Nothing Ever Ends

Even if it seems otherwise

Death is there for all of us.

It’s there, waiting

for us.

In the beginning, we are newborn flowers, rosy and sweet-scented; for us, the very young, death is like a planet in a distant galaxy. We know it’s there and one day we will surely discover the means to reach it and maybe we’ll find it good for living, but

one day. Yes. One day.

Not now.

Later, we are ripe fruits, heavy with sticky juice and seeds ready to be spread around the globe. Our senses are sharper: we see the distant planet more clearly now and we’re one step from discovering the wormhole that will allow us to land on it. But we not taking that step, no,

not yet. We still want to be here.

To spread out our seeds on earth.

Later still, we are leaves whose edges have started to acquire a yellow tinge. The autumn wind is brushing across us and hurts us. It can not tear us away from the branch, not yet, but its attacks are painful. We shiver, clinging to the branch, and staring at the sky. The outlines of the distant planet are so distinct now as if it’s just within reach. A perfectly round ball, full of green lands and blue oceans. A mist of silver clouds drifting over the surface.

And in front of it: the wormhole that we have already discovered.

The wormhole is there and the planet shimmering on its other end is good for living. We are ready to pass through.

Are we?

Then why are we clinging so desperately to the branch? Why do we clench our teeth, withstanding the pain from the wind’s whip, and why are we curling up, trying to protect whatever green color is left on us, to protect it just a bit longer, because it is what keeps us attached to the branch, it’s what keeps us attached to

the Earth. There is some green left on us, so no, it’s not time to travel.

It’s not time to travel through the warm hole yet.

Until finally,

it is.

Death is there for all of us.

It’s there, waiting

for us.

The last green dot on our surface is gone. The wind grabs us and tears us off the branch and hurls us to the ground. It believes that we will crumble to dust down there. That we will rot away. That we will disappear forever.

The wind is wrong.

We know our time has finally come and we know what to do.

We fly up and enter the wormhole. It sucks us in and in a whirlpool of gold, takes us to the other side.

To the new planet.

It’s bright and sunlit; a new sun is here, bigger than the old one and a bit reddish. It’s actually not the Sun, it needs another name, maybe The Nus? The new green continents need names, too; and the oceans, and the seas, and the new kind of animals we meet, and the plants. All this new world is ours to characterize it, to adjust it to our needs. We start all over as masters and creators,

and the world starts all over with us,

and we know that

nothing

ever ends.

Even if it seems otherwise.

A big thank you to Nour Boustani who came up with the original name for the new sun!