How Do You Get to the End of the World?

Melissa was tired of the world.
For some reason she had grown wary of a tiny home and of her schooling.
On television she watched the images of wars, and products and apocalyptic religion.

She went to her mother and asked, "Mother, how does one get to the End of the World?"

Her mother was a pretty woman, hanging laundry in the small cavern beneath the house, though she knew the clothes would never dry. She enjoyed crocheting and hanging laundry. She despised cooking and wished her husband wouldn't flirt with other women the way he did.

"Eat your greens and pray to God," she said.

Melissa found this advice rather unhelpful.

She went to her father and asked, "Father, how does one get to the End of the World?"

Her father was a solid man, reading the newspaper in his den. He worked too long, and smoked too much. He enjoyed working with his hands, but worked in an office, like his father before him. He despised Communists and wished his wife would realize how much he loved her.

"Anarchy and techno-terrorists," he said.

Again, Melissa found this advice less than helpful.

Her grandmother, however, was a wise, old woman, who sat in the darkness of her room, rocking in her wooden chair. No one knew what she enjoyed, nor didn't enjoy, for she spoke little of herself.

Melissa went to her grandmother and asked, "Grandmother, how does one get to the End of the World?"

"The path is a straight line," the old woman said, brushing hair from Melissa's face and gazing at her kindly. "Through the Door That Was Not There Before, and through the Kingdom of Nowhere. It is simply a straight line."

"Thank you, Grandmother," Melissa said, and hugged her.

She crossed the dark floor and opened the door that hadn't been there before, and stepped through.

She found herself on a sunny road. On either side of the road was a peaceful green forest, its trees gently swaying in the breeze.

Looking back, Melissa found only an expanse of green fields and hills. In the distance was boiling blackness, a storm and sea of shadow.

Trying to whistle (she never could, since she was born), she walk along the path, gazing from time to time at the blue, empty sky, and at the frothy green forest.

She came upon three animals - a fox, a hedgehog and a pig, seated beside themselves on the side of the road. They were sitting quite contentedly, and they were staring up at the sky.

Melissa stopped near them. "Excuse me," she said.

The fox did not look from the sky. "Yes?" he asked.

"What are you three looking at?"

The hedgehog snickered. "We're watching the war."

"The war?"

The pig snorted. "We're all going to die."

Melissa looked up.

She could've sworn the sky had been empty before.

Multitudes of bi-planes swarmed the skies, almost blackening the horizon. A massive zeppelin sluggishly moved upwards through their ranks, through their battles. Around them, clouds coiled and brightened, as the assaults ripped through their substance.

Hundreds of damaged bi-planes fell from the swarm, like tiny black snowflakes in the distance.

One, accompanied by the pilot's scream, shot over their heads into the forest like a fiery comet.

"What are they fighting over?" Melissa asked.

The fox shrugged. "Their gods."

"Why?"

"'Cause you gotta have one god. Can't have two."

"Why?"

"What? They tell me why they got their rules? How should I know?"

Another bi-plane went spiraling into the forest across from them, pieces of its hull shredding of it as it went.

"Sounds stupid," Melissa said, and continued on her way down the path, leaving the three animals to their enjoyment.

She walked a good distance along the road, until the war was only a dark cloud in the distance. Ahead of her, beyond the forest, she could see large hills and mountains stretching upwards towards the sky, like slumbering giants.

The road turned away from the forest and headed to Melissa's right, stretching down towards a bright horizon.

Melissa paused in front of the turn, and stared straight ahead of her, into the dark forest that choked the road.

"A straight line," Melissa said to herself, and stepped forwards, off the path, into the darkness of the trees.

The forest swallowed her, and Melissa found herself walking among strange, twisted trees. The light from the canopy poured in as stretches of luminence, dust motes shining as they danced through the air.

The trees seemed to twist and reach for her, but Melissa kept clear of them, shuffling through the sea of leaves that made the forest floor.

