The cliff.
A place that’s naturally on the precipice of the end, the beginning of the end, if you will. Living in the wilderness I’ve never thought about cliffs, much less go near them. I would always see them in the distance, creeping on the horizon as the sun fights its way to the sky on the darkest mornings. The trees are vibrant and lively this time of year, the wind blows gently. The trees swaying to its influence. I look down to the rocky ocean landing, thinking of whether this would be a good end to life, falling at an unknown speed. The chance of death inherently fifty-fifty, but in your case, eighty-twenty. I’m not sure if you think about dying a lot, you may and you may not. I do. Every day.
I’m not suicidal or anything, but you can say I have a sort of. . . obsession. Now, it’s not what you think. I’m not some creep that goes around smelling skunk ass or gets stung by bees because I’m a masochist or something. It’s more with a concept than a tangible entity. The concept is finality. I don’t know why and I don’t know when it started, but I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of the end. What is the end? What does it mean? Does anything ever truly end? What, in our minds, spells the end for us? The people we love? The products we love? What does the end really mean in its entirety?
These are all the questions I wish to answer. Truth is, I’m still looking, which is why I came out to the wilderness. To find the answer in nature. To me, nature is a system that transcends time in a way. Time is a man-made concept, superimposed on the Earth because our brains elicit the feeling that we are entitled to name things simply because we speak in a complex language more sophisticated than sounds and grunts. But nature is primordial, put into place by an entity far above ourselves and beyond our comprehension.
As humans, we can be mapped out, predicted, figured out in many ways imaginable. Nature, on the other hand, we can figure out the basics of how it works, but we can never figure out the essence of it, the core that drives it, like we can do regarding ourselves. I’m not trying to be philosophical or anything like that, though I may be coming off that way. I’m just trying to understand what does it mean when something ends. From the way I understand it, energy is something that is neither created nor destroyed (the true paradox of the universe). So, when something ends, that implies it is destroyed, right?
Ok, so if something that ends spells its destruction, how is it that it still has energy? Alright, maybe I’m getting a little philosophical but hear me out.
Okay, for the sake of argument, we’re talking about living things, alright? Cool. If a bear dies in the forest, does that mean the end? I mean, that bear had energy and probably still does. It may mean the end of the bear’s body as it decomposes in the Earth, but does that mean the end? If something disappears and takes on a different form, how can it be the end? Doesn’t the end imply its destruction? Doesn’t destruction imply erasure from existence? Look, all I’m saying is, if something ends, that means it’s no longer in existence, at least from the way I look at it.
Alright, let me stop blabbing and tell you a story, that’s why you’re here isn’t it? Alright, there are a number of stories I can tell you, but let’s go with one that kinda coincides with what I’ve been talking about for the last two and a half pages or so. Here goes. . .
* * *
The snowstorm was beating the shit out of my cabin, pounding on the door like police in a drug raid. The fire wasn’t at its warmest, the generator was running pretty decent so I couldn’t complain. I walked around the cabin to make sure all the windows were closed and locked they were. I got some wood out of the back room I keep all the supplies in and threw it in the fire. I went to the kitchen, grabbed some matches, lit them up, and threw them in for good measure. Now the fire was starting to heat up, and the smoke when I breathed faded. I walked to the front of the cabin and looked out the window, if you wanna white Christmas just come to the wilderness in the dead of winter. All the snow you’d ever hope to find.
Anyway, I started to hear a sound coming from outside, like footsteps, deep footsteps, like an animal maybe. Truth was, I wasn’t so sure, so I went to the supply room in back and brought out my rifle. Loaded and ready to go. The sound got louder and clearer the longer I waited, I stood a couple inches back from the door, ready to blow the fucker who’d be stupid enough to try to break in. Suddenly, the footsteps subsided, like in one of those horror movies. There was a long silence, all I could hear was the wind blowing and the crackling of the wood in the fire. Suddenly. . .
“That won’t work, you know.” An elegant, classy sounding female voice emerged from nowhere. I turned so fast I’d give Michael Jackson a run for his money on the dance floor. “A rifle,” She looked at the weapon, “known for its spread. The further away the person is, the more damage they cause.” She walked closer as I tried to maintain a safe distance, because she was right: the further away I was, the more shit I hit, and the less chance of breaking my goddamn shoulder in the process.
