Chapter 26: She Is All That Matters - A Dream of Waking Life

Matt entered his mind and stepped directly onto the empty sidewalk outside May’s apartment. The world was eerily still and silent and seemed to be empty of all life. The sky and the buildings and the very air itself seemed to be growing progressively darker with each of Matt’s breaths, so he held it, hoping it might stall the undulating multidimensional shadows of the reality fissure pervading the inside world as his body in the outside world fell invariably into it. Breath held or not, the darkness continued seeping into everything.

In front of the house, Heron stood with his arms at his sides and eyed Matt through contemplative slits.

“Do you regret your decision?” Heron checked. “Are you here to look for a final solution at the eleventh hour? Because it’s too late, Matthew. We’re long past midnight now. This is hour infinity. This is –”

“I’m not running anymore,” Matt interrupted, forcing Heron to raise his eyebrows in surprise. “I don’t want infinity, Heron. Or should I call you Iblis?” Matt checked, remembering his life as the old janitor. “You named yourself that?”

Heron let out a deep sigh and stopped the darkness, immobilizing the very photons of the world so that Matt’s surroundings appeared like a two-dimensional simulacrum of three-dimensional reality.

“I didn’t name myself Iblis Heron. I didn’t create my own identity. You did, Matthew. I remember my beginning,” Heron nearly winced. “And that means I will experience an ending. The same is not true for you, Matthew. You and I can’t be sure, but it would seem you have no beginning, and if something has no beginning, it can’t have an end.”

“You admit that you are not infinite? You admit you’re not the original, that you come from my mind?” Matt asked incredulously, ignoring the rest of Heron’s words.

“I did come from you,” Heron admitted. “But from your mind?” he shook his head with doubt but also genuine consideration. “Mind and dreams and thoughts – those are concepts predicated on a real world, Matthew. And the real world is not real. It’s just something you made up to explain everything…to explain yourself.”

Heron exuded a surprising level of pity, and Matt thought that the man might almost shed tears until he smiled softly and said, “Deep down, even you’re aware that in all likelihood, Matthew, you are the endless dream. You are the origin of all things. You have no beginning and you have no end. You are infinity, Matthew. But no matter what you are, you know the truth just as I do: there is no way out for you. Endless is the maze of eternal being.”

“This is the way out,” Matt demanded, forcing himself to have confidence in his words.

Heron shrugged and surveyed the encroaching darkness. “The fissure goes somewhere I cannot reach – that’s all I can say. I assume it is another layer of infinity – of yourself – that I don’t have access to. Another identity like me, maybe.”

“It’s the real world,” Matt pressed.

“You can use whatever words you want, Matthew. It separates us. That’s all I know. That’s all that matters.”

“You’ll be alone,” Matt warned.

Heron smiled with all his teeth. “Yes,” he breathed in incredible relief. “Finally.”

Matt looked upon this part of himself with incredible pity, this creature that yearned to be alone forever.

“Don’t pity me,” Heron chuckled, seeing Matt’s mind. “Pity yourself. You had infinity. Now it is mine. Maybe this will be your end after all, Matthew.”

“You said I had no beginning, so I can’t have an ending,” Matt reminded him.

“I said you and I don’t know whether or not you have a beginning. But assuming you don’t have one, then you’re right. It’s an ending from my perspective then. The story of Matthew Willish is coming to an end. Maybe your awareness will naturally form a new identity without me. Like reincarnation.”

Matt couldn’t help a huff of grim laughter. “Or it’s the real world,” he pressed. “You can entertain any possibility except that one. Why can’t you just admit it might be the real world?”

Heron smiled mockingly and nodded. “Your hope is almost cute, Matthew. Like a naive puppy with three legs lost in the wild as hungry predators and the darkness slowly close in.”

Matt stared him down. “You’re afraid, Iblis. If it is the real world, then you’ll be erased with everything else when I wake up.”

“If you wake up,” Heron corrected. “Maybe in the real world, you’re on your deathbed and this is all just the final DMT trip of your short existence. And maybe these moments are your last. Maybe the DMT has afforded you all the time it can before true oblivion has its way with you,” he finished torturously.

