Gnossiennes.

 ◦ August 15th, 2005. ⸺ 12:24 PM.     The Meanwhile Cafe on Foster Street. ⸺ Sledgen, Destiny. 

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A few weeks ago I felt something shift in the air before me. It was a precise moment; a pinpoint in time. The instant when the stream suddenly altered its current, and left me disoriented and confused in its wake. My head’s been in a whirl ever since, I haven’t been able to shake off the funk it put me in. I don’t know what that moment was, how it was caused, or who’s even responsible for it. I just know that since then I’ve been feeling this looming sense of doom linger above me ever since.

I’m sitting here in this coffee shop now to meet someone. I met her on a whim a few years back at a hotel that’s long gone by now. She gave me her cellphone number before we parted ways and told me to call her whenever matters of “prophecy” came up. I guess now is a time for prophecy, it certainly feels like prophecy. I’m still scanning the noisy crowds for her face. After all this time, I still remember her pale, ephemeral face, clear as day.

•

Before I know it, I see her in the crowd. A sharp, white woman with faded blonde hair. She’s wearing a brown coat, green sweater, and a long, silver skirt, which barely seems to be in touch with reality. She spots me immediately, her eyes interlocking with mine, and swiftly phases through the crowd to take the chair in front of me, never once breaking eye contact. There’s two people sitting at this table now. She already has a cup of coffee sitting in front of her, I must’ve missed her ordering that.

“It’s nice to see you again, Christopher.”

“Nice to see you too, Lorelai.” I take a sip from my coffee, which is already starting to become lukewarm, “I hope I’m not taking too much of your time here.”

“Oh, no. You’re not. I’ve actually been meaning to speak with someone more regular lately.” She replies, her voice a loud whisper that only reaches my ears.

She continues to stare at me with those shadowed, dull grey eyes. She doesn’t seem real.  She doesn’t seem real at all. Her being comes across more like a projection or a phantom than an actual, living person. She’s like phosphorus on air.

“You said on the phone you needed to ask me something?”

“Well, I think I do. This just feels like something you would know the answer to. Something akin to prophecy.”

“Akin to prophecy? Okay… What is it then?”

I let out a deep sigh before I described everything, “A few weeks ago I felt this change in the world. I don’t know how to describe it, but everything feels wrong now. Deeply wrong. Like a massive boulder has just been thrown in front of the flow of everything, and now we’re all spiraling towards a new, more grave and destructive destination. I know I didn’t cause this ⸺ I know what my actions and my worldly effects feel like ⸺ but whatever caused it, I know that something very bad is about to happen to everybody very, very soon.”

Lorelai tilts her head up and, for the first time in my life, I see her stoicism wash away. The eyes that look at me come half-way between shock and sorrow.

“I… I see.” She rests her elbow on the table before letting out a sigh. She seems genuinely saddened by my telling her that. I watch as her eyes gloss over towards something on the other side of the street. The buzzling crowd seems to quiet down a little.

“Do you see that overhead light over there, above that doorway?” She says, pointing to a dark alleyway placed awkwardly between two buildings across from us. There’s a small fluorescent light fixed atop of a back door in the alleyway, buzzing ominously in the dark.

“Yeah, I can see it.”

“How big is its glare? Doesn’t it look like a supernova to you?”

It does. Good God it does. The glare on that light in the alleyway is massive, and it covers nearly half my vision. It’s like an exploding superstar. I legitimately forgot how big lights shine in my eyes. I could stare at this light for hours. I thought of how much my eyes hurt back at that hotel that no longer exists.

“April Amadeus…” I say. The words don’t have weight to them.

“That’s good, you’ve still got that, at least.” she mutters, “No wonder you managed to sense what’s coming.”

“… What? What do you mean by that? What’s coming?”

“The lingering sense of doom you feel isn’t unfounded; something really is going to happen.”

“What is? What is going to happen?”

“It’s…” She exhales at the thought of an explanation. I can tell she’s caught up in her thoughts. Seeing her, of all people, getting overwhelmed fills me with uneasiness. 

“I… I’m sorry, I just don’t feel comfortable burdening you with that kind of knowledge. If it were up to me, you wouldn't have even sensed that weight on the world in the first place.” She turns her gaze back towards the crowd beyond us.

“I can take the truth, Lorelai. I’ve been sensitive to The World for some time now, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be made aware of these things.”

Lorelai lets out a sigh, “Are you sure you want to know?”

I think for a moment, “I do.”

She leans in towards me.

“The World is coming to an end. It's going to end and it isn’t going to end gracefully. To be honest with you, I’m incredibly scared right now. It’s going to take a lot to change course from the path we’re heading down now, and I have no idea if we even have an opportunity to change it at all.”

I didn’t expect her to tell me that. For several seconds I just stare at her, emotionless, before I manage to pick myself back up again.

“What do you mean the World is going to ‘end’?”

“I mean that it’s going to end, Christopher. Everything’s going to die. Destroyed. Cease. We’ve entered Terminus, and now the World is going to end.”

“... Oh.”

I slouch back into my chair as Lorelai lets out a sigh. I rub at my tired eyes to remind myself that this really is my reality.

“To be frank with you, this has been bubbling for centuries now. But a few weeks ago He intervened and now we’re suddenly barreling down towards the end of the World. I’m sorry.”

“Is there anything that can be done about it? ⸺ Isn’t there anything you can do about it? I mean, you’re practically God, right?”

She immediately sits up the moment I say that, “God? I’m not God. You think I’d even be allowing this to happen if I was God? Please.” 

She was genuinely offended by me calling her that. I recoil from embarrassment, I try to tell her that I’m sorry, but my throat twists at the idea of forming a sentence right now. Her penetrating eyes now like daggers to my heart.

She finally sighs, letting loose her clutch on me, “The term ‘God’ implies that I have complete and total control over reality. But the rules have always been around, even before I existed. I’m…,” Lorelai pauses for a moment to find her words, “It’s like what Treshkenov wrote, we’re just Manipulators.”

Crap. I forgot to read Treshkenov.

“Both of Us do actually have means of preventing this sort of thing, but there’s certain aspects of Us that also seek to accelerate this sort of thing as well.”

“Us? You mean you and Him, right?”

“Well, I mean, I specifically don’t really affect anything. I’m more like a watcher for Her. She has other parts of Her that handle this sort of thing. He also does as well.”

“I see.”

“But, right now, we’re so close to collapse that there’s not a lot of options available to us right now. There’s nothing you could even do. There’s nothing I could do. I’m sorry.”

Lorelai sits back in defeat, her eyes glazing over the blurring crowd. She looks so exhausted. 

There’s nothing you could even do: The sound of these words hang deep around my mind. I weigh it to see how it feels, but all I feel right now is shock and emptiness. 

There’s nothing you could even do. 

There’s nothing you could even do. 

There’s nothing you could even do.

It’s going to take a lot to clear these words out of my mind.

•

The waiter comes by and I ask him for the check. He arrives again moments later and I pay in full for the coffee. I sort my belongings back into my coat and begin to sit up from my seat.

“Actually.” Lorelai interjects, “There is one thing I know you can do.”

I slowly sit back down in my seat and lean towards her, moving like a feather dropped in the air.

“What is it? What do you need?”

“There’s a sword not too far from here right now, you’re more likely to stumble upon it than anything. I just want you to make sure it gets to where it belongs.”

A few seconds pass before I take this in, “Where does this sword belong?”

“In your dreams, Christopher.”