It existed in everything, yet it was nothing.
It knew every living thing that existed had a name for it, or an idea of it, but those thoughts themselves were too elusive to rationalize, even for the ones that could. It had been here since the beginning, and now, after so many eons, it was growing tired. It was energy, binding all things together, making the worlds it watched over whole, and breathing life into those that could sustain it.
Long ago it had sensed its own demise, and over time it had grown accustomed to the idea. Since it was more a form of energy than a physical being it thought it lacked the emotional depth for self-pity or sorrow. Even now as the universe it had held together for so long unraveled, and each spark of life it had helped nurture vanished from existence, it could not find the slightest regret. If it could feel anything it thought there might be relief, knowing that it too will finally drift away.
At the center of everything it waited, watching for what was out there eating away at its edges. As it waited it wondered if it was fear that kept it from going to meet its end, but it decided there was no fear for it. It was everything, and it could not fade until the last of everything faded. So it did the only thing it could. It waited for the end to find it.
In a flash of thought it left the center, traveling in an instant to a far away field. Above it was a bright blue sky that was already beginning to darken as the end quickly approached. There were living things in the field, and it sensed they called themselves people, and he could also sense their growing alarm at what was happening around them.
The warm breeze they were enjoying moments before was no longer there, and the scent of the long grass and wild flowers that had filled the air was also gone. That emptiness caused their alarm, and as they watched the birds and insects disappear, the grass and the flowers turn brown and shrivel, their alarm turned into fear.
At first it tried to calm them, hoping to fill their minds with the idea that there would be no pain. Then it began to realize it could not know what they felt, or what they could feel, as they watched their own die before their eyes. And in that moment it finally understood why it could not feel regret or fear, or its own happiness or sadness. It had always been alone. Immersing itself in their thoughts and minds it could feel their fear slowly seeping in, and with it what it thought might be happiness, because it could finally feel, even if it was at the end.
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©2010 Larry Green
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