Quickening

The roses on the windowsill are wilting. Which doesn’t make any sense; Maggie bought them only yesterday, fresh from the florist’s. They were meant to be a centerpiece for tonight, and now she’ll have to toss them. It just doesn’t make any sense — but then, not much in the world makes sense anymore. The news is overflowing with uncertainty, and it seems the chaos is only accelerating. Ever since the plague, her thoughts have become increasingly entropic. Late at night, when everyone’s asleep, a familiar anxiety takes hold. The worry manifests as dark whispering in her ear, reminders of her lack of control and the relentless decay underpinning her fragile existence.

Standing in the kitchen now, staring at the roses, Maggie considers what her father might say — “Don’t dwell on your worries, my dear!” — and of course, her father is always right. So Maggie pushes the roses from her mind. The pheasant is in the oven, where it’s been roasting since noon. The harvest salad is freshly tossed; heaping bowls of couscous and mashed potatoes are waiting to be served. She eyes the clock above the oven, shocked to discover it’s already half past four. The deep blue November sky beyond the kitchen window seems darker than it should. Time has become so strange lately, upended by two years spent inside — long, anxious days and nights just waiting for the plague to end. Days that felt like years, and yet, having passed, now seem like a dream.

Maggie bastes the pheasant, sets the timer for another 30 minutes. She pours herself a glass of merlot, savoring the heady aroma of the wine commingled with the smell of roasting meat. As she sips the wine — her second glass today — her thoughts turn to the evening ahead.

She’s been planning this Thanksgiving feast for weeks. The family hasn’t gotten together since before her mother passed, nearly five years ago. Relations between Margaret and her brother Jonathan have been strained since their mother’s death and the ensuing spat over their literary inheritance: their mother’s rare book collection. The matter is still unsettled, though her father stalled it by placing everything into a trust until his own passing. It would be easier if her father simply told them how he planned to divide the library. But that information goes unspoken, like a test. Malcolm Stonewall is 81, but his philosopher’s mind is sharp as steel.

In any case, Jonathan is too busy with his doctorate work to make any initiative toward bridging the divide. Yet somehow she’s convinced him to come to dinner tonight, and it will be good to catch up, as pompous as he usually is. Her brother is a celebrated physicist, preeminent in his field. He has published essays on the nature of space-time and quantum entanglement; he has spoken at conferences around the country, lectured at Princeton. He is also a high-functioning alcoholic.

Maggie finds her husband in the dining room, setting silverware and plates. He’s listening to an interview on NPR playing from a speaker beside the mantel above a dying fire.

“Dr. Richard Neyman,” the host says. “I was wondering if you could explain to our listeners what your team has found?”

”Terry, we are dealing with an unprecedented temporal phenomenon,” the guest replies, “the full implications of which have yet to be determined. In all probability, this ‘Acceleration Event’ has been occurring for some time, just beyond the limits of our perception. Even with our most accurate tools of observation, there exists dispute amongst the scientific community concerning the issue of subjectivity.”

“Subjectivity?”

“Yes. Not everyone is experiencing the phenomenon simultaneously, which is — ”

Maggie takes the remote and switches off the speaker. Something about the interview unsettles her. Her husband watches her uncertainly, a frown crinkling his dignified visage.

“I was listening to that, hon,” Michael says. “It was fascinating.”

“It’s quarter till five,” Maggie tells him. “My father will be here any minute. I’m going to get the salads set, would you light some candles and add wood to the fire? And play some music — you know Dad likes classical …”

“Of course, hon.”

Maggie returns to the kitchen and brings out bowls of salad, noticing to her dismay that the arugula looks strangely limp, as if it were several days old. She needs everything to be perfect. The family will be reunited by the end of the night, and with a bit of luck, the quarrel over her mother’s books will be settled.

Michael has put on classical music, and as he lights a row of white candles, the whimsical opening notes of The Moldau fill the dining room.

“It was such a strange interview just now,” Michael tells her. He finishes lighting the candles and stoops near the hearth, adding two large birch logs to the fire. “Something about weird happenings with time? It went a little over my head, to be honest.”

Maggie laughs. “I’m sure my brother will be happy to enlighten you.”

Michael grins at her. “No doubt.”

Maggie goes to the kitchen and fetches two glasses and the bottle of merlot. She pours the wine, hands a glass to Michael. He stares intently at the flames licking the firewood.

“Wine before dinner, dear?”

