The Fire in the Valley

Geo is still standing on the deck outside he house, watching lava pour down the river canyon.  Sparks are flying upward, and the trees are beginning to catch fire.  He hears the door to his house open behind him.  It is Shiara.

“Shiara!” says Geo.  “What is happening?”  It looks like the end of the world!”

“It is.” She says. “But this has not really been a world.  I was sort of practicing in the mean time until I got a world of my own to oversee.  By the way, Geo, you are not insane.”

“What do you mean this is not a world?  This is a world!” says Geo.  “I live here!  And where are all my friends?”

“This valley is the only part that ever existed.  Have you ever gone outside of this valley?”  She asks.

“No,” he says, “come to think of it.”

This place is flat.   The valley has been like a leaf, soaring in an orbit around the sun.  The leaf has ended its journey, so to speak.”

“Where are my friends?” Geo asks angrily.  “Have they been killed?”

“No, she says.  Time is doing strange things.  You have noticed that on your clock.  We are in the past, Geo.  The friends you know have not even come to this valley yet.  They have not existed, in a way.  We will see them born as they seemed before (If I get things right!). We can’t wait much longer.”

Shiara walks back to the doorway of the house, and begins to kick at the jamb of the open door.  “Dang!” she says “I’ve never done this before, but it is supposed to work.  I am new at all of this myself. ” She kicks the jamb again with her leather boot.  Part of the jamb pushes back.  “Here we go.” she says.    She pulls the side of the house back like an accordion door. The other side of the opening shows a gray, rocky slope.

“C’mon everyone!” she cries.  She looks around furtively.  A rather large gray bird, with a red crest comes flying through.  Shiara reaches up as high as she can, and down comes a glowing ball.  Then she leans down to the ground and picks up a large bundle lying there.  Geo is still watching as he sees the top part of the valley curl up like a leaf.  “Let’s go”, Geo, she says.

With the ball of light in one hand, and the package in the other, she walks through the door, with Geo in front of her.  They step out onto the gray, rocky slope of a new world.  Geo peeks through the door from the other side.  Fire engulfs everything, and the land curls up like paper.  All that is left is a black, empty universe.

***

4:39:44 PM