even now, even as his death ran, freezing cold and liquid, down the back of his neck, down his arms, through his lungs, when he looked at her his stomach jumped.

last minute panic had long since immersed itself, becoming quietness, becoming waiting. the supermarkets and the shopping malls had been looted, cars had been tipped over, buildings set alight.

on the television, final messages repeated over and over, the broadcasting stations left behind forever. presidents and dictators and scientists and religious figureheads, all with the same look on their face. all with the same last words on their tongue. "we're sorry... we don't know anything else... we can't do anything else... we're sorry."

there had always been mentions of progress, progress from separate countries, the world's superpowers, and then progress from the entire planet as their programs bonded together. it was the first time in hundreds and hundreds of years that there was no tension between nations. there were no threats made. there was no war. conferences were held and everyone attended, without exclusion. if the circumstances had been different, it would have been a massive step toward peace for humankind.

they had ended their theorizing a long time ago. all the attempts and the heroes and the great ideas that would save humankind. all of models of their plans, they were as useless and cast out as every other scrap of matter on the face of the earth. none of it mattered anymore. it didn't really matter that they had tried. it didn't even matter that they had failed. it just was.

in these last days, everyone had spent their time choosing what they wanted to be doing when it happened. family members who hadn't seen each other for years, separated by bad blood and hard-headedness, flew into each other's arms and sobbed apologies, sobbed forgiveness. children who had been abused and neglected were showered with affection from their parents whose eyes spilled over with tears for the awful things they had done. millions gathered in churches and synagogues and temples where they sang with felicity to the heavens and thanked their supreme beings for the thousands of years the earth had been granted. husbands and wives, estranged by the demands of the workplace and broken by the expectations of society, spoke with more eloquence than the greatest of writers and more loveliness than the sweetest of songs about what had keep them apart. lovers curled up together and made each other cry and laugh.

he and the friends who had made his life feel alive built a gigantic bonfire in the middle of a park, burning their furniture and all of the money withdrawn from their bank accounts. they played music for one another and danced around the flames, read excerpts of the most private of their thoughts, held each other with all of the strength in their muscles.

his best friend since grade school, his eyes red from crying, hugs him fiercely. before he goes to be with the woman who has made him more young than he has ever been for the past ten years, he says, "we will leave this world as wonderfully as we came into it. i love you."

he sits for a moment by himself, and then he looks at her. his breath is taken. she looks up.

she lets go of her friend's hand and kisses her on the cheek. she stands and she walks over to him. "i can't stand this. i can't stand watching everyone die."

he says, "then let's watch the world live."

his eyes are very wet. he hasn't cried since he was a child but this seems like an appropriate time. he feels like a child, anyway. he thinks that everyone probably does.

they leave the park behind and come out onto the streets. they pick their way over rubble and abandoned shopping carts, around cars parked in the middle of the road. all of the windows of the bordering shops are smashed, their glass dusting the sidewalks like glitter. graffiti is painted everywhere, on the asphalt and the storefronts. "prepare to meet your maker", "blame god". it used to feel like a war scene. now this feels like a museum. they gaze at the exhibits that mark the last day of the human race.

at a distance you can see groups of people gathered. many are outdoors. they don't look at the sky. they don't look for the end. they look into each other's eyes.

they pass a group of men and women dressed in ragged clothes. they stand together around a fire burning in a trash can, drinking a bottle of champagne from crystal stem glasses and laughing quietly. a man calls out, "my brother and sister, may your last moments be in peace!" they smile and wave and continue on their way.

they turn into an alley and crawl their way over a dumpster. they reach a fire escape and climb.

from the top of the building they can see the sun going down to kiss the horizon. they sit on the edge with their feet dangling. they kick off their shoes and socks, peel off their jackets. it is a warm day. a mile off someone is setting off a display of fireworks. they grin at each other for no particular reason and stare off into the sky.

for a long time, they don't speak.

and then, "this isn't the end, you know." his voice is like the croak of sparrow.

"no?"

"no." he clears the knot out of his throat. "the violence of death will be terrible. it will pound in every blood vessel of the universe, deep down into its cracks, shaking it like hell, hurting it in every way it can be hurt." he suddenly feels as if he has been waiting to say this his entire life. he feels as if he has been writing this his entire life. it feels as if his entire life has been leading up to these words. "right after we... we die, the universe will mourn with every bit of its being. planets will reach out for their sister and, finding her destroyed, weep. stars in galaxies lightyears and lightyears away will cry out in our absence. the sheer emptiness of space will ache for the end of the earth. but then things will become very, very still. creation will hold its breath. it will pause on the threshold of a world without all the beauty we had to offer. it will rock back and forth, shocked to silence. in that moment, the possibility of anything else ever happening will be unfathomable. it will find itself unable to go on. then, inhalation. with a great thrill it falls off the edge of logic, of knowledge, of anything anyone has ever known, and, glistening with tears of bitter joy, flies into the great unknown of the future. it soars toward an infinite number of happinesses that are to come. it is enlightened. it is more blissful than our minds can understand right now. but we will. all the particles that made up our little planet, its land and water and air, mountains, forests, skyscrapers, libraries shelved with the great knowledge of humankind and masterworks of literature, the supremeness of our being, our sincerity, our kindness, our love, all of the glorious ideas and places and people you have ever known, you and me, will go on to understand that bliss. we will be cosmic matter that goes on to form a new planet. we will be celestial beings with souls no longer limited to the confines of the oxygen and carbon of our bodies. we will be stardust."

he pauses. then he murmurs, "you are the most beautiful thing in the universe to me. i'm grateful that i met the most beautiful thing in the universe before i died."

she takes his hand and she holds it till the end of time.