The End of the Earth

It’s the end of the earth.  Jill and Jack hold hands at the very edge, so close they can taste the thickness of the void in their breath.  They can put forth a toe and watch it disappear.

It’s not a drop, or a fall, past the end of the earth.  It’s just empty whiteness stretching infinitely in all directions for all of time.  There are theories, of course.  That you might float from here to another world, perhaps the next world, perhaps elsewhere, and maybe discover the silver city or Babylon or Midnight.  Maybe a race of aliens exist on the other side of that blanket of white, or fairies, or a tribe of Native Americans untouched by Spanish gold or guns or disease.  There’s a crossroads, and a bar, where you might hear Jim Morrison or Bessie Smith or Jelly Roll Morton, and you might share a drink with Death itself if the bartender ever pays you any attention.  It might just be nothing; as you cross the border into nothingness, you simply cease to exist, one cell or limb at a time.  Some believe the answers are just on the other side.  Others don’t think we know the questions.  Maybe the edge of the world is a doorway to a parallel universe, where a different version of you steps through simultaneously so that you each have to live the different life begun by the other.

The end of the earth could be a barrier between dimensions.  A psychedelic hallucinogenic exploration of your inner psyche.  It might be a joke; when you step over and through, you find yourself stepping to right where you stepped from.  There might be gravity, and you might fall forever.  The white might hide the dark.  It’s a dream.  A fever.  A lie.  A trial version.  A beta test of reality.  An elixir to cure the common cold, grant immortality or invisibility, to make you into a phantom, to ease you into the long, final sleep.

Theories are guesswork.  Nobody knows.  Not on this side of the end of the earth.

You’ll find the end at each of the four corners, just as Jill and Jack found it.  They’re in love, but they’re tired, they’ve been beaten.  They’ve enjoyed what they had here, what they lost, and now they’re looking for the next grand adventure.  They don’t know what awaits them beyond the end of the earth.

Hand in hand, they step into the void.  And they discover the truth.