What would you do if some being approached you & asked to offer you a special gift of your heart’s desire? I already had a special gift, all thanks to her~ the being in charge of Arts, Time, and Destiny. She had raised me and taught me all that I know about dealing with fate and using my skills for different authorities.

The being wondered why I refused his offer. Then I decided to ask for one thing- someone who would be able to go along with me on all my missions. That’s how I ended up with my golden feathered pal. He’s one of a kind and quite talented. Not only can he fly/move so much faster than sound\light— he can also time jump. But that takes a toll on him. So, we usually save that trick for emergencies.

From time to time, we do get into serious trouble here & there. If it’s not trying to catch some crazy prisoner, or find a missing heir to the throne, yeah, our adventures are all over the place. I sure am glad that I have my best buddy to tag along to all the magical & fun times! Another thing is that we don’t have to worry about ageing, we have all the time on our hands to go wherever the timeless path leads.

#TIMELESS.

He wakes late to find that as he slept

he’s been touched by the whisper – by the images

of his dreams – a seagull

bending toward a curving ocean. Nothing’s

different. He mutters to himself. He

shaves, makes coffee, plods

through some stale bread. But

sitting on the bus it’s clear. He can feel things --

passengers hunched in their seats, bent. Lauren

who just got braces, believes people can see

through her clothes. Tommy, the all-night mechanic

sifts through the lies, praying “God,

let me keep them straight when I get home.” Why,

do we talk to ourselves like this – rummaging

through the fragments. Jonathan, his head

in his palms, imagines

a day when every bill comes due. “Hey…”

he realizes, and this is the part that’s new, “If we

are gall going to waste this bus ride, talking

to ourselves, looping

through the old, over and over, why not

imagine something wonderful -- an orange sunset,

a sleeping child’s soft breath

– something excellent. And so he rises

from his seat and clears

his throat, so that everyone looks up

from their phones. But then he can’t think,

of how to begin.

Deep sorrow, black pain, and endless death.

This is what I see, for my eyes are not mortal, they’re dammed!

Cursed by the wretched soul of the dark to see the pain and sorrow in the world.

The pit of agony we create as a race. The secrets we hide, the lies we tell.

For we are not the ones who are civilized. No, we are among beasts, maybe even lower. We're foul, I know for I am different, I see the world with open eyes of emptiness.

It hurts to know you cannot trust your fellow man, for he will forsake you.

In this time maybe even the gods don’t care, because even I have lost all hope for humanity.

It's hard being lonely.

Being the only one that exists.

Knowing that, no matter how much you try, nothing will go back to the way it was.

Nothing is ever the same after the end.

All of us, the gods, were expecting the end would come from an attack, a war, that we would go out in a blaze of glory. We were expecting to go out with a bang, not a whimper.

All of us represented many different things. My brother was the god of life. My sister, the goddess of death. They always had an... interesting dynamic. Always fighting over trivial stuff. My wife was the goddess of knowledge. She loved to catalogue all the time that I could remember, just for posterity. That’s the only reason I’m still writing this all down, just for posterity. With hope that something comes after the end.

Our son was the god of languages. At least that was all we knew at the time, he was still a growing child. He was always interested in other mythologies the mortals cherished so much. He would come up to me and say 'Mother! Look! The Romans got you wrong. They split you into two people'. Sometimes I wish they did, then I would have somebody to talk to.

Being Time (creative name, I know), the goddess of time, I can never fade. I am always there, I always exist. If only there was a deity for space. Then I wouldn't be alone.

I gave up on crying a long time ago. I lost everyone, everything. But time marches on, and I must march it onwards. Marching on to the end, either through death, or renewal.

My son asked me if fate existed. Mortals were so interested in the concept, so he had to ask. I wish there was fate, so I could see into the future.

About seeing into the future, I can't do it willingly, it just happens. And it is always just a quick view, never enough to fully understand it. Now, I haven’t had one of these flashes in years, so I have no clue how it ends, how the future will pan out. But it shouldn’t matter anymore.

Everyday I walk through a desolate, dismal universe, filled with dead planets and dying stars, the last things lighting up all of existence. I suppose when those go out I will, too. I hope so. The total freezing of the universe will be a nice way to end it.

My strolls through the universe are the only reason I know that all of it is dying. It just shows me that the desolation left in one place isn’t local, it’s throughout all of space. Just showing me that the end, the only future, is near.

-Ending 1-

All but one of the stars have gone out. But this one is very close to its death. I step close to the star, the heat heavy on my skin, but not hurting me. This is the last bit of life in the universe. The last bit pushing time further, pushing me further. I lay back as best as I can in this zero-gravity environment and watch this star burn and burn.

Until it stops.

All of the heat is gone. All I can feel is a crippling cold as the temperature ticks down to absolute zero. It doesn’t hurt, I can’t feel anything anymore except for the relief in my heart and the sorrow for the real end of the universe.

Not a cosmic rip, not a cosmic crunch, but a freeze, a slowdown, the temperature a ticking timer moving towards the end.

I would cry if I had any moisture left to cry. Cry of happiness that comes with the release of death. Cry of sadness knowing that this is the way it all ends.

But all I can say is one thing.

It’s about time.

-Ending 2-

I wander through the graveyard that is the universe. The vestiges of a time long past. A time that hurts to remember. A flourishing universe.

Now, none of that is left, just the ruins of civilizations and the twinkling of dying stars.

I keep walking to help me pretend there is still a purpose to my existence, a reason that I am still here. It’s so hard not being able to die.

