60 minutes.

A figure resembling the shape of a human adult walks up a hill in the middle of nowhere. They look around, bathing in the light given off by the sunset, before sighing and sitting down on the grass. A stronger being would be getting ready for what’s to come, but instead they lie here… waiting for someone they invited.

54 minutes.

Another figure in the form of a human child walks up the same hill, in the manner that expresses a slight impatience. If they had a face, it would likely be showing the beginnings of a frown. It’s the first time that something like this has happened, usually everything goes by the same way. At least it made things less boring, the child thought.

52 minutes.

The adult known as Oblivion broke the silence with a quiet voice.

“Hey”

The child known as Creation spoke loudly, as they usually did.

“Mmh. Why’d you call me here?”

“I’ve just been thinking a lot about this, and… are you sure?”

“What?”

“Are you sure it’s time? Like, now? There might be something you forgot-”

“Vi, you know how thorough we are. We didn’t miss anything - wouldn’t be much of a creator if I didn’t keep track of my creation, would I?”

“Yeah yeah, I don’t know. I just… something feels off this time. I’m not sure what it is.”

“Well, now you know that everything’s ready. We should go, prepare for the next pa-”

“I’m not doing it.”

45 minutes.

Creation froze for a moment, before looking over to Oblivion - who kept staring ahead of them. Something felt different this time, but it wasn’t anything about what’s out there. That’s when a memory answered the question;

“…what is this about the debt?”

“What? What debt?”

“You know, last time I told you to cut things off a bit late so that I could take a nap. I remember you being mad about that too-”

“No no no… Well…”

“Aha!”

“It’s not what you think. Just… I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”

“Huh?”

“I’m tired of destroying everything. It’s not fun seeing… all of this, and then deciding to just wipe it all away.”

“And… it took you the other innumerable times you did it to realize this… now?”

“No. No it took me the one time where the pattern broke for a bit.”

“…ah.”

“Yeah. It gave me some room to snap out of the mindset I’d been in and… consider everything for a moment. I still did it, but this time round I spent a lot more time thinking and-”

“And you feel guilty.

“…yeah.”

“…hm. Well I mean, you’re only destroying what I created, and I do let you do it, so-”

“That’s not the point! The moment its out there, it’s its own thing. It has its own value, it’s not just your creation then.”

“I mean it is-”

“Well maybe you see it that way, but I don’t. There’s things out there, things doing… THINGS! Creating their own stuff, living their own lives… Why should I just, end all of it?”

“Because it’s a good thing.”

“Huh?”

29 minutes.

“Everything needs to end someday.”

“But why?”

“Cause what’s the point otherwise?”

“The point is that everything keeps going! Things can still happen, stuff can keep growing and getting better until-”

“Until what?”

“…until… it’s perfected! All of it!”

“Mhm. And then what?”

“Huh?”

“After everything’s all perfected, reality couldn’t be better, what then?”

“Well… then everything within the reality can enjoy it!”

“What’s the point of enjoying if there’s no pain to compare it to?”

“Mmmh. Well then it would make sense for me to destroy it all.”

“What, and that’s better than destroying things before they achieve perfection? Make them achieve it then instantly take it down?

“Okay, so what the hell happens then?”

“What happens is nothing, because your perfection is unreachable. Please, answer me this. What do you think objective perfection is?”

“I… uh…”

“Exactly. What’s perfect for someone won’t be perfect for someone else. If there was such a thing as objective perfection, then everything would just be exactly the same. Is that the goal here?”

“No that sounds-”

“Precisely.”

18 minutes.

“So uh… Is that my point?”

“Hm?”

“Stop everything from reaching perfection cause it basically sucks? Is that my point every time this happens?”

“In a way, yeah.”

“In that case… the hell is the point of anything?”

“Mm?”

“Like, if everything you create is doomed to have this… garbage perfection as an endpoint, to then be destroyed by me and then… created again… what’s the point?”

“Aaah… Nihilism. Did you see Nietzche?”

“…nah, had better things to do.”

“Yeah fair. I created him and STILL barely remember him… anyways. The point is that it’s happened.”

“Okay, Philosophy major.”

“No I’m serious! Every time we do this, it works out differently. Something’s different every single time. Maybe this time the population has one less member, or this time the world is actually flat.”

“I’d advise against that, by the way.”

“Lemme worry about that. Anyways. Every single time, we gotta cut things off. It just needs to happen - sometimes it’s time for the universe to sleep.”

“And why is that?”

“There’s no why. It just needs to happen.”

“The hell kind of answer is that?”

“Look. You think everyone who died had a reason to die? What, you think every person who died was part of a bigger, cosmic reason?”

“Mmm, okay I see your point.”

“Sometimes things just end. And that’s okay. It doesn’t devalue everything that happened beforehand. Just because a book ends doesn’t mean the words in it have no meaning.”

10 minutes.

“Let me put this another way. You know sentences right?”

“Hah, of course I do, what kind of question is that?”

“Okay so, let’s do a metaphor. I represent the words in the sentence, and you represent the fullstop that ends it.

“Hmph.”

“Hey, gimme a moment. So anyways, if it was just me, the sentence would run along - on and on forever. I don’t know about you but that’s a pretty terrible sentence.

“Especially if you’re the one saying it.”

“Shut up.

“Heh.”

“Besides, if it was just you the whole sentence would basically be a fullstop. Hardly much better.”

“Eh, some peace and quiet but. Yeah I get what you mean.”

“With the both of us, we can create a sentence. Because of us - together - this sentence has meaning. I provide the words, and you close them off, leading to a whole creation with meaning.”

“Huh… wait is that why you need me for your work?”

“Eeyup. I need you to cut things off. Add the fullstops so something else can be created. And you need me for yours - after all, to wipe everything there needs to be a thing TO wipe.”

“Yeah… I think I get it now.”

“Now, even if the book that hosted all of the words gets, I dunno, burnt in a fire. That doesn’t mean it’s pointless. It still happened, the story still exists… It’s just not on the book anymore.”

“Yeah. It happened, and that’s what matters. Even if the end result is nothing - the journey still happened.”

“Exactly buddy.”

3 minutes.

“Mmmm. Thanks for this.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I uh, realize there ain’t much time left. You wanna go and prepare?”

“Nah it’s too late now. We’ll just prepare after.”

“Mm, sorry for that.”

“Hey, no worries. We got to talk after all. It’s been a while since we did that. Plus I get to see you do your thing.”

“Heh. I guess this is a new sentence we’re writing together, eh?”

“Mhm. And that’s why we do it. See you next time.”

“See you.”

0 minutes.

THE END