FLASH FICTION BY: Zhi Re Wu
ARTIST STATEMENT: The fear in death is often misplaced. Immortality is not living forever, it’s watching the world die around you.
ABOUT THE PHOTO
"Origami Buddha," by Shardul Sigdel
These are some of the origami creations I’ve made. They reflect my passion to make and teach origami. While creating these objects from paper, I was trying to show that if you want to do something that you like to do, just go for it.
ABOUT THIS STORY
Introduction by Prof. Dan Ryan
Tell me a story in under 1,000 words. Go ahead.
Now tell me a story that takes place over millennia—or eternity. And do it in 500 words.
Zhi does just that ... and he does it using second person (the literary equivalent of reciting the Declaration of Independence while on roller skates while balancing a bowl of fruit on your head).
For our Point-of-view unit in my Introduction to Creative Writing class, Zhi crafted a wild, witty piece about living forever. It was always funny ("Eventually," Zhi writes, "[the sun] engulfs the entire sky, vaporizing the planet you once called home. 'Great,' you think to yourself. You are homeless.") But over the course of two City Tech Writer revision sessions, he turned it into something more tender and terrifying: "One day, you notice the sun start to grow dimmer. 'Not you, too …' But even the sun yearns for death."
Maybe it's a cautionary tale. Or maybe it's a love song for our world, for as long as we have it.
Tomorrow, a genie is going to appear in front of you and grant you a wish.
You will choose immortality because of your intense fear of death.
This is a decision you are going to regret.
Nothing will feel different. You will live your life one day at a time, like any good citizen. You will finish college, work an honest job. You will meet your one true love, hold her hands, look into her eyes, vow “till death do us part,” and you will mean it. You will start a family, and life will feel ordinary.
You will look through photos. Everyone will grow older, but you will look the same. On her deathbed, your wife will say, “You look as young as the day I met you,” and you will not know how to answer.
After a thousand years, those photos will have long faded. Their faces will grow harder to remember. Their voices will be a distant echo.
When you forget even yourself, the first second of your eternity will have passed.
After one million years, civilization will have long crumbled to dust. Humans will have gone extinct, except for you. You will live among animal species you’ve never seen before. They will try to eat you, but they poop you out whole.
You will endure ice ages, frozen solid. When the ice melts, you will emerge confused. But you will soon remember.
After a billion years, you will no longer be human. Most days, you are a motionless husk.
The sun now looms over the desolation, growing more giant with every passing eon. Eventually, it engulfs the entire sky, vaporizing the planet you once called home.
“Great,” you think to yourself. You are homeless.
You spend the next second of your eternity floating around the sun. You weren’t there for its birth, but you get to see it grow old. It’s the only thing you will see, the last witness to your existence.
One day, you notice the sun start to grow dimmer.
“Not you, too …”
But even the sun yearns for death.
You open your eyes, and you see nothing. No stars, no galaxies, no nebulas, even the black holes have long evaporated. You are the only thing left in the universe, floating alone.
You miss your sun. It reminds you of a face you can no longer remember. You curl up and close your eyes for the last time. A light glows within you, and you hear a big bang.