“Who the hell are you? How the fuck did you get in my cabin!?” My hands shook ferociously, I could barely keep the rifle steady as she came within five inches of me and getting closer. Her presence was powerful, she had that tone of finality, that tone I’d been obsessed with for most of my life. For the first time, the question popped into my head. . .is this the end?
At this point, I was on the floor, cowering in abject fear. The weight of her presence crushing me beneath her with unparalleled ease. I suppose I was too frightened to tell what she looked like. It’s not that she wasn’t attractive or anything because I’ll tell you what, I’d fuck her in a New York minute, maybe longer if I’m in the zone. However, my dick basically fell off and left me to hang, it didn’t want any part of her and I couldn’t blame him. This broad, whoever or whatever she was. . . was fierce in every definition of the word.
She leaned toward my face, her legs still straight with her hands on her hips, like your mother when she just finished whooping your ass for not getting good grades in school or a phone call home. My eyes damn near bulged out my sockets, it was as if my brain couldn’t wrap itself around her being in front of me at this moment, like I’d just hopped out The Matrix and was trying to adjust to reality, like she couldn’t possibly be here and yet she was. I could see every detail of her face, the smoothness of her skin, the lines in her yellow irises, the creases in her full lips, and a couple strands of her hair hung out. My eyes blinked like a camera lens, trying to capture this moment, the moment that possibly spells out the end I’ve always been curious about. She, on the other hand, just looked at me with an analytical look, examining my features, trying to determine the emotional and spiritual state I’m in right now. And let me tell you, I was all types of mind and spirit-fucked.
“Do I frighten you, little man?” Her voice was smooth, soothing but utterly imposing, all at the same time. I didn’t know where to be transfixed in tranquility or consumed by abject horror. “I suppose I would,” She continued “Humans think they understand the forces of nature, but alas, they know absolutely nothing.”
I trembled as I spoke, “A-are y-you mother n-nature?”
“No.” She said flatly, “I’m only one of her many children, the first, if you will.” She added. “My name is Primordia. I take it you understand what that means?”
I nodded my head and didn’t move any other muscle.
“This will not do, I need you to be at ease.” She moved away from my face, her hands still on her hips like a mother. She pointed her index finger toward me and started to lift like she was trying to make something levitate, and she was, and did. . .me.
I had no control and my body felt weightless, like I was in a gravity chamber or something from NASA. She essentially stood me up and dusted me off, all with simple movements of her index finger. The rifle started to levitate next and move away from me, before I even thought to glance at it she gave me that don’t-even-try-it look and I put both hands up in surrender as she moved it gently by the fireplace. She turned around and went toward the couch, I followed suit as not to upset the divine force that’s invaded my cabin. She sat down, stretched both arms out to either end and crossed her left leg elegantly over her right. If I wasn’t scared shitless right now, I jump her and stroke them cheeks like it was my last day on Earth. She nodded over to the other chair facing the couch motioning me to sit. I sat. She looked at me with that cold, analytical eye, I turned away as her presence was too much for me to handle. I had met a few women like that in my lifetime, but never any like her. Not even remotely.
“You won’t look at me.” If there was an elephant in the room, she’d went straight for his throat. “Why?”
“Your presence.”
“What about my presence?” She responded quickly, not a beat missed.
“It’s too strong.” I glanced and averted my eyes almost in one motion, every time I tried to turn in her direction my spirit tries to jump out my body like she’s the plague. “It’s clear you’re not a woman.”
“And what gave you that idea?” the sarcasm flowed gracefully from her lips. “The fact I can move objects with a finger, or the fact I gracefully appeared in your tiny cabin?”
“That’s not what I mean. . .”
“Then what do you mean? Talk.” Her response was ultra-quick, left me no time to think or reflect. It was like I was on deadline. . .literally.
“I mean,” I paused as I tried to articulate, “you look. . .unusual.”
She sighed and understood what I meant, “You’re referring to my true form. If you can see that, then it means you are him.”
“Him?”
“The Searcher of the End.”
My eyes shot in her direction when she said that, she gave me that now-you-can-look-at-me look but I didn’t care about that. Was that why she was here? To help aid me in search of the meaning of the end? I mean, I was never one to believe in spirituality (that much), divine forces, and anything of the like. I suppose those entities could exist, but I’d always imagine them being as indifferent to us as the universe was.
“You mean. . .the End? The true end? End to all things in existence?” I was looking her straight in the eye, her presence meant nothing in this moment, as my obsession with the concept of finality took over.