“It’s my third glass, actually … maybe I should’ve bought a few more bottles for tonight?”

Michael shakes his head. “There isn’t enough wine in Italy with your brother coming.”

Maggie laughs. They drink in silence, and then Michael takes a step closer, so that she can smell the sweet-sour scent of the wine on his breath.

“You look lovely tonight,” her husband says, his eyes taking in the black satin dress she’s wearing. He slides his hands around her waist. They kiss deeply, as if given permission by the wine. His hands slide down the curves of her hips, while hers link around his neck. She feels giddy, almost weightless. Suddenly she’s so excited she’s almost reeling, and the pleasure of the moment is spoiled by a rushing spike of anxiety. God, Maggie thinks, I already feel hung-over! Like I could pass out.

She pulls away, her face flushed. Michael tries to steady her but she reels backward, arms flailing. At the last second, she catches herself on the back of a chair. Her daughter’s black cat, Dolores, meows warily from her hiding place beneath the table. Maggie leans forward on the chair, breathing rapidly. Her back is turned to her husband. He places his arms gently on her shoulders.

“You okay, hon? You looked ready to faint!”

Maggie tries to laugh, but all that emerges is a harsh exhalation. She can feel her heart pounding in her chest and forces herself to take slow, deep breaths. “I’m fine,” she says nervously. “Maybe a little light-headed. Must be all the wine.”

“Spoken like a lush,” Michael says with a half-smile, but she registers the worry in his voice.

“It’s stupid; I forgot to eat anything all day. I’ve been so busy getting everything ready for tonight …”

“Oh, honey. Stay there.”

Michael walks to the kitchen, returns with a glass of water and a biscuit. Maggie drains the glass in one gulp and devours the biscuit. She didn’t realize she was so ravenous.

Michael sighs, studying her. “You know you don’t have to try so hard to impress him. Your brother.”

Maggie is silent for a moment. “I just want things to be how they were before Mom died. Before — ”

She’s interrupted by the melodic chiming of the doorbell. “That’s my dad.” Maggie stands abruptly, smoothing her dress. She opens the door and her father greets her with his warm, sagacious smile. Malcolm Stonewall is dressed in a tweed suit and plaid fedora, and his neatly trimmed white beard smells of his cologne, an anise scent that fills Maggie with nostalgia, reminding her of childhood expeditions into the catacomb-like basement library in her parents’ house.

“Hello Magpie!” her father exclaims, hugging her close. To Maggie, he looks essentially the same as he always has. “It smells wonderful in here.”

Michael is seated on the settee by the fireplace, a distracted expression on his face which vanishes when he notices Maggie and her father. “Dr. Stonewall!” he exclaims, rising to shake Malcolm’s hand. “You’re looking well. Care for a glass of wine?”

“Michael, good to see you,” her father says brightly. “That sounds excellent.”

Michael retrieves the wine as Malcolm sits in the armchair opposite the settee. Her husband hands Maggie a glass, and she takes a cautious sip. Pace yourself. The three of them sit around the coffee table, drinking wine and listening to the music. She involuntarily shivers, a chilly draft washing over her legs, and she realizes why Michael had that look on his face earlier. The fire he tended to has already died; she’s shocked to see there are only a pile of ashes on the grate.

“So!” her father says cheerfully. “Where are my grandkids?”

“Lily’s taking photos down at the park,” Maggie says. “Did I tell you she won a photography competition at school?”

“Oh, that’s wonderful,” Malcolm says. “She’s always had a unique eye.”

“And Zach is …” Maggie falters for a second. Zachary, her eldest, hasn’t texted back all afternoon.

“Probably driving around with that punk crew of his,” Michael says dejectedly.

Malcolm laughs. “Well, the boy is seventeen, after all. And how’s the high school life?”

“The library’s the same as ever,” Maggie says.

Her husband sighs. “Everyone’s a little behind in the classroom since the plague. And you know, they’re so impatient when it comes to learning history.”

“I’m sure,” Malcolm agrees.

Maggie polishes off the dregs of her wine. She stifles a yawn. It feels to her as though several hours have passed since her father arrived instead of only 20 minutes. She realizes with embarrassment that she’s actively fighting sleep. She isn’t alone; both Michael and her father have lapsed into silence, their eyes lightly closed.

“Cup of coffee, anyone?” she asks, rising unsteadily to her feet.

“Oh yes, thank you,” her father says. “Don’t know why I’m so exhausted all of a sudden. I hardly did anything all day!” Michael shakes his head slowly.

