Omega

by Chris Dodson

I dreamed last night of crystal cities, scattered
across space like shells on a beach.
Between them flew delicate creatures made of quantum
uncertainty,
Fragile, wispy things that had once been flesh and
bone,
Drifting from city to city, from star to star,
Merging and diverging in a slow-motion dissipation
dance.
They were artists and they were engineers, leaving
majestic monuments in their wake,
Intricate golden lattices of stardust and light,
Entropic waste-heat shrines to a cold and dying
universe.
Slower and slower they moved as the stars flew apart,
then sputtered and died,
One by one by one.

Comfort, heat, meaning -- all things ever more
unattainable
As the boundaries of what could be known stretched
farther and farther away,
Riding atop that merciless wave of expansion.
In quantum whispers, those noble last men spoke to one
another:
"What can be done? What can we do?"
So beautiful, so magnificent,
In hope and in fear they waited,
Until that final answer came ringing through space and
time:
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
And so, with a patience that transcended their humble
fleshly origins,
They waited.
They waited, exhausted, then extinguished,
One by one by one.

I woke up in a cold sweat; all I could do was just lie
there,
Paralyzed by immensity and sorrow.
Never before had I felt so alone.
And here I still lie, waiting for the sun to set once more,
Waiting and watching,
Watching and wondering
If I'll ever be able to look at the stars again.

Copyright © 2004 by Chris Dodson