- When is that huge meteor scheduled to hit Earth?
- I heard something about 2035.
- You mean in thirty-seven years the world might end?
- The world wouldn’t end.
- If a meteor of that size hits Earth, we’ll be destroyed.
- We might be destroyed, but there’d still be a world.
- Do you mean a universe?
- I guess that’s what I mean.
- How will there be a universe if we’re not there to form the concept?
- Do you think we’re so important that the whole universe can’t exist if we don’t? What was here before we were born?
- History was here.
- That’s exactly it. We’re simply a part of it all, like a whorl in a tree trunk.
- Why didn’t you say a grain of sand on a beach?
- Okay, a grain of sand on a beach.
- How can someone who knows so much about the universe be persuaded to use a cliché?
- Death is a cliché.
- What do you mean?
- It’s given to us, and we can do nothing to change it.
- But you’re saying our own deaths don’t matter. Not now. Not in thirty years, not if the universe gets destroyed.
- Exactly.
- So what should we do?
- About what?
- What should we do to prevent the meteor from destroying us?
- I guess we could intercept it.
- Who, you and me?
- The government.
- I knew it.
- Knew what?
- You’re some kind of hired assassin.
- What do you mean?
- You’re hired by the government to make me think I don’t matter, not even if I die.
- How does that make me an assassin?
- It’s conceptual. You erase me with your thoughts.
- So maybe I’m more of an artist than an assassin.
- How much do they pay you?
- Who?
- The government.
- Why would the government hire me to convince you of anything? Are either of us so important?
- Here you go again. You just won’t admit it.
- Admit what?
- That when we die the universe will perish.
- Okay. When we die the universe will perish. Does that make you feel better?
- Yes, momentarily.
|
The Prose Poem