The End Of All Worlds

• Ruby Stephenson, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2022

The world began and ended in one spark, with the flick of a wrist. A colourful explosion of geometrical debris moved in quick slow-motion. I watched from beside Him, tears escaping the net of my painted lashes. Angels wouldn’t cry at this. I pictured Daniel waiting for me to get home. Mrs. Cottise knitting next door. Michael with his mistress. I was walking to see him when an illuminating flash transported me to watch my entire world compressed into a flaming sphere. Was every part of history, every world just some repetition of others? My brain pounded trying to compute this reality that everything I had ever loved was a recycling project.
The shadowy hulk beside me cleared His crusted throat.
“There’s something wrong. A soul is missing.”
“Somebody must have died before you ended Earth #4902.” An angel spoke cautiously.
“Very well. Fast forward this one.”
My hands trembled. I had never believed in a God but I supposed He should be good, not the harbinger of repetitive worldly making and destruction.
“Sir, you’re going too fast. Humans have already left the stone age. This one only has 365 days a year.”
“Fine.” He replied sharply and pressed a large metallic button.
The new world in front of me stopped spinning. Earth #4903 was blue and circular, covered in wispy clouds. I had loved feeling the electricity in clouds approaching to water our dying earth even though it hadn’t always been dying and the rain wasn’t always filled with grey. Those fantasies had only existed on bookshelves for me. I stood stupidly straight and barely moved a pinkie finger as tears ran tracks along my cheeks. Thunder booms were clouding my ears as my pulse heightened dangerously. I risked a look to the side to see a silver of skin no longer black and scabbed but fresh like a newborn babies.
Fast movement turned my eyeline forwards. Countries were arranged as if someone had hit a shuffle button. Russia was nowhere, Angland was now England and Poland was next to Germany instead of France.
“Greece is new, what year is it?”
“407BCE.”
“Show me something.”
The view was moved to two men talking animatedly.
“Ah, Socrates teaching Plato. Fast forward again.”
“Will you make any other stops sir? It is now 1894, you’ve gone quite far.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“Well in Paris—"
“Boring.” His voice was becoming raspy again. Instinctively, I peeked at His neck.
It was grey and strewn with ugly pulsing scars. How could he not feel that his skin was charred, blistered and whipped raw? The vibrating vocal chords protruding from His encrusted neck tissue made my stomach acid rise like an ocean wave.
“You’re almost at the end.”
“It’s only 2104.” His words were barely discernible.
“These ones were bad. Half the planet is uninhabitable. It’s time now.”
“Very well.” He wheezed.
Skeletal fingers slowly pushed down on a small red button and the world became a spark again.