Occasionally she would see strange sights. A river of blood coursed by her at one time. At another she saw several hung corpses that sang several songs entirely out of tune. A group of naked women sat in clearings constructing strange machines that walked and twitched and died. They called to Melissa to join them, but Melissa stayed on her straight path.

A man with the head of a white rabbit stood by a tree, a top hat on his head and a black coat around his body. In his white paws was a cane. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"I'm going to the End of the World," Melissa replied.

"You can't do that," the white rabbit said. "It is not your time yet."

"But I'm going anyways," Melissa said.

"Time is a straight line," the white rabbit said. "You can't simply bend it or step over it. It can't be done."

"I'm going," Melissa said. "And that's that."

The white rabbit shook his head. "I'm going to have to stop you."

The forest shook with the howls of wolves. From about the trees around the white rabbit leapt snarling, huge beasts that tore through the leaves towards her.

Melissa ran, scrambling to keep in front of the wolves. She ran until her throat burned and her chest seemed to clench in on itself. She stumbled and fell, tumbling down through the leaves into a clearing.

When she looked up, the wolves were gone.

An old ragged woman was sitting in the clearing, in front of a campfire. Folds of colorful robes hung around her frail form and chains of gold hung around her wrists and neck. Behind her was a large stagecoach, covered with birds of all shapes of sizes. Sparrows, rooks, ravens, parrots and many others sat atop the coach, ropes attached from their legs to the coach.

Over to the side of the campfire was a large fallen tree, its stump tinged with the blackness of lightning.

The old woman looked up at Melissa. "Why dearie me, dearie my, where are you off to?"

Melissa got to her knees. "I'm trying to get to the End of the World," she said.

"Oh, well," the old woman said. "Then you'll be neading to go through the Kingdom of Nowhere, won't you?"

"Yes, I think," Melissa said, brushing the leaves off her clothes. "But I don't exactly know how to do it."

"Ah, yes, dearies," the old woman replied. "Many don't, yet many end up there anyways. I'm one o' the few who know, that's true."

"Can you tell me how?"

"Ah, ah," the old woman said. "All information comes with a price, my dearie darling. Chop up that tree and bring me that firewood, and perhaps I'll tell you."

"The entire tree?" Melissa asked.

"And you better hurry," the old woman said. "The boiling darkness is approaching, and its eating the world. They say its getting faster."

The old woman limped to her stagecoach and withdrew an axe. She threw it into the leaves near Melissa.

Melissa picked it up and walked to the log. She raised the axe, a little disconcerted by its weight, and brought it down on the tree.

It barely entered the wood.

Sweat broke out on Melissa's forehead and she grimaced in frustration. She pulled back the axe and swung it down again.

The blade bounced off the tree and Melissa stumbled, almost falling.

She looked back at the old woman, who was cooking a small chicken over the fire.

Melissa brought back the axe and brought it down again.

She had barely made any progress by the time night fell over the forest. The clearing was surrounded on all sides by darkness, staved off only by the light of the campfire.

Melissa stared at the small pieces of wood she had managed to break off the tree. She sighed and sat down on the log, and wondered whether she should cry or not.

She sat and stared up at the moon, who's light was trailing in through the forest, and as she did, she became aware of a glow that came from the stagecoach.

Quietly as she could, Melissa crept over to the windows of the coach and peered in. The inside seemed larger than the outside and was filled with boxes and objects and exotic paraphenaelia of all shapes and sizes.

The glow was coming from a small glass case, and within a tiny winged woman, who's skin was luminence itself.

Melissa stared at the woman's beauty, and the woman stared at Melissa. The small woman mouthed the words Free me.

Melissa nodded and reached in, grabbing the glass case and tipping it. She cried out as she felt the old woman's hands close on her throat, wrenching her back from the coach.

Too late. There was a flash of light that overpowered both Melissa and the old woman, knocking them both to the forest floor.

