They did not ask questions, because gods do not ask questions. They said nothing, only taking the flutes and toasting each other, the crystalline tinkling of glass on glass a strange music to Hark’s ears. If they saw his ruined eyes, they did not care. They simply drank, and swallowed.
It was only a few moments before they began to scream.
Spear will tell him later that the looks on their faces made it worthwhile, as matter began to boil into their hollow sockets and eyes began to grow, eyes that looked so much like Hark’s own. She will tell him of the dumbfounded looks on their faces, the way that rage battled with confusion, of how doubt, ever elusive in the face of such power, began to creep in.
At that moment, though, the Golden King screamed, “Chef! What is the meaning of this? What have you done to us?”
Hark’s voice was knife-thin but cut through the newborn gods’ screaming all the same. “You were right, my lord. We are the same. I have felt hollow myself for some time, and I would do anything to fill myself up with some purpose, even if it was destruction, pride, or power. I thought the world was evil because it did not understand me or work to make me happy. But I was also stubborn, arrogant, and foolish too, to think the world would come to my door and give itself to me. I did not learn from my mistakes, and so I lost it all. I blamed the world for that too. But the world doesn’t deserve to die because of my small heart. And it doesn’t deserve to wither under your gaze either, simply because you once tried to fix it and it rejected you. You all have a chance to make things right. If you may see things more clearly because of my eyes, see the joys or lessons or hopes I have witnessed, then I am happy to give them to you, and give this world a small chance at living on.”
Silence, and the weight of nine pairs of his own eyes looked down upon him from thrones of wood, bone, and glass.
“We will remember this transgression, chef,” the Golden King said, in a voice that could splinter mountains and freeze stars.
Hark chuckled, and found he liked it. “I should hope you do. I hope you never forget this day, or this meal. I hope it lingers in your hearts for centuries to come.” Hark paused, lifted his chin, and stared up at the Hollowed with empty eyes. “We can do better. All of us.”
Spear will tell him later how they all looked down on him, scowling, furious, righteous, and powerful. And then how, after a moment, their faces softened, their new eyes creased with concern, and how they all looked to each other, seeing each other truly for the first time in millennia, and how like smoke on the wind they faded from sight.
But all Hark heard in that moment was silence, and it wasn’t until Spear took his elbow and whispered, “They’re gone, Hark,” that he collapsed to his knees, hyperventilating. His body wracked with sobs, and he didn’t fight it. The world still spun on, and so he hoped beyond hope that he got through to them.
And when Spear asked him where he’d like to go, he didn’t hesitate.
“To the sea, I think,” he said, knowing he would be seen in his chef whites, his face a ruin, and not caring. “I think I crave some time by the sea, for as long as it’s there.”
Spear took him by the elbow, and together they made their way to the water, enjoying in silence every moment the world had not yet ended.
Adam R. Shannon
ON THE DAY YOU SPEND FOREVER WITH YOUR DOG
When the dog dies, she doesn’t know she is dying. You shouldn’t feel sorry for her. To her, life lasts forever.
Infants and dogs recognize the flow of time, but not their presence in it. Psychologists show two films to a child so young it cannot comprehend the difference between itself and the universe. In the first film, water pours from a pitcher into a glass. In the second, time is reversed: water spirals out of the glass to replenish the pitcher. The child will stare longer at the film that violates the rules of causality. She believes, without knowing she believes, that time goes one way.
She doesn’t know that time pervades her very flesh, a dimension of her physical existence. She doesn’t know that it will require her to die. She believes that time is progress. For a while you believe it too, and the mistake damages all your equations. It isn’t until Jane dies that you reach the solution.
You don’t know it yet, but there is a feeling of being inside time. It suffuses your awareness as thoroughly as your height and weight and position in space. It is as comforting as riding at a constant speed and in a constant direction, rocking to sleep on a train or in a car driven by someone you trust. When you go back in time, it hurts.
The first injection calms the dog. Her breathing slows, and she puts her head on your foot. It is an unexpected move, and a little unsettling. Jane has seldom wavered in her determination to watch over you. She watched when you went to the bathroom. She followed you without condemnation when you walked up the stairs, forgot why you were there, and immediately descended with her in tow. She watched today as you made the last batch of muffins. She kept an eye on your movements even as she licked the bowl. For you, it’s the last time she will ever lick the bowl. For her, it’s forever.
The sedative allows her to relax in her self-appointed duties. Her watchfulness fades and she looks past you.
Jane doesn’t know about the drugs. She just transitions from what she was to what she becomes, as unaware of her own trajectory as she is of its destination.
The second injection places her in a profound sleep. She’s unaware of anything happening to her, unable to feel pain. You touch her paws, stroke the black curve of her nails, but she does not withdraw.
“Don’t leave me,” you whisper, knowing the only reason you can ask is because she cannot understand. Her existence is a secret you can never tell her. If she ever learned, she would know she is dying.
The last injection stops her heart. It feels as if your heart stops too, ceasing its stuttering progress through space.
You shouldn’t feel sorry for her. She lived forever.
When you first found her, Jane had a broken leg and a healing gash over the bony ridge of her pelvis. She had been hit by a car on New York Avenue at 4 a.m. and was picked up by the crew of a passing trash truck. It took two people to lift her into the cab for a trip to the emergency vet. She snapped weakly at their hands, furious at her pain.
The company fired the driver for diverting from his route. Sometimes you wonder what might have happened if that man had gone to the shelter and found her recovering in her bare metal cage. There are no alternate realities in which he took Jane home and she watched over him the way she watched over you. No timelines exist in which she settled beside him on the couch and watched him as he watched TV, in which she walked with him and watched everything for a chance to prove her love.
There’s only one timeline. If you go back far enough and wait, you eventually find yourself exactly where you started.
You will go back anyway.
You like to joke that a time machine is theoretically possible but that the materials are in short supply. You must first construct a stable wormhole. This would require harnessing a daunting amount of energy and solving certain problems related to the production of exotic matter.
Assuming you can overcome this technological hurdle, you would then place one end of your wormhole on Earth—preferably in your lab, where no one can mess with it. Put the other end on a spaceship and accelerate it to near the speed of light. Relativistic effects will gradually induce time drift between the two openings. After one year at .9 times the speed of light, the end on your ship has traveled 1.294 years into the future, compared to the aperture that you left behind in your lab.