull apart at any second. He looked down at dirt beneath him, dusty and as solid as any he'd ever walked upon. He told his nerves to calm down, but the soft crackling of electricity in the air overhead energized all the anxious and excitable parts of him.

He could not deny the urge to discover. And besides: his electronics were disabled, so he'd have to keep on walking until he found someone who might help- never mind the fact that the road had since vanished and he was wandering into what felt like an ancient, untouched wilderness.

He took another jolting step forward, consigning himself to trust in the dust even though his feet were so reluctant.

"Hey there mister, you better slow down. The end comes up sooner than you'd expect."

He whirled around to see a squat looking man with a scraggy white beard and a flannel cap. His face was carved with deep-set wrinkles, and he had an amused smile on his face.

How had he passed this man without seeing him? "Where did you come from?"

The old man chuckled, "Same place you came from most likely. Been a long time."

"Been a long time since what?"

"Since anyone else stumbled through this place- well since any other human stumbled through. I ain't seen another human being since Mineolas left, even though he was here before me. Others came and went, but they were few and far between."

James recognized gentle and benign lunacy in this vagrant, and though he bore the old man no ill will, he lacked the patience to hear any more. "Excuse me, my car is... I dunno. How far to the next town?"

The man raised an eyebrow, but that weird smile never left his face.

James nodded. He wasn't getting any help from this wacko. He turned and kept walking but the little man called after him, "Woah now, did you hear me? The end comes up quick, and if you're not careful you might walk right off before you notice! Watch your step anyhow."

James faltered. "The end? You mean, like a cliff?"

"Yes... And no. A cliff. Yes, I suppose there aint no other way to say it. But not like any other cliff you’ve ever seen… not like back home. Believe me friend, I don't have any interest in mis-steppin' over that edge. It's a long way down to nowhere."

James must have worn a bewildered look on his face, because the old man gave a gentle sigh: "Now, I know I ain't makin' no sense to you. Just relax. If you'll let me, I'll show you what I mean."

James furrowed his brow. He wasn't sure if the old man could be trusted, he had no way of knowing his intentions. But how much harm could he do? The man was frail and slight of frame. James armed himself with secret caution and nodded.

The old man smiled and offered a sweeping gesture, "I'll lead the way."

James looked in the direction that the old man was heading, the land before them quivered with energies both seen and unseen but the space beyond the mountains was empty and black, an utter void which was madness to behold. The emptiness of that space hungrily ate up every light cast in its direction, and yawned carelessly at the world on which they tread.

Even at a distance of what might have been a mile and a half, he felt dangerously close to that pit-- as if he were already dangled precariously over the edge.

And dimly, he remembered his car.

And dimly he wondered how far to the next town.

And dimly he wondered what he'd ask for first-- a towtruck or a shrink.

And the void seemed to rise, to beckon him.

He froze up, and after a few steps the old man turned to him with a gracious smile. "The look on your face reminds me of my own first time. The fear never fully disappears, but it becomes infinitely more manageable after your first successful approach. Still I wont force you to go any farther than you wish."

James trembled in near perfect resonance with the ground beneath his feet. "What is it?"

"After all this time I still don't know. I have my theories but I won't risk spoiling your experience with biased foreknowledge. All I'm willing to tell you is that when you finally build up the courage it'll be worth it."

James swallowed his hesitations, but the quavering in his voice betrayed his lingering fear, "Lead on."

The old man turned wordlessly, reverently, and strode forward with a confidence which was atleast a bit comforting, if not contagious.

The end drew nearer faster than it should have... Experiences showed him again and again time and space weren't so strictly bound in this strange place. Within what seemed like only a few minutes the drop had shed its distance and now loomed at their next step. The old man became utterly still and held up a hand.

James was overwhelmed by a sensation which he initially assumed to be dizziness. But his body was rigid and his physical balance was sturdy. It was his mind which was reeling- ready to fall. He was sandwiched between severe extremes; on the one hand all his senses were bombarded with the flowery and explosive energies which he saw, heard, and felt behind him- and on the other those same senses were left emaciated and bare in the midst of the absolute nothing before him.

He stood at the precipice between all things and no things, at a cliff from which he could leap into the darkness of forever.

But what did it mean? Existence and affirmation pushed right up against the cold wall of nihilism?

To comprehend it was simply impossible. His mind was ready to topple. When words came from the old man and snatched him back from the brink of madness- they seemed to drift to his ears right out of the river of time: "Pretty weird huh?"

James barely felt the old man's good-natured shoulder slap, he was transfixed. All he could do was blink and shake his aching head- it was the dark empty which so strongly captivated his attention... There weren't even stars, nor even lonely motes of dust. There was nothing and nothing and nothing.

It went on forever.

"I'm standing on the edge of nothing. It exists, nothing actually exists."

"Well now you're just not making any sense are you young fella?" The old man's grin was missing pieces, "But don't worry about making sense where there aint none to be had. I feel about the same way. It's awesome and depressing all at the same time. But just take another look at the world around you! The nothing will always be there in your memory, but it won't be so goddamned big once you take your eyes off it. In fact, the world, and the somethings that live in it will seem all the bigger for their existing so close to universal zero. Do you catch my meaning? Life seems pointless when your looking at the darkness beyond, but the fact that life itself exists despite the darkness beyond— well that's nothing short of a miracle. And it’s a contradiction which gives perspective, huh?”

James tried to speak, but it was as though he had forgotten on the basest level how to form words. His mouth gulped at the air and he felt the way he looked: like a fish out of water.

