The End

By G. W. Thomas

He thought back briefly on his favorite life-forms. The human (especially the female of the species), the elfin Regus, the stick-like philosopher-kings known only as the Eez, and the beautiful but deadly striders. All life had fought and warred to survive. But now? The suns guttered. The planets crumbled. What had it all been for? Even the gods had no answer for that, passing shortly after their mortal worshippers.

The Rainbow Man placed his hand into his cloak and pulled out a small box, a minute copy of the Box of Ages which he had stolen from Balus. Inside this box were his millennia, his centuries, decades, years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds. Every scrap of his existance. The wizardd the box and dumped the Dust of Time into airless space. Every jot of time fell from the container and floated away.

The Rainbow Man prepared to throw the box away when he spied deep inside, one last particle of time which had not floated away. He took the molecule of duration between two fingers and stared at it. It was one of millions of hours, clear, silvery and fine. Hed his mind and perceived this last lonely moment. It was a sixty minute period from his youth. Not yet old enough to find girls attractive, it was a time of comradery, of high-jinks and secrets, which though of no importance to anyone else, seemed precious and worthy of hoarding. The wizard re-enjoyed that last golden hour, swimming in ponds, running through woods, eating cold chima and strawberries. Old friends were new to him again. And he cried when that hour was done.

It was over. The Rainbow Man lay down slowly on the lifeless ground and died. The one thing he had never done. And like everything in his life, he did it well.

Floating around his body, his strange four-armed body, the Dust of Time scattered like seeds from a dandelion, ready to be born again.

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