Unsustainable

It was a beautiful night. Weather was warm, sky was clear, painted blue and purple and thin line of orange trailing the horizon. I could see stars, little pinpricks but stars nonetheless, a million miles away and still they incandesce, still we can see them. My friends were with me, and we were small fish in a big pond, confident in the knowledge that we could swim it together, that we could weather any storm and come out the other side smiling. The world was huge and waiting and ours for the taking, and I never wanted it to end. I never want it to end.

But it will. And I can’t stop it. No one can, or maybe everyone can which practically means that no one will.

Because, see, there’s this thing I carry, push like a rock uphill until one day it’ll fall and I don’t know if I’ll be able to shoulder it again. I don’t know if I’ll be around to.

Because, see, there’s this thing, stuck in the back of my head, hard and heavy like a shot of lead, ticking with the precision of an atomic clock counting down till everything I’ve got will someday stop and I know I can’t stop it but I wish I could watch it because then at least I’d know how much time I have left, how much I’ve spent, how much I’ve wasted—

Because, see, every day bad or good I ask myself how many of these are left. How many years before it all goes to shit, rain turns to mist, sky to haze, forest to blaze—how much of this life, how many beautiful nights, give me a number I know it’s finite—

Because, see, you and I and everyone in this room, everyone outside of it, every piece of painstaking constructed artifice loved into being, we’re all taught how to look without seeing so we don’t see the countdown getting closer and closer and closer and I don’t want the world to end but I don’t think it can continue. I don’t think we can keep this one going.

Because, see, none it can last, time moves too fast and we usher it along the path of least resistance falling back and running forward and one day we’ll miss a step and everything will be gone. I don’t know if I can survive that. I don’t know if anyone will.

One day, we’ll find out.