The End is Near

Epilogue

Sierra Leone

Men with machine guns pointed at women and children on their knees looked at each other in horror. They looked around at those on the ground they had been about to annihilate and felt their pain again – the pain and fear at that start of that joining – before the white heat of intent had taken them into a mission bigger than anything they could ever dream of.

Even now, knowledge from all over the world swirled into their heads and their brains struggled to assimilate it. Knowledge and emotion in a volatile mix.

The women and children still kneeled but their eyes were wide with awe now instead of fear. Their tears had stopped. Instead the tears now flowed freely down the faces of the men who held the guns.

The leader was the first to reverse his hold and smash it to the ground. None of the others hesitated in following. They understood now...

Syria

Mothers wept and children were silent. The air strikes had suddenly stopped. The feeling of being alone, in a world gone mad, was gone.

They had seen into the heart and soul of their oppressors.

Throughout the war-torn region men either wept openly or stared in horror about them. Illusion had been ripped away in those moments of joining. Pride had fled as they comprehended fully the monstrosity the world saw them as being. Self-realisation came as the introspection they had always avoided was substituted by a world-mirror.

Religion mattered not as they saw how closely their own desires matched others who had found more peaceful and meaningful ways. They understood now...

Apartment

She had feared the beating today would be worse than any other. She had known it when he stumbled through the front door and called her name. She had never blamed him, for the man she knew had been crippled by his failure to keep a job and his inability to provide. She had closed her eyes as his fist raised and then it had happened.

He was seated on the floor next to her now, his arms around her as if he would never let go.

She had thought she understood his pain and self-loathing. He had never understood the depth of love that kept her with him even though he kept trying to push her away.

They had been connected to so many and seen so much, but the thoughts and emotions of each other had been burning suns compared to the starlight of everyone else. They understood now...

Highway

His coat billowed behind him as he strode down the road, looking neither left nor right. He strode as one who was trying to distance himself from something, but there was no way to outrun his own thoughts. There were no words to describe the feeling of being connected to everyone like he had been.

He looked back on his dark deeds. The death and abuse he had never been caught for. Even now the body in his trunk was destined for a safe place where it would never be found.

It was over. It had to be. Humanity deserved better than this from him. He would seek to pay for his crimes, and if the Universe willed it – maybe to do some good in the time he had left.

For he understood now...

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Author's note: This then, is the idea that prompted the story.

Who and what would we be if we could experience each other in a different and deeper way?