She’s headed toward the kitchen when she stops in her tracks, staring straight ahead, mouth agape. She checks the clock next to the television, then looks back to the window.

“What’s the matter, Maggie?” Malcolm asks from the living room.

“It’s so dark outside,” she says quietly, almost to herself. “Isn’t that strange? It shouldn’t even be close to sunset, but it’s pitch black out.”

Michael and her father walk over to where she stands facing the kitchen window. There’s a long silence as they struggle to make sense of it, and then her father murmurs beside her, “Yes, odd indeed …” They stand studying the starless, uncanny midnight sky with a growing sense of unease.

Maggie snaps out of her paralysis with a start. She can smell something burning in the kitchen. She feels the light-headedness rising again, only now it makes her want to scream instead of faint. She feels she might, if not for the sudden, shrill beeping of the smoke detector.

She races into the kitchen, eyes burning against the smoke. Michael throws open the windows and freezing air rushes in. “Oh God, the pheasant!” Maggie hastily dons oven mitts, trying not to inhale the acrid fumes. She pulls out the blackened meat in a rush of smoke. Michael is standing on a stool, swatting at the smoke detector, which finally ceases its beeping.

Maggie’s eyes are brimming with tears as she swats smoke clumsily through the open window, but it’s working. The air is clearing. She’s sweating from the effort, staring vapidly at the scorched animal which was to have been their main course. She was positive she’d set the timer for another half-hour.

The doorbell chimes from the living room. “Whoa!” exclaims a high, musical voice from behind her. “What happened in here?”

Maggie turns to find Lily, her 15-year-old, pinching her nose against the lingering smoke. Lily’s blonde hair is tied back in a ponytail, and her windbreaker is filthy. A vintage Nikon hangs from a strap around her neck. Behind Lily stands a middle-aged man with coiffed salt-and-pepper hair, dressed in a suit and tie, his piercing dark eyes staring behind owl-rimmed glasses. Standing awkwardly beside him is a slender young black man in a bespoke white suit. Her brother’s latest paramour looks barely old enough to be one of his students.

“Mother, I found these strange men and decided to take them home with me once it became dark all of a sudden!” Lily announces. “Is dinner ruined?” She doesn’t wait for Maggie to answer. “Should we order Chinese instead?” she continues hopefully. “We should probably order Chinese, huh?”

Malcolm pulls his granddaughter in for a hug. “It’s nice to see you, Lily!”

“It’s nice to see you too, Grandpa!”

Maggie’s father and husband turn to greet Jonathan and his guest. “Jonathan,” Malcolm says, “you’re looking sharp as ever.”

Jonathan gestures to the young man beside him. “This is Travis, he’s one of my research fellows. And he’s quite the fellow, indeed!” He chuckles dryly at his own stupid joke.

Travis extends a hand to Malcolm. “A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Stonewall. And — this is your sister, Jon?”

He glances at Maggie, who’s struggling to keep her poise after the kitchen disaster. She realizes they’re all looking at her.

“Yes — Maggie,” she says politely, shaking his hand. “And this is my husband Michael, and you’ve met Lily, obviously. I have a son somewhere, too, but he’s running late. Thank you for joining us.”

“You have a lovely home,” Travis says. “Happy Thanksgiving.” Michael moves to take their coats as Maggie pours Jonathan and Travis glasses of wine.

“Sorry for the smell,” she says. “There must be something wrong with the oven. But I bought a roast chicken from the store, and there’s plenty of sides.”

Lily frowns, looking disappointed. “So, no Chinese then?”

* * *

The six of them sit around the long rosewood dining table, faces illuminated by the candles and dim light of the chandelier. The sky outside is the same deep black; it might as well be three in the morning. The conversation is predictable: the mounting political and economic crises, a new virus recently discovered in Türkiye. Maggie is distracted by the salad they’re eating, which she had made fresh yet tastes decidedly bland — limp and wilted instead of crisp.

“I just hope the president pushes these environmental policies,” Michael is saying. “We haven’t got long as a species at this rate, with climate change accelerating as it is …”

“No, not long at all now,” Jonathan says flatly. He’s been acting strange since he arrived, as if he were attending a funeral instead of Thanksgiving dinner.

“Well, I doubt any of us will be around to see the collapse,” Malcolm says. “Except for Lily, maybe. You’re fifteen, dear?”

“Yes,” Lily says.