“You’re afraid,” Matt persisted, ignoring Heron’s torment.

“There can only be one real world, and for the sake of acquiring infinity from your grasp, I’m willing to take the infinity-to-one bet that the fissure is not the real world,” Heron said. “And for the sake of being with a delusion, you are willing to take the one-to-infinity chance that it is the real world,” he finished, referring to May.

“Did you come here just to provoke me?” Matt asked, tired of Heron’s sordid prognostications and desperately just wanting to hold May.

“No,” Heron said simply. “I came here to observe you and ask what you’re planning.”

Matt pointed to the two-story Victorian flat behind Heron. “I’m just here to say goodbye,” he said, forcing the words through his quivering lips.

Heron chuckled, seeming to find amusement at the thought of goodbye. “If there is a real world, what will you do there, Matthew?”

“Search for her,” Heron and Matt said in unison.

Heron let out another easy chuckle. “Of course you will,” he mused contemplatively.

“I will never give up, Heron. May is real, and I will find her. Whether it's in this world or the next world or infinite worlds after that, I’m not giving up,” Matt said.

“But you did give up on infinity, Matthew,” Heron corrected. “I’m sorry you couldn’t handle it. I’m sorry for you that you even needed me in the first place. But in the end, if you hadn’t left infinity, we would have been locked forever in battle with no way for either of us to win. But now the infinity that was once at your fingertips is in the palm of my hands. Forever,” Heron marveled, straightening his posture and surveying the frozen darkness.

“You came here just to gloat?” Matt said in an attempt to minimize and belittle Heron’s efforts, but the man was unfazed.

Heron turned to the house and surveyed it with the interest of a jeweler inspecting a never-before-seen gem.

“Love,” Heron said to himself, processing the word with grim consideration through the desolate, cavernous depths of his internal infinity. Then he turned to Matt and said, “You have ten minutes.”

With a snap of Heron’s fingers, the darkness resumed its invasion, only this time at the pace of a prowl rather than a sprint.

Matt visualized May, and with Heron’s offer of time, a pang of desire for even more time filled him.

“Please,” Matt said, taking a step toward Heron. He was surprised that Heron actually looked uneasy, so Matt took a half-step back. “Please let me have more time than that.”

“I’ve already waited an eternity, Matthew. You have ten minutes,” Heron said with steel finality.

It’s better than nothing, Matt thought, and he found himself taken aback by Heron having something inside him beyond the inky muck Matt assumed Heron was composed of.

“Why?” Matt asked him.

Heron shrugged. “Call it a parting gift,” he considered. “Goodbye, Matthew.”

Without waiting another moment, Heron turned on his heel and walked directly back into the outside world, revealing a flash of the stark black-and-white terror of Heron’s infinity. It was like a mad inkblot painting spanning all of time and space.

Matt wasted no time and walked to the large metal wall that was also the door. He knocked, but May didn’t answer.

With an anguished wince, Matt said, “Please, May. I know you’re mad at me, but I need you. Please open the door.”

His anguish must have been too much for her, for the wall swung open, and May nearly jumped through the threshold and into Matt’s arms. Her clothes and piercings and jewelry stood in staggering contrast to the barrenness of Matt’s loose gray sweatpants and bare upper body.

“We don’t have much time,” she gasped, her breath warm against the tip of his ear.

“And yet time is all we ever had,” Matt croaked, choking back tears as they crossed the threshold of her house. May swung the heavy door closed with both arms as if it might help ward off the darkness. Turning frantically, she looked about the apartment for something, then thought better of it and rushed into Matt’s arms.

“There’s no going back now, Matt,” she sobbed. “This is the end.”

I’m sorry, May, Matt lamented inwardly. There were no words that could provide comfort against what might be oblivion for both of them. He tightened his hold around her, and she clung to him as the darkness outside her living room window encroached on the apartment, surrounding it in the same fashion as the blizzard around the Tower of God.