She chuckled lightly, then nodded slightly, “the very same.”
“So, what now? We take a trip? You show me vision or premonition? How does this work?”
“Nothing of the sort,” She stated carelessly, dismissing the notion in her mind. “You’d just die like the others.”
“How so?” My obsession made me curious as to how being with a force of nature could bring about one’s end. “What happened to the others?”
She tilted her head in my direction and her eyes met mine. I can’t describe accurately what I saw because it was so vast. It was like the creation of the universe and the conception of time, dust combusting at unimaginable speeds and forces as God began to mold the universe in his image. Nebulas, stars, planets, and galaxies all coming into existence and being wiped out as time fast-forwarded exponentially. It all seemed endless as the cycle of life kept repeating and universal laws and systems kept improving, showing no signs of slowing down. She, Primordia, was the first to emerge from this conception, the very beginning.
“So, you’re that type of searcher, the Obsessive One.” She tilted her head more and sighed then quickly raised and dropped her brows, “I suppose only a vision would satisfy you.”
“Shit, if you’re gonna just appear in my house like the quintessence of divinity, you’d better show me something I’ve never fucking seen!” Suddenly I was comfortable around her, her form didn’t even register at this point, the longer I looked at her, the more she began to look like a woman, and the more I began to feel like myself again.
“I suppose I can spare a vision.” She uncrossed her legs, moved her arms from the top of the sofa, stood up and stretched like she hasn’t moved around in four point five billion years, then again, she probably hasn’t. “I’m not responsible for your death so do care to survive, Searcher.”
I watched as she walked elegantly toward the door. She oozed confidence, smelt of conviction and certainty, as her mere presence filled the room like an aristocrat or king does when they attend a gathering of the nobility, or when a celebrity walks in a room full of wannabes. Truly divine. With one motion of her index finger, the door opened. I ducked behind the chair I sat expecting the snow to come busting in like the police without a search warrant, but it didn’t. The snow paused at the door, like when someone’s about to run into you then stops on the dime to avoid a collision. I got up slowly and went over to the door, the snow looked like miniature balls just floating through space and time, millions of drops of water in an everlasting suspense, with no certainty as to when and how they’re gonna hit the ground. I turned to her and she started walking, moving the snow out the way with movements of her index finger.
“You will not tell anyone what you see in the vision.” It was a command. A statement. And I didn’t need her to tell me what would happen if I did, or even tried to.
“There’s no one out here,” I commented, “who would I tell?”
“You go to what you humans call “the city” to acquire supplies and nourishment, correct?”
“Yeah, but I don’t talk to anyone.” I tried to ensure her the secrets of the end were safe, “I mean, not that I would, or even could for that matter, as my surviving this is not guaranteed.”
“I suppose you have a point.” She seemed to be assured of my ability to keep a secret. “However, should you survive and attempt to tell anyone. . .”
“I understand,” I cut her off and beat her to the punch, “I’ll wish I had died in the vision.”
“You catch on quickly.” She smirked. “Good.”
She turned and we kept walking. . .to the end.
* * *
Well, I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you man, sorry. Yeah, I know, the story was just getting good, or at least a bit interesting. But, you heard the lady. And I don’t think it’s a good idea to test Primordia, the First Child of Nature, do you? No? Ok then. Though I can’t tell you what I saw in the vision, maybe I can describe it. Here goes.
It was the end. The end of what you ask? The end of humanity, the end of the world, the end of existence as we know it? Actually, it was none of those things, but it was the end. What do I mean? Well, put it like this: when creatures procreate and the parent dies and the offspring lives, that’s a cycle, right? Pretty much. When a single creature dies with no children, that’s an end to a creature, not the end of all creatures like it, right? Basically. But, when the being is subject to a course of events that render its inclination for self-preservation useless. . .that’s the end.
Now, you may think of dying, but that’s natural. You may think of someone getting killed by someone stronger and more powerful than them, but, you’ve seen Bruce Lee prove that notion wrong in all sorts of ways, as well as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and all those guys who face opponents bigger and stronger than they are. When I say the power of self-preservation is rendered useless, I mean in all capacities. And you know what the scariest part of that vision was? It wasn’t that it killed you with an external object or force. It killed your soul. It killed your spirit.
Well, it’s looking like that time of day where I gotta go and get supplies. I’d further explain what I meant by the power of self-preservation being useless but you know, obligation calls.
Until next time. . .
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