“I still think of myself as the same man I was at eighteen,” Malcolm says. “But then I look in the mirror.”

Maggie sees that Lily isn’t paying attention. She’s staring at the candles, which have all melted to nothing. “Why have the candles melted?” she asks curiously.

“They’re supposed to burn for eight hours,” Michael says, frowning. “That’s strange …”

Maggie rises slowly from the table, feeling oddly jet-lagged. She goes to the kitchen and takes the chicken from where it’s been warming in the oven. Thankfully the chicken isn’t burned, but its skin is mottled with a weird, grayish discoloration. She ignores it.

When she returns to the dining room, Michael opens a new bottle of wine. The adults refill their glasses as Maggie gives a toast.

“I know we haven’t been together as a family since Mom passed,” she says. “It’s just so nice to have everyone together! There’s plenty to be thankful for this coming year.”

“Hear, hear!” her father says, raising his glass.

They clink their glasses and drink. Maggie immediately spits out her wine. It’s terrible, acidic as vinegar. The adults around her are experiencing the same disgust.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with the wine!” she exclaims helplessly. “Michael and I had some earlier, it was fine…” She notices her brother and Travis have gone pale, their faces stone-like.

“I’m sorry,” she says uncomfortably. “There’s another bottle in the kitchen, I can get it —”

“It’s not the wine,” Jonathan interjects.

“What?”

“It’s not the wine,” he says again, louder this time. Beside him, Travis is shaking his head slowly. He looks terrified.

“What are you talking about?” Maggie asks.

Jonathan exhales harshly, staring into his wine glass. “There’s — something happening, right now,” he says quietly. “A space-time phenomenon.”

“Oh!” Michael chimes in. “I think they were talking about that on the radio, before you got here. They called it an ‘acceleration event’?”

“Right,” Jonathan says, nodding. “Essentially, our understanding of time has begun to accelerate, globally. Well, universally, that is — non-locally. In my department, they’re calling it the ‘Quickening’.”

“What does that mean?” Maggie asks, bewildered. It is so quiet she can hear her heartbeat pulsing much too fast, like a hummingbird’s. The acute awareness of her heart — its elemental, unceasing nature — only heightens her anxiety.

Jonathan takes a sip of the spoiled wine, grimaces, then takes a longer drink. He looks newly focused, his eyes smoldering with academic intensity. Maggie’s brother’s hair seems grayer, and her husband’s as well. Their faces are gaunt, ashen, lined with wrinkles that hadn’t been there ten minutes ago. Staring at them, she thinks of the sky, and the roses, and, and …

And the chicken, Maggie sees, is mottled with green and gray blooms of mold upon the serving dish, as if it were several weeks old. She is frozen with abject horror. It is actively molding as she observes it.

“Mom,” Lily says suddenly, sounding worried, “where’s Dolores? I haven’t seen her since I got home. She usually comes right to me!”

“I’m sure she’s around somewhere,” Michael says hopefully. “Maybe she’s hiding?”

Lily rises from the table, looking worried. “Dolores?” She walks down the hall toward her bedroom, calling for her cat.

Maggie feels as though time has become a palpable presence: a felt thing, demonic and unseen. Time is like something passing through her, not something which she passes through.

“The salad was delicious, Mrs. Olsen,” Travis says politely. Maggie sees sweat beading on his face. All of them are willfully ignoring the chicken. Its rotting stench fills the room.

“Son,” Maggie’s father says quietly, “why don’t you tell us what you know about this ‘Quickening’?”

Jonathan seems to turn something over in his mind. “Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll have the time to — ”

There’s a high-pitched shrieking from down the hall. Lily walks into the living room, cradling something in her arms. Maggie gasps; it’s Dolores’s lifeless body.

“I don’t understand,” Lily says, sobbing. She’s absent-mindedly stroking Dolores’ fur. “She was fine earlier …”

Michael rises to comfort Lily. “Oh, honey.” He takes the cat from her arms, carrying it to the settee in the living room. “I’m so sorry, Lils …” But his hands come away with mats of fur; he is holding jelly-like meat sloughing off of bones like gleaming porcelain. Maggie screams.

Maggie peers at her family through a dreamlike haze. Is it her imagination how her husband and daughter seem to be illuminated intermittently — glowing and fading again? She looks around the table, weighed down, as if the air were made of molasses. Her guests are staring beyond Michael and Lily through the living room windows. The sky beyond is changing before their eyes, the deep velvet black brightening into the blue of dusk, and only moments later, the pale pink light of morning …

“Close the curtains,” Jonathan says suddenly. His fingers pressed to his temples. “Someone should close the curtains. It’ll get worse.”