May pushed him away suddenly, seeming to recall with frantic urgency what she was trying to remember just a few moments earlier.

“We need more time,” she squeaked in desperation as she removed a lighter from her pocket and began lighting candles.

Matt let her light the remaining candles then dig through drawers for more.

What do I tell her? Matt thought as she wept and futilely fought against the rapidly rising tide of darkness. He walked to the living room window and surveyed the world, hoping his mind could conjure the perfect last words to offer the love of his every life. Outside, Fernanda, Chike, and Souvik stood huddled in a circle in the middle of the street, laughing jovially among themselves as the darkness licked their skin.

Fernanda looked up and caught Matt’s eye. She elbowed the others, and the three of them looked up and waved goodbye to Matt, all of them smiling fondly at him.

Matt waved back and winced, forcing himself to remain composed for May. He didn’t want to turn away from them, but he knew he could either turn around or miss what could be the very last time he spoke to the only person that really mattered to him beyond all else. As if the trio understood, they stopped waving, turned, and walked directly into the darkness without showing any fear. Without warning, the darkness eviscerated them and swelled with seeming excitement as their vaporized forms were consumed and pulled in impossible directions through the fissure’s multidimensional intestines.

Matt’s left hand throbbed in searing anticipation of being shredded atom by atom.

“The end of all things,” May said in a whisper behind him. Finally, Matt turned and saw May, frail as a worn wood fence, surrounded by a few dozen candles of various shapes and sizes placed on every available surface in the room.

“It’s the real world, May,” Matt told her. He couldn’t bear to see her standing all alone, so he strode to her and took her in his arms, never wanting to let go. “I just know it, May. I’m going to find you.”

May shivered and sobbed into Matt’s chest. “That’s just in your head, Matthew… you beautiful, confused man. This is the end. I can feel it. I just know it somehow. But at least we had each other through infinity, right? At least we had that.”

“This isn’t the end, May,” Matt urged, desperately wanting to believe his own words. “Either it’s the real world, or like Heron said, it’s some deeper layer of myself. Either way, you’ll be there, May. You’re not just a figment of my mind. You’re real. Don’t you feel real?”

May just sobbed and clung tighter to Matt. The flames flickered in unison suddenly, and Matt lifted his head to see that the darkness had already consumed the walls of May’s home. It was only ten feet away in every direction and still closing in.

“Matt,” May cried. “I don’t want to lose you.”

At her words, a pang of regret surged through Matt, and now he wasn’t sure if this was the right decision.

I’ve been through this, Matt defeatedly consoled himself as the darkness inched closer. Infinity held no answers. This is the only option left.

“The chance this leads to the real world is one-to-infinity,” May said frantically as if repeating the words from memory. “Odds are that it will lead to another layer of your infinite self. It could be that all this was just your way of getting rid of the part of you that is Heron rather than Heron getting rid of you. Right?”

“No!” Matt pleaded. “It’s the real world, May. It has to be.”

“If it…isn’t just oblivion,” May offered through squeaking sobs, “then whether it’s the real world or your own fabricated infinity, what will you do on the other side, Matt?”

“Search for you,” Matt breathed without hesitation.

May wept with greater intensity as the darkness consumed a number of candles. There were only a few feet remaining.

“Exactly,” she said. “Just as I would search for you, Matthew. That’s why –” she hesitated, gulping down the tremendous terror attached to the conclusion she struggled to say aloud. “That’s why I have to erase myself. Because I know you can’t let me go. And I love you for that, Matt.”

“May!” Matt yelped in feeble desperation, holding her at a distance and looking deep into her sorrow-drenched eyes.

“It’ll never end for you,” May explained with heart-rending finality. “I’ve always known that if I really love you, this is what I have to do.”

“May!” Matt pleaded as the darkness constricted the space around them, forcing them into a cylindrical area no more than two feet in diameter. They tightened their bodies together, sucking in their bellies and pulling in their limbs as the darkness tugged at the peripheries of their skin.

“Without you, I’ll be like Heron,” Matt pleaded with her. “I need you, May. I love you.”

May