∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
I watched the crowd surrounding Gargoyle Rock. Gawkers!
Giggling teenage girls, lithe and airy, glittery and carefree, cheekily nudged the stone, which stood proud and unmoving, taking their combined assault in its own stoic and immovable pace. I wanted to chase them away, wave my arms, and shout! Scatter the visitors like I would have a flock of the ever-present, ever-chattering seagulls. They both annoy me–the visitors and the gulls. Both are oblivious to my millennia-old pain. They cannot know, but that doesn’t mean I have to endorse the unintentional disrespect of the tourists poking, and the seagulls soiling Gargoyle Rock.
I ball my hands into tight fists every time I see another shuttle carting in tourists from the “Princess Of The Galaxy” – the flagship of Intergalactic Travels Inc. A company dedicated to providing “educational travels to further the universal understanding of every inhabitant of the known universe”… (or so claims their marketing blurb). At affordable rates, of course! And if you cannot afford it, the Intergalactic Panel of Governments will give a grant to allow every member of their community to enjoy educational travels across the universe. Simple! These days everybody is entitled to the best education affordable – independent of gender, race, or social standing. Whatever the “best education” encompasses is entirely at the discretion of the Subdivision For Education of the Intergalactic Panel of Governments. And it changes with every newly appointed government. Hard to keep track of. I don’t care much about education myself. Having lived for the best part of a few billion years, I learned my lessons not only in academic institutions - back when they could still be called academic - but mainly in the school of life itself.
You would think that after a few thousand years you will have seen it all! Let me give you good advice: Never underestimate the creative potential of stupidity. It is universal! Here I stand now, on the edge of the shore, where Gargoyle Rock formed from molten lava almost half a million years ago in an event known to me and my kind as The Big Devastation.
The inhabitants of the universe know it as Geo_ELE_13456. Extinction Level Event 13456 on planet Earth. Within less than a week, it snuffed out all life on Earth, leveled the Himalayas, lifted the Ocean floors, and cracked the Earth’s crust open like an eggshell, ejecting fountains of molten lava from the abyss. Those were violent days; violent and fast and over before I could even gather my thoughts. For thousands of years, I'd been living as an Earthling amongst Earthlings. So long, in fact, that I was on the verge of forgetting my true ancestry. Until the day the Earth died. Then, I could no longer deny my immortal lineage; however hard I tried: I. Could. Not. Die. I watched my loved ones perish – one by one. They didn’t go gently. Gigantic rock slides set off by devastating earthquakes; streams of boiling lava spewed out of ripped-apart mountaintops; pyroclastic flows raced down the once gentle slopes of the Snowdonia mountain range. My people saw the approaching tsunami blocking out the sky–but they had nowhere to go.
Trapped on the small Isle of Anglesey, boiling waters, tsunamis, and scorching lava streams surrounded them. The ones who didn’t drown in the floods got evaporated by the fast-moving pyroclastic flows. At over 400 miles per hour, Snowdonia is only a couple of minutes away. It left me with barely enough time to say my goodbyes.
Tears burn in my eyes every time the memories push their way to the surface of my consciousness. I try not to allow them in too often. But I made a pledge: never to forget her; to visit her once every ten-thousand years—on the day her life ended, and mine with it. I didn’t blink the tears away. Nobody could see me anyway. I was invisible—not really there. I watched from within the Inbetween: the connecting fabric of All-There-Is. Only the most ancient species of the universe know of its existence, and even fewer can travel through it. I am one of them. We are pure energy. We cannot die—ever. All we can do is change energy forms; cursed to live for all eternity. Oh, what I would have given to die with her! Wrapped up in each other’s arms, share our last breath on a kiss, and gaze into each other's eyes for the last time before they close forever.
But no! I held her; I kissed her; looked into her eyes as they dulled. I will never forget the curtain of death falling over her face, wiping out the life in her sparkling eyes. I will always remember the fear and the agony as the churning waters of the Swnt boiled us alive, and hot, molten rock covered our remains.
Death claimed her, but spit me out like a nasty mouthful.
I wanted to rest under the boiling sea forever, stay buried with her under tons of liquid rock that slowly solidified. But Nature didn't grant me this little comfort. Our bodies combusted as the fires of Earth touched us. And with nothing substantial left to hold on to, my energy got released and sucked back into the Inbetween, from where I had to extricate myself again.
Following the aftermath of The Big Devastation, I had no chance of getting back to Earth for the next thousand-or-so years. Planet Earth was a desolate place. Life got extinguished; snuffed out by a violent cough by Mother Nature herself.
Ah! The cruelty of it all!
I lifted my face toward the sky—as if the indifferent firmament cared for my feelings. The sun was nothing but a ghostly disc behind the thick, omnipresent mist, which coated Earth ever since the oceans evaporated. I sucked in a breath of air as muggy as a night in the Deep South. It brought back memories of my lover wrapped up in my arms, listening to the myriad of creatures that filled the Southern night with their symphonies. There was nobody left to listen to them any longer.
I slowly walked over to Gargoyle Rock, which now lay deserted by the retreating tourists; their chatter ebbing away, their footprints erased by the incoming tide. All of a sudden, the seagulls didn't seem that bad anymore.
“Goodbye, my love. See you in ten-thousand years.” I briefly manifested as a physical being and tenderly touched Gargoyle Rock — my lover’s tomb.
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