Michael closes the curtains and then strides to the kitchen and shuts the blinds. Even so, the alternating gloom and glow beyond the windows remains an eerie presence. Maggie has a sudden memory of acting in a play in high school. The way the stage lights shone through the artificial set windows in a mimicry of reality — that is how the light feels now. Artificial, as if they are only actors on a stage.

Maggie closes her eyes. When she opens them, her husband and daughter are seated at the table. Lily looks drained, her eyes fixed on her cat’s rotting corpse.

“We only have working theories about the phenomenon,” Jonathan says quietly. “Relativity posits that both gravity and speed affect time. Time moves faster the farther you are from earth’s gravity, and slower the faster you physically move. Using atomic cesium clocks, it’s been confirmed that watches tick at different speeds whether you’re in active motion. In an experiment in 1971— “

“You’ve got to freaking hurry!” Travis snaps suddenly. “It’s just happening so fast,” he adds, apologetically.

“Yes, well,” Jonathan says irritably. “This is the crux: gravitational waves warp both space and time. This Quickening might be the result of a rogue gravitational wave, causing an inverse reaction. Einstein proposed an oscillating model of the universe, bookended by Big Bangs and Big Crunches. Cosmic expansion, then cosmic contraction. So perhaps this is a kind of hyper-rapid expansion.”

There follows an uneasy silence.

“Nothing is truly known,” Malcolm says lightly. His eyes are half-closed; he seems to be on the verge of sleep.

“Sure, Dad,” Jonathan admits. “Only that this Quickening event seems to be … exponential in nature.”

“Exponential,” Malcolm repeats thoughtfully. He glances toward the shifting light beyond the window, which is approaching the hypnotic pulse of a strobe light. Days pass like seconds, fading into one another like waves upon a shore. Relentless. “Well!” he exclaims brightly. “Nothing to be done about it, then.” He rises from his chair. “If you’ll excuse me, the armchair is calling my name.”

Maggie watches her father saunter off to the living room.

“How much time is left, Uncle Jonathan?” Lily asks.

Jonathan sighs. “I’ve no idea, Lily.”

“You know,” Michael says thoughtfully, “the Incans regarded time and space as a singular entity. They believed a global cataclysm would occur, Pacha Kut Iq, where the levels of their cosmology would merge, and time would blend into the physical world…”

“Those damn Incans, man!” calls a light-hearted male voice from down the hall. Maggie and her family turn in surprise to see her eldest, Zachary, walk into the dining room. Zach is a lanky adolescent on the cusp of manhood, with long black hair and an easy smile. His eyes are red, the pupils wide and black as a shark’s. He’s eating a banana.

“Zach!” Maggie exclaims. “When did you get home?”

“Just now. I came in through the bathroom window,” he says, grinning. He takes a bite of his banana, which is bruised and growing blacker before their eyes. He gestures vaguely to the flickering windows. “Man, this is so weird, ’cause time seems to be moving real slow for me.” Maggie vaguely registers that he is high on something.

“Not for us. Dolores is dead,” Lily tells him reproachfully.

“Oh, jeez,” Zach says. “That sucks!” He tries to take the last bite of his banana, but it turns into a black sludge which oozes through his fingers, dripping onto the carpet. “Oh man,” he says, watching the sludge bloom with white mold and begin to disintegrate. “I think I’m starting to freak out, actually …”

Maggie realizes that her teenaged children look to be in their thirties. Michael and Jonathan and Travis have aged rapidly as well. Travis has lost his hair, and they’ve grown unkempt beards. She wants to scream, but she lacks the strength.

“Margaret,” croaks a voice from the living room, which she barely recognizes as her father’s. “Would you please bring me a glass of water?”

“Oh!” she cries. “Of course, Dad.” She rushes to the kitchen and fills a glass, barely registering how badly her joints ache. She finds her father lying in the armchair and knows with one glance that he is dying. That he is, in fact, moments from death.

“Oh, my sweet Magpie,” her father says softly, his eyes wet with tears. He looks impossibly old, his clothes hanging off his bones. His skin is paper-thin, nearly translucent. She can see every snaking blue vein. She holds the water to her father’s lips, helps him take a long, slow sip.