I stumble across a black hole. I haven’t seen one of those in thousands of years. I glance around to the universe surrounding me, nothing is left for me here. I would rather try my luck at the black hole then waiting for time to end out here in this cemetery of memories and regrets.

I walk closer to the black hole, allowing myself to get sucked in. The pressure doesn’t hurt, nothing physical hurts anymore.

I get taken through the black hole and appear on the ‘other side’. I glance around at my new surroundings, it reminds me of when the universe was younger, but this one is different, feels different. The black hole must have somehow brought me here. How? I don’t know, but at this point I don’t care. I meander through this new environment, marvelling at the new stars being formed, the planets that aren’t desolate and dead. Life continued on.

I rush around to the planets, desperately searching for signs of life, signs that my life will have purpose.

I finally land on the tallest mountain on a planet with red oceans and purple forests. I land on the pale blue snow that covers the tip of the mountain. It feels cold, but it’s a welcome feeling. I feel the subtle heat of both of this planet’s suns on my face, smiling knowing that not all planets are dead. I glance over the landscape around me: the oceans lapping up on the rocky quartz shores, the forests that have leaves of not just purple, but all of the colors of the rainbow, those colors rippling their way through the trees.

Next to me is a small flower. I kneel down next to it, carefully cupping the delicate petals in my hand. This flower is different than any I have ever seen, with each of its petals like a prism, refracting the light in many different ways in my hand. This flower is different, just like this baby universe. Nothing is going to be the way it was, but that’s okay. Time will march on, and so will I. I miss everyone I knew, everything I had, but I must keep going for those who are now, those who deserve time to be, to exist.

No matter how sad and horrible things may seem, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel. Always something better waiting for you at the end.

All the pain and nothingness I felt, all the worthlessness and self-pity, is washed away in the joy I feel in this moment. All that suffering was worth it to get to this moment.

I drop my journal in the snow and cry. I need to leave the past behind me and look towards the future, towards the bright, new universe in front of me. I don’t have to forget what happened, what I’ve been through, but I can’t let that dictate my life, my future.

The only thing I can say through the tears pouring like rain down my face is.

It’s about time.

Chronus was brought forth of the nothingness with the other Protogenoi. These were the first to exist among the primordial waters, before the Cosmos came to be.

Helios, in his Golden palace knew his purpose, and by its fulfillment, Bios was understood. The natural signs and markers of Time were to ensure all could prepare.

The question of how we are alive and able to ponder our place within the enormity of the unsurvivable void ruled over by Erebus, is as perplexing today as it has seemingly been throughout history and across civilizations. With the realization of our fragility being like that of a newborn baby, protected only by the mothering Gaia, the produce of Demeter and her children Persephone and Plutus, the flowering hydration offered by Tethys, and the seasonal rains of Hyas, we can begin to form a new appreciation of the infinite wonder there is to be had when truly reflecting upon this world which we have come to view as ordinary.

Further, the sole --or perhaps soul-- purpose for developing the meticulous methodologies created by our ancestors’ ancestors, which would ultimately give birth to the empirical sciences, namely astronomy and physics, was to demystify the divine, to know the unknowable, to lift the veil and peek behind the curtains of Nyx. We have yet to realize that the Cosmos can be understood by the intellect of Coeus alone.

With motives in question, we must ask why Time was dissected and denaturalized until it is unrecognizable at (for lack of a better term) times. We might assume that if we recognized and embraced Nature’s form of Time, we would be more inclined to behave in accordance with Natural Life. I believe we can find our answer if we truly inquire.

She wasn’t erected from seafoam like Aphrodite, as the god's blood from the sky muddied the waters allowing a new form to emerge. A naked women in a clam covering her chest. No, her creation wasn’t some ironic twist of blood into beauty. Instead, she was made somewhere warm, hot bubbles of rock working their way down a mountain, fire erupting from wherever it touched. The heart of this world spitting life up and out. She was beautiful in the way a tiger is, sharp nails, sharp teeth, and intelligent eyes. She wasn’t sure what she was created for initially she just knew that people, those lost, always found her. She had a small following and those who came to her seemed to have nowhere else to go. Widows, runaways, deserters, people who had had their previous lives stripped from them and were left to wander and wonder. In a way, she protected them, looked after them until there were none left to look after. Human life is short and in a blink of an eye all her children were gone. Then unlike Aphrodite, she was forgotten, like the ones she cared for. Like mist lifting off of a still body of water her imprint on human memory dissapeared.

In oath onto truth Thou art helt to audience,

by the only law Awe heed: the mortal’s immortal roar.

Tis Love! and it is out of love I speak of love.

Thou, I say, stars see! That terra! I see no love!

Henceforth, it is to be decreed there is iniquity!

Hither by course of fringed black coasts

and the way thither cause barren hosts!

Herein, Thine charges burn witness wherewith birthed imminence.

Let the angelic beacons see all and Awe.

Seek Apollo’s brothers, seek and bing thy gazes’ to me!

Form here the divine paradigms of inquiry.

It is demanded by a courted oath to truth,

before a heavenly body to be summoned,

Charged and judged: to cage infinite pursuers

in infinite horizons and bar the way with tithe and toll,

Nay! that that abomination shall be spoken here!?

Cosmic Indifference! Thou art unworthy of Ultimate Concern!

By-with wings of Nyx seize the night, being thy despair’d transport!

That soundless cry! And maketh come swiftly Havoc’s Countenance.

Forthwith beyond the thresholds of Erebus, Embark!

Ride out! schisms of chaos and cataclysm!

Dethrone Causality! Rage forth chains of Oblivion!