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The End of the World
by Sabrina West
I dreamed last night that the world ended.
In my dream, existence was a vast golden lake. It stretched out past the horizon, shimmering placidly in the sunlight. I turned and watched as the waters brushed against a cliff. Time went by, and the lake rose up the wall of rock.
When the waters reached their cusp, everything hovered for in perfect stillness. There was no movement, no sound except that of wavelets lapping against stone.
Then a vortex formed, and the lake was sucked down into nothingness.
#
From my chair beside the window, I can see the gardens. All of us here at the hospice are free to roam their paths, but I can never bring myself to stroll through the heady scent of autumn roses. I prefer to sit in my room and contemplate the absolute ruin of my life.
"Too late for regrets now,” she says, leaning over my shoulder.
“I know,” I say. Her proximity makes me self-conscious. Her hair is shining, her skin soft and rosy. That perfection only accentuates my flaws: dull eyes, stringy hair, and skin stretched tight over brittle bones.
I look instead at the walls of my room. All the living quarters here are beautiful. There are soft cushions, wallpaper and quilts in muted aqua tones. But each night the walls close in around me and I feel that I’m drowning in the endless blue, surrounded by the sweet stench of slowly dying flowers. I don’t understand why they keep bringing us flowers. They can keep them fresh for a time, but not forever. If they leave too much water in an attempt to preserve them a bit longer, the flowers don’t just wilt—they rot.
She sits down next to me. “Shh, my love. It won’t be long now.”
“I know.”
“Not long,” she repeats, gently stroking the parchment skin of my arm. Despite myself, I lean to her touch, craving it.
A door opens behind me. “Is there anything you need, Felicia?” It’s one of the nurses.
“No,” I say without turning around.
“Nothing? Not even some company?”
“Nothing.”
“All right then,” she says in a disappointed tone. “I’ll be back with your dinner in a few hours.” The door clicks shut.
The nurses whisper behind my back. “Poor dear,” they say.. “No one left to care for her. She just sits and stares out the window all day, murmuring to herself. Poor thing, there’s nothing worse than to die alone.”
But I’m not alone. I have her. She came to me, and she is mine. She is me, a mirror
image of everything I was and everything I should have become.
I am not crazy, and I’m not imagining things. Impending death and crushing pain tend to bring a certain clarity of vision. Pain defines my life now. Pain, and constant waiting to see which of my vital functions the tumors will cut off next.
She lays her hand gently over mine. “It doesn’t have to end that way,” she says. “We can finish this on our own terms.” She turns our hands over so that I can see the bottle of sleeping pills.
She is me, and she is something else. Something cruel.
“I don’t know why you ask if I want this,” I say... “You already know my answer.”
“But I have to ask, if I am to take you with me. It’s required.”
I nod my acquiescence, but I’ve lost interest. I’m staring out at the gardens again. That way, when I close my eyes for the last time, I will have the memory of flowers etched under my eyelids.
She leans over me, and her face fills my vision. I look up and see compassion, longing. A flicker of hunger in her suddenly inhuman eyes.
“Believe me,” she says. “There are worse things than dying alone.”
#
I dreamed last night that my life ended. Then my dream cracked and bled into reality and now I’m stuck forever in this one moment: the soft pillow under my hair, thick oily tears coursing down my cheeks, the bitter taste of pills on my tongue.
Some will call me foolish for giving my soul away without fully comprehending the implications. But I would rather risk the unknown than face that vortex. After it sucked away the lake, it lingered, and I looked into its depths. There was something there beyond my comprehension, something terrifying and unfathomable.
Something far crueler than what is lying beside me now.
I close my eyes as I begin to slip away. I want to reach out to all I left behind, but she holds both my hands tightly now, and I am choked off from memory and pain.
In this last moment, as I die, I can still recall the waters at their peak: golden, shining. Perfect.
© West, 2010
Sabrina West is in the process of completing her Master's Degree in Zoology in the wilds of San Diego, California. Previous stories of hers have appeared in the Santa Clara Review, From the Asylum, and Crimson Highway.