“When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced,” her father whispers softly, “the rich proud cost of outworn buried age …” His voice is so weak she has to lean closely to hear. She is faintly aware of her family watching from the dining room, but they are so remote they might as well be on the moon. “When I have seen such interchange of state,” her father’s whispering intently, “or state itself confounded to decay …”

“Dad?” she asks, staring desperately at her father. His words are familiar — Shakespeare, she thinks, one of the sonnets her mother loved — but she wants him to recognize her. She wants closure.

“Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,” Malcolm sighs, “that time will come and take my love away …”

Her father’s eyes flutter and remain open, lifeless and milky-white.

“Dad?” she asks helplessly. “Dad?”

Even as she says the words his body is growing stiff, then swollen. The smell becomes unbearable. Her father’s body begins rotting before her eyes: thin skin bursting, flesh sloughing off bones like boiled meat. Maggie vomits, her body crying out in pain as she stumbles toward the dining room, where her family has turned away from the horror in the living room. Her brother and his lover stand apart from her immediate family, shell-shocked. Her family is so aged they appear as strangers, and she wonders how much time has passed in the last few minutes. Years? Decades?

She begins to grasp the weight of the word exponential. Like infections that soared during the plague: a trickle at first, then a deluge. No graph or algorithm can articulate the horrifying reality of what exponential means. Maggie’s thoughts churn in a neural maelstrom. She feels the chaos swirling inside her, furious and black.

“I love you so much,” Jonathan is saying to Travis, holding him in a tight embrace. Their wrinkled faces are wet with tears. Maggie glances at the backs of her hands, the skin branching nascent veins like time-lapsed tree roots. “You can do this,” Jonathan’s murmuring intently to his lover. “It’s just like we discussed. It won’t hurt.”

Maggie watches in shock as Jonathan takes two ampoules from his pocket and hands one to Travis. Jonathan looks directly at Maggie, his face drawn and ancient in the strobing light beyond the windows. “It was good to see you again, sister,” he says sadly. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long. I’m sorry we ever fought about something so trivial. In the scheme of things, none of it mattered.”

Maggie nods, unable to speak. She watches helplessly as her brother and Travis bite into the ampoules. The two of them shiver for a moment, arms clasped around the other, then fall soundlessly to the pile carpet.

She pulls her eyes away with effort, feeling the life force leave her body like the draining of a clogged sink. Her straining heart beats beneath her skin like the stubborn ticking of an antique metronome. Every single thing grows old, breaks down, disappears. Even her mother’s ancient books which she loves so much. She’s always known their cloying vanilla scent was only the chemical side effect of decaying paper. Her body throbs in pain as she struggles to walk over to her husband and children, where they stand facing the kitchen, huddled together.

“My goodness, how the time has flown!” Lily says in a sing-song voice. Her eyes are vacant. She’s smiling insanely, holding the head of her dead cat. “How did it get so late so soon?” The words trigger nostalgia deep within Maggie. In this moment, all she wants is to hug her family, join their embrace, but the world is blurring with each agonizing step. The metronome of her heart has loosed a spring. Her dying thought, bizarrely, is wondering when the first clock was made. Who decided how to set the time?

* * *

Time no longer has a reference beyond the cosmic, unmoored by human perception. But if someone were to perceive transpiring events, they would see a suburban home covered in dust, walls stained yellow with age. Seven skeletons on the floor in rotting rags. Centuries pass in what once were known as seconds. The planet spins madly on its axis, increasingly silent as species die off. The Quickening accelerates until even bacteria no longer have a window in which to reproduce.

The oceans rise and recede; forests bloom and atrophy. Entire ecosystems die in stark confusion. Tectonic plates collide as mountains diverge and converge in insane amalgamations, like a deranged cosmic child pummeling a wad of Play-Doh. Oceans evaporate before the punishing sun swelling in the inky void. The red giant devours the Earth like a hungry god, satiated only for a fleeting moment of a handful of billions of years before shriveling like a leaky balloon, the white dwarf ejecting plumes of gas and dust into the fast-expanding cosmos — just one more star losing its mass, expended of fuel and dying. One by one across trillions of light-years the mass extinction of old stars outpaces the birthing supernovas of new ones until the expanse of the universe is only a power grid going dark. Entropy reigns. Heat death rushes. Cold becomes colder. Dark grows darker.

The ancient universe, its protons stretched to infinity, races headlong toward inevitable death. And then, mid-motion, seems to pause. Perhaps, to think.

And draw a shaking breath.