Marlie on the Beach at the End

When the end comes for the world, it’ll be slowly. Ants that have slid into a pitcher of Kool-Aid will neither swim nor sink but blur, each thorax drifting in its own direction as possible worlds each slip the surly bonds that have held them – and us – together, in glossy focus. The last astronaut will look down from his yellow space skiff, an O-ring of fragile wonder forming on his lips. He’ll remember the pines, a day of sunny furlough, Marlie waiting on the beach, her hair in pigtails, or an updo, silver, or cropped flat like a beautiful boy’s.

Image: Visual Panic on Flickr.