14. AN ESCAPE FROM THE ENDING

The last part

“The more I see of the bad old times when we were alive, the more I think I’m better off dead,” Elaine said to T***y as the two of floated on a cloud and stared at the spaghetti junction near Birmingham.

“I’ve had enough of this,” complained T***y, and they returned to plant feet they didn’t have firmly in the Past.

Then they were drifting in an ochre sea of time, together yet separate. Millions of their kind drifted all around them, though Gassy was still on his own, spurned even by the dead, and he would have been weeping had it been possible. As it was, he enjoyed misery in the same way as 1950’s schoolboys enjoyed a good caning.

“That’s no way to think about it,” her friend boomed or whispered at her, “when I was alive I lived a good life, though there are some who would say I was a bad one, charging men for somewhere to plant their seed. But there was a call for it and it never harmed me. In fact, I sometimes thought I could pay for it myself!”

“I understand,” nodded or shook Elaine, “but all I can remember clearly from back then is the bomb and the way I dreaded being turned into nuclear dust.”

“I feel sorry for you,” sighed T***y, “life shouldn’t have had such a burden on it. I was there too, you know, but I didn’t take much notice of the prophets of doom. I had a great deal of profitable sex, so what use was doom to me? What more can I say?”

Elaine sighed. “Not much,” she whimpered, “And prophets of doom was exactly what they were,” she said. “Whitewash yiour windows to reflect the blast, hide somewhere safely underground, don’t forget to pray and hope you don’t die of radiation sickness!”

“As if prayers ever do anything,” nodded T***y.

“They concentrate your fear, keep it alive, add to it,” shuddered Elaine, “I learned to pray for peace and ended up shaking with fear. The Cuban crisis nearly saw the end of me!”

“It did. Isn’t that when you were bricked up?” giggled T***y.

“I suppose so.”

“So what are we going to do next?” asked T***y, changing the subject.

“Let’s go on and on,” suggested Elaine, “through all of the past, right from the start and into whatever tomorrows might be for those fortunate enough to still be living.”

“And let Lulu come with us?” asked T***y, “she’s been here for longer than anyone, not that we measure time, of course, now that we’re dead.”

“Three angels searching for the answer to everything, whatever that might be?” asked Elaine thoughtfully.

“Forty-two,” came a thought from above or below them.

“Duggy! I wondered when you’d turn up!” yelped T***y, “you and your book.”

“We could find that restaurant you wrote about, the one at the end of the Universe,” shouted Elaine. Or maybe she whispered. It’s not so easy to modulate thought when you don’t have a volume control.

“But that was fiction,” explained Duggy. “I mean, who’d write a hitch-hiker’s guide to anything in space?”

“You did! We know it’s made up, silly, but there’s no harm in us adventurers looking!” giggled T***y.

“I’m game if you are,” grinned Duggy, “who knows where it might lead. Onwards and upwards, I say, to the end of the Universe, and beyond!”

“Lulu, what do you think?” asked Elaine.

“I don’t know,” replied Lulu, “I don’t know what the Universe is, so I’ve no idea if it has an end or not but I’m game if you are.”

“Well, you were there at the beginning,” sighed Duggy, “correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you the mother of humanity?”

“i didn’t know at the time,” laughed Lulu, “I just lived my life, fed my man and had his babies.”

“That’s enough for any woman,” sighed Elaine.

“It hurts,” scowled Lulu, “having babies, that is.”

“Is anyone else coming with us?” called T***y.

“Me. Count me in,” called Gassy from his lonely corner, “I’d love to see just how evil a man has to be in order to call a halt to creation.”

“That’s easy,” replied Duggy, “you just need a mirror, that’s all.”

“You don’t like me, do you?”

“Not when I recall how many souls you stole life from, and sent here,” replied Duggy fiercely. “You and your gas chambers of horror! Nobody with an ounce of empathy feels more than loathing for you.”

“It was my way of planning ahead,” scowled Gassy, “be like that if you want.”

“We will,” snarled Duggy

“Come on and leave him behind!” insisted Elaine, and the four spirits drifted off like wisps of nothing in a sea of even less.

It was as if time was an endless thread wound onto a shapeless spool as they explored the far reaches of The Past. And as they floated along they found it criss-crossed itself so that they almost bumped into themselves from before they started. That made Lulu giggle, though the rest were untroubled by duplication, even of themselves

And that was eternity. A less treacherous path might have been called life and a less pleasant route might be death.

“Lovely,” smiled Elaine as she melted and became one with the Universe.

“Glorious,” sighed T***y as the last remnant of her joined everyone everywhere in an act of love.

“I can’t believe it!” swooned Lulu, scattering mitochondrial DNA every which-way.

“I wish I’d thought of this!” growled Duggy as the Universe ended.

And behind or in front of them a billion thoughts exploded into the most melodic Hallelujah chorus ever heard and Gassy lurked on his own looking for Pol Pot.

And somewhere another star joined the pantheon of the heavens, and marked out another future, one that was bound to have another past.

© Peter Rogerson 06.09.21

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