Gray clouds like plumes of smoke tower overhead, nearly blotting the sun from the sky. And here we are in June, 17 days before the start of summer, and a hard snow begins to fall. In neighborhoods everywhere, people can be seen running. They’re all rushing to get home, eager to reunite with friends and family. Because everyone knows the end of the end is getting closer.
Everyone used to think the end would come as a fire from the sky, be it from nuclear weaponry or a meteor from space. The type of mass extinction event you see in the movies.
But that isn’t how it happens.
Day by day, the sun is slowly fading. Its death is occurring at a glacial pace,
so
slow
it
isn’t
discernible to the naked eye.
Remember when you thought you had time? Time to visit those distant islands? Time to visit Joshua Tree?
You and me.
Just me and you.
We’ll finally visit Paris. We’ve been putting it off for years.
We will climb the Eiffel Tower.
And there,
I will drop to a knee
and ask you to marry me
again.
And it will be the most beautiful thing we will ever see. So beautiful that decades later, we’ll find ourselves sharing tears of fondness. We’ll look at the photographs I took of the panorama of you and me.
And I’ll look at you,
and you will look at me
and smile.
We were so happy.
We were so young.
Remember when you thought you had the time to do all those things?
You don’t.
You never actually had the time.
Time is the reflection you see in the mirror,
gazing back at you,
but just for this moment.
A small moment of impermanence.
And in neighborhoods everywhere, a June snow falls, and people are rushing home to be with the ones they love.
Because the end of the end is coming. And it will be here sooner than you think.