The End

The Apocalypse of Self and the World

(Adagio funebre)

This is the end.
I did not see myself when it began.
But now, in the cold,
under the eternal eclipse,
I write my last words.

This is the end.
I never followed the news.
What good are they?
As if anyone knew how this would end.

I sit here,
beneath the rusted rail,
the tip of the control tower rising,
a monument to what isn’t.

One morning, she would ask me:
“Where are you going? Will you be late again?”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t take her questions anymore.
I made a moaning sound.
“Yes,” I answered.
“None of your business” is what I really wanted to say.

“You haven’t eaten anything. Don’t you want something?”
“No. I don’t want anything.”
I’d rather starve than have her keep making me food.

On the way to the office,
I looked up,
The sky was grey,
unheard of for mid-August.
Leaves were falling from trees.
I thought nothing of it.

The company expanded,
a larger office, two new employees.
An optimistic vision from the CEO.
He has just came from abroad.
International successes.

We were on the 27th floor.
I liked to stare out of the window;
The endless Mediterranean blue enchanted.
A plane was making an approach,
I asked a colleague,
“What type is this plane?”
“You are witnessing the last landing,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“They stopped landings, weather conditions…”
“For how long?”
“Nobody knows.”

Days passed,
Weeks,
One day, they announced,
“Collect water and food.”

Then we reached The End.
It was the coldest winter humanity had ever known.
The final one.
Icebergs covered what was that endless blue.
Vantablack covered the sun.
I never knew why.
It didn’t matter.

Then I sat there,
a shadow of what I was,
Gazing towards that which I was no longer.
Looking right in the end,
I heard the final mandolin.
The final guitar string.
Sound was no more.

The final hammer struck.

This is the end.

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