The Year

Nobody knew which year it was going to be.  There was much speculation, there were apps, there was betting, there were psychics who made proclamations and were met with distrust and scepticism. Everybody had an opinion; nobody knew.

But we did know one thing. There was going to be The Year. It was going to be the pinnacle of human society, it was going to be the moment when time reached its apex, when humanity was at its finest; and then there was going to be cascade, as time unravelled itself and humanity slid down that hill so quickly…

“How could anybody know such things?” my mother scoffed.

“I don’t know,” and it’s not like I wanted to believe any of this stuff, because I didn’t, but there’s only so much you can read, see, hear, feel and not absorb, “the leading experts in temporal physics are all coming on board.”

“Temporal physics!” snorted my father, “As if.”

But even in the twenty-five years since I was born there had been huge advances in the understanding of the world, of the universe, and how it functioned. Of the pockets within the universe that existed cheek to cheek with one another, but separate. Humanity lived inside one of them, so the calculations that supported an end, a reversal, a re-do of time were our story – the only life known, the only ones to witness it.

My girlfriend thought the year would come in 2088.

“Why that year?” I asked her as we walked in the snow.

“The human race is heading towards that. It’s the planetary summit, and there’s going to be all those celestial events.”

I tilted my head, but tried not to roll my eyes.

“You don’t really believe all that?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Well, you know…” it’s bunk “just because a few people are saying something…”

“A few.”

People are not always smart. But that would imply that I was calling her not smart, which would lead to me walking home alone to my place, not ending up at hers. So I temporised somewhat: “Some of it is pretty out there. I mean, the chances of two comets that are not on the right trajectory still crashing into each other head-on…”

“The moon, sun and earth between them will influence those trajectories.”

“Marginally at best.”

“Enough. They’ve done figures.”

“Other scientists have done other figures.”

“And they’re going to be beautiful. That matters.”

Since its going to be the pinnacle of all perfection from which we are going to fall. My scepticism was on thin ice, but I did still have it. At least for the moment. I mean I’m open minded, after all. “What about that shit about the earth capturing another moon?”

Penelope shrugged. She had a beautiful way of doing that, a way that seemed to incorporate her whole body, not just her fine, soft, supple shoulders, all rounded and coloured like ivory. “It’s already caught one.”

“Or the earth and the moon and two planets orbiting each other. I read that somewhere.”

“Semantics. The point is…”

“The point,” I put my hands on her shoulders, “is that I don’t want to fight. I want to go back to your place and make love all night. Unless you mind.”

She smiled, “I don’t. But let’s not go home. It’s a lovely night, and its warm in spite of the snow. The clouds are clearing. Come on, we could make love under the stars.”

I was lucky to have her. We walked, arm in arm. And the night was magical. There was snow on the ground, but none in the air, and the street lights were streaked through the snow like a painting. The cityscape against a not-quite-black horizon was all edges and angles, lit up by coloured lights. The air was warm for a snowy night, and there was a fresh kiss of breeze.

As we walked, she asked me, “So what year do you think it’ll be?”

“I’m not even convinced about this theory.”

“No. But if you were. Which year?”

“I don’t know.”

“Guess. To appease me. Because you love me.”

“3055.”

“You don’t really think that?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s got to be sooner. Aren’t you afraid?”

“I don’t know. Who says there’s anything to be afraid of?”

“The fall of man. The fall of time. Don’t you even wonder what it’s going to descend into?”

There was no need for wondering. There were so many theories out there, and there had been movies made about it. Big-hitters. Cash cows. I’d gone with Penelope to see one of those movies – a disaster epic where time reverses itself and everything happens backwards, the dead crawling out of their graves while babies were born already dead, and all the great disasters were revisited, rewritten, happening in reverse order. And all the while humans devolved, becoming ape-like, becoming less than that. The sun shrunk.

I’d taken that movie for the high-budget, block-buster candy it was; but Penelope had come out of there quiet and concerned.

She said to me now, feet crunching on snow, “I don’t think it’s going to be like that movie. I think it’s going to be more like everything falling down on top of each other, so that all the things that’ve happened all exist at once, crushing each other, you know. Like the layers you find in an archeological dig, but these would all be heavy, all weighing on each other, crushing the years before. Soon there’ll be nothing left, and nothing that ever was left. Not us – no ever us. No ever anything.”

“Don’t.” Because it was a bit chilling.

“You don’t think about it?”

“What’s the point? If there’s going to never have been anything, what would be the point? Why get up in the morning?”

“From habit.”

I looked at her. “You don’t really do that. Just keep living from habit?”

“I’m not really sure. I don’t think I do. But maybe I do.”

“You live for your job, your family, your friends.” I took the dramatic pause: “your boyfriend.”

She broke into a smile. “My snacks.”

“Exactly. Look at us. Look at us, walking here now, it’s so peaceful, it’s idyllic, and we’re going to find a spot where we can look down over the city, and then we’re going to get naked, and we’re not even going to care that we’re doing it in the snow. That’s perfect. It’s beyond perfect, and that’s why we keep getting up in the morning.”

She giggled. She blushed. “Well, maybe…”

I knew that was my moment. I just knew it. I took both her hands. I didn’t have a ring, it was all so spontaneous, but I was down on my knees, staring up into her eyes while she stared down into mine. “I want you to marry me.”

“What?”

“I mean it. Penelope Horton, will you marry me?”

She stared.

“Well, don’t leave me hanging.”

“You know I will.”

“As in ‘yes’?”

She giggled, there were a couple of tears in her eyes. “As in ‘yes’.”

I saw behind her then, like a halo around her honey-almond hair. Red, dusty, tinged with blue, twice the size of the other one: a second moon in the sky.

Penelope twisted her head to see it too. She looked back at me, eyes wobbling with tears. “2079,” she whispered.

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work