Melissa opened her eyes, and she saw the winged woman floating above her, gazing at her gently.

Beside her, Melissa could see ragged smoking bones. About the skeleton's neck and wrists were gold.

"You have freed me," the winged woman said. "I shall grant you a boon."

Melissa swallowed, humbled by this woman's presence. "I want to go to the End of the World," she said.

The woman seemed startled. "Oh, I can't send you there. But I can send you to the Kingdom of Nowhere, where the path to the End of the World lies."

"Please."

The winged woman smiled then and swept out her hand. The door in the trunk of a tree swung open.

"In there," the woman said.

"Thank you," Melissa said, and stepped through the tree.

Melissa stepped onto the path through the Kingdom of Nowhere. She passed massive mountains made of bones, and beneath the shadows of ravens larger than castles. She stepped through kitchen where the chefs were preparing the flesh of human princes, and into rooms where men sat gibbering in opium dreams.

During the day the sky was grey and empty, when she passed through dark deserts where palaces floated in the air and warriors fought with their minds in the sand.

During the night the stars sparkled and the moon was huge and massive. In the darkness that surrounded her she could make out the sillouettes of creatures too large to comprehend, moving and lumbering.

On her second day she passed by a mountain range where two angels fought an epic battle with automatic rifles.

She passed by three old men arguing over which religion was the right, which ended with one of the men saying "Mine is right," and shooting another man dead with a pistol, to which the other remaining man replied "Yours is right."

That night she met a young boy named Paul who traveled in a teacup, and changed direction with a spoon. Together they flew to the far reaches of the Kingdom of Nowhere, where the night was reflected in the Sea of Stars.

As they landed, Melissa smiled at Paul and together they watched the beauty of the Sea, where stars sparkled brighter than in the sky.

Comets and missiles were flying from the land up to the moon, crashing through it and breaking off fragments, which floated around in the sky.

"This is it, I guess," Melissa said. "Across the Sea is the End of the World."

"I hope you find what you're looking for there," Paul said.

He tapped his teacup with his spoon and he floated back up into the sky.

Pieces of the moon were crashing into the land around her, and she stepped forwards, onto the Sea.

Her foot touched the water, and ripples spread away, through the reflections of the stars. Yet she floated atop, and walked along its surface.

She could see angels in the sky, crying and screaming in terrible sadness. She could see lights sparkling through the night, supernovae in deep space.

She continued forwards, through the darkness, leaving it behind. Leaving it all behind.

Daytime came, a fiery spark on the horizon, and Melissa found herself on a small island, its grass yellow in the sunrise. A single tree stood on the island, its leaves already coloring from fall.

All about her was water, and in the distance she could see half the moon sticking up from the waters.

On the other side of the island was the white rabbit. He shook his head. "There. You did it. You've reached the End of the World. This is it."

Melissa looked around. "Oh. Cool."

"Happy?" the white rabbit asked. "There's nothing now. You can't go back. And there's nothing you can do about it."

"What's beyond?" Melissa asked.

"What?"

"What's beyond? What beyond now?"

"This is the End," the white rabbit said. "There is nothing now."

"Oh," Melissa said. "Well, no. Not really. There has to be something beyond here. Nothing ends. Not really ends. I mean, there's time happening right now. We're talking. Things are happening now."

"No!"

Melissa shrugged. "Maybe I'll go back to the Beginning. See how it all started. Huh?"

"You can't!" the white rabbit said. "You can't just bend time! It's all a straight line! You can't break the rules!"

"But I did," Melissa said. "And it's not all a straight line, because I would've gotten here eventually any other way, right?"

"No!"

"I just need to go through the Door That Wasn't There Before."

"You can't do this!"

Melissa smiled. "Maybe I'll see you around, then."

"No you won't!"

"We'll see."

Melissa turned and opened the door in the tree that wasn't there before.

She stepped in.

And was gone.