The darkness beyond did nothing to break his internal silence, it's voice was an ever widening grin of something like death.

He tore his eyes away, and found that he had been crying. He turned and left the field of endless empty behind him.

He filled his aching eyes with the trembling reality upon which he stood and that was a blessed relief from the horrible thrill of staring into the void. He threw his hands into the air and the world before him was warm, and cold, and calm and violent— but most importantly: it was.

His tears of cold despair were washed from his face by tears of desperate joy-- they flowed just as hard but they no longer stung.

He ran forward, ever-conscious of the undeniable darkness behind. The old man hobbled after him and laughed as he called, "You young man! Ha! Where do you think you are going?"

James' only response was an inarticulate scream of thrills and excitement. It was like he was seeing everything again for the first time, born again out of the very womb of darker darkness and thrust gasping into the light. And the world was so vibrant and clear he could feel it in his very bones. He half-ran, half-danced in circles, leaping like electricity through the air. He came back around to the old man and clasped him in a shaky embrace.

"Oh!"

The old man only chuckled and returned the embrace.

James reapeated that word, as if it had any power to soothe his inner turmoil, "oh!"

After a while, James opened his trembling arms and released the old man. The old man finally made his reply. "You asked what this place was. I'll tell you my theory if you are ready for it."

In a daze of mental chaos, James sat down and stared into space— but he listened.

The old man said: "This is the end of the world, as far as I can tell. I know there's no spot for it on any map, but I think it's a part of the Earth all the same, a physical part which we can sense and even explore if we happen to find ourselves here. I imagine it like this- the earth is a green lens and this one is purple. They overlap pretty well most of the time, to paint a well rounded picture of our world. But if one of the lenses shift just a bit, there may be a space with no overlap, and if we venture onto that space, the green vanishes and were caught in a field of purple. And then we can see things that are always there but usually hidden."

The old man gestured to the endless abyss behind him. "Now somehow or another once a body finds himself here, he can stay as long as he wants, but there ain't no rhyme nor reason to how one goes about finding himself here. It only ever happens by luck. Or maybe its something more ordained than luck, but it never happens deliberately on the travelers part. Every person who has happened upon this place that I have ever met seemed utterly surprised as if they fell in on accident."

"How many people have you met here?"

The old man shrugged, "Fewer than thirty. They seem to have arrived from all places and all times. Me, I’ve been here for… well I’m not sure how long I’ve been here. Probably the equivalent of a couple hundred years, at least. But time doesn't seem to flow here. Over my visit here, there were a number of people who really stood out-- and I've noticed a sort of pattern."

The old man looked into James' face with that same knowing smile. Hadn't it seemed a lunatic smile on their first meeting?

James wondered if the man's smile had changed or if his perception had.

"The pattern is: the visitors here seem to be tired. I don't just mean sleepy. I mean deeply tired. I mean jaded towards the world and I mean burned out. Maybe even despairing-- those who find themselves here seem to believe that life is pointless and painful."

James tried to speak and realized his mouth was too dry. He forced out a croak, to get the words across: "Does this... Does this place mean life actually does have some meaning?"

Sounds buzzed around them, a constant orchestra of every noise imaginable. The baser parts of every sight and sound he had ever seen or heard were there arrayed in a field of swirling chaos.

And the old man's voice hummed in harmony with all the noise of the buzzing cosmos: "How the fuck should I know? But here's the rub: I don't think anyone can ever know. Even standing here at the edge of it all. And what does it matter? So what if there's a meaning. So what if there's no meaning. Even if life is all a big-- or little-- accident, it's real. We are real. We are here. At least for a little while, we stand in contrast to the nothing. Does being here mean anything? Who gives a shit. We don't need meaning just to have purpose. We exist, shouldn't that be enough?"

James inhaled and stood a little straighter then.

James felt a little less tired then.

And he nodded, because he was real.

And he wondered aloud, for himself and for the stranger "What do you intend to do now?"

***

***

***

Author's note:

This was one of my favorite pieces to write so far. Odd to say, because nothing really happened here. Perhaps this will even amount to a boring read for others, but it was ridiculously fun to write.

I guess that makes the writing very selfish. (Maybe writing this story was... meaningless lol)

To me, the writing was fun because it felt like exploring the idea of absurdism, written as a place, or as a journey to a place. If you're not familiar with the term, absurdism is a branch of philosophy that shares some proximity with existentialism and nihilism. Where existentialism is concerned with questions of the human search for meaning in life, and nihilism contends there is no meaning, absurdism kinda just shrugs and says "who knows (or cares) if there's meaning, we sure as hell don't, so searching for meaning is absurd in and of itself. Let's just live and be cool, bro!"

But that's just me as the writer thinking about this from my own perspective. I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

If you made it to the end, what do you think was the point of this story?

It's okay if you think the story was pointless, as an absurdist I'd almost take that as a compliment.

If you felt it was a waste of your time, sorry!

If you have any feedback I'm wide open to thoughts and critiques.

***

PS

Oh! If you like the idea of absurdism I recommend reading anything by Albert Camus. I don't know if he would have described himself as an absurdist, he probably would have rejected that kind of self-labeling as pointless lol. But absurdists tend to love his stuff!

And if you're in the mood for tunes: I was streaming some random stuff while writing, and this one came on and it seemed to fit the vibe I was going for:

Also if you haven't heard "Straight to Hell" by the Clash (the song James actually heard on the radio, check it out here:

PPS: Thanks to Dharrsheena for the helpful feedback! I edited out those typos, great catch :)