“Tide‘s coming in,” she said.

Looks like it. 

He was a bit startled to hear the voice.

As usual, when he looked up, no one was there. 

He was still alone here, at the End of All Things.

It had taken a long time—a lifetime, to be exact—to get here.

At the beginning of it all, there were a million shades of green, fragrant in the warm sun and soft to lie in. Flowers of all types and sizes lent their colors to the lush blanket in the shade of the fecund trees. Even the dirt was alive; sinewy worms deposited their nitrogenous vermicastings to replenish the dark soil, and bugs of all manner—similarly resplendent in their ladybug reds and hornet yellows and iridescent blues and greens—crawled and buzzed and flew. And the green was safe and sleepy.

Such was the nature of the valley of his grandfather’s garden, in the early times.

And faces! Smiling and kind and falsely immortal, looking down at him. People appeared, unbidden, from every reach and recess to hold and feed and entertain and protect. A village of family and friends—for everyone was friendly—animated by the soundtrack of gentle prattle and music and laughter.

He remembered all this as if it were only yesterday (and perhaps it was—time is funny like that).

After his grandfather ended, silently, in the sleepy soft garden, things progressed as things do, and he eventually came to the steep mountains that encinctured the gently sloping valley.

Life was more effort than event there in the mountains, as the air thinned and the slope of the grade progressed exponentially. He was young then, and strong, and the climb was an invigorating test of heart, lungs and muscle. The sweat paid rich dividends in pine scent and vista; he could see far beyond the valley to lands previously unexplored by him. (Perhaps by anyone?)

The elevation was more than scenic. Conflict beset man since man was, and it is ancient knowledge that he who holds the high ground is likely to be victorious. Even in times without conflict, he reckoned, man seeks the mountains as though elevation transcends the physical. It is said that the moral high ground is a singular good, isn't it? And the gods (and maybe God) live in the mountains; everyone knows that.

Gods and dragons.

Why leave the valley at all? Why abjure the safe, sleepy green for hard, high rocks? There were still bugs, to be sure, but also animals of a size and carnivorous predisposition that could render him lunch. And the people were less, and less talkative in the high places, probably busy seeking their own High Places.

Still, the mountains were there, and different, and held the promise of…what? At this, he was stumped, but he knew that the thing he was seeking would make itself evident when he found it, or it found him.

He sang back to the rivers, in their native tongue. He danced the swaying dance of the pines when the wind howled its harsh—but true—pronouncements. The other denizens of the mountain gradually accepted him, as he paid his homage of solitude and persistence, and so he wasn’t lunch after all. And while he didn’t find God (or the gods), he was sure they were close at hand.

Many seasons passed and he was content there, in the high mountains, for a long while. One day, as the days shortened and the nights became colder, he had a realization—almost an epiphany, if such exists—that something had changed. That his experience of life, there in the high places, was not the same as it had been. That, perhaps, he was not as he had been.

The steep walks were now somehow more…difficult. The thin air seemed to have gotten thinner; his heart pounded a warning and his muscles ached in remonstration. The cold days felt colder and the winter sometimes felt endless.

With a shock that felt like melancholy, he remembered that he forgotten his why; the reason he left the safe valley so long ago. He had been searching for something; something unnamed yet so important as to compel a journey up the mountain.

But in return for its boon—the bounty provided so that he could survive and thrive—the mountain demanded all of his attention, and commandeered his focus with lush distraction of view and bough and scent.

Through the clouds of his warm breath he saw, far in the distance (from here, he saw many things in the faraway), a place of warmth. And the sight filled him with remembrance and remorse and a sort of longing; a faint pang of loss for that which he had been unable to gain.

So down from the hills he traveled, past the pines and streams and meadow, propelled again by recollection of a quest for—he saw it now—his reason, and his place, and…his time.

And…yes, that was it…Time itself. So much time had already expired and yet he was unfulfilled; so much of the journey remained to explore and experience and exhilarate!

If he could only find Time.

The desert he had viewed from above beckoned with warmth and flatness and reprieve from rain; a place that, with any luck, would make his quest and Time easier. Here, surely, he would savor the fine contentment commensurate with answers to a question burning, albeit as yet poorly formed. The discovery of why was simply a matter of Time.

Alas! Luck, like young love, is powerful in motivation, yet ephemeral in the logistics of reality: the desert was not inviting warm but threatening hot. Its creatures were predisposed by reflex to bite and strike and sting. Wind and sand unending were its offerings, and no friendly familiar faces could be found. As if they long ago and in judgement superior had forsaken this barren place.

And the heat smelled like death.

Death! Clear now and intimate, like a lightning strike close and impossible to ignore, he was possessed of the reality that death is the devourer of Time.

In a fevered panic, now, he fled the desert to escape the heat and the sand and the nothing that it contained; perchance to escape that which is the ender of Time.

So enlightened, he walked on toward the End of All Things. He stopped when the land gave way to the sea and he could walk no farther.

No place left to go.

No question remained unanswered; no quest uncompleted.

At last he understood, and his spirit was as quiet as as the anoxic hypolimnion of deep, cold water. He observed:

The beach is sandy; once mighty masses of rock ground away to fine nothing. Vast coral reefs, once housing vibrant life, suffer the same fate. The sea is salty, as ever-so-slightly acid rain over eons decomposes the rock, and untold quintillions of cells undergo a kind of postmortem apoptosis, releasing their chemical guts in a deep-time spasm of entropy. Everywhere lay the corpses of kelp forests and crabs, and the birds that once fed upon them. Only sand fleas thrive amongst the scenic dead and rotting driftwood, feasting upon death.

The diorama of impermanence made clear its missive: Your spark of consciousness IS the ineffable, impossibly improbable summum bonum. Mind it while you have Time.

For everything, everywhere, always is undone.

And the tide is coming in.



I’m excited to announce that the first episode of the Hardcore Happiness podcast will be distributed on July 31st! Stay tuned and follow my Instagram feed (link below) for more info as we get closer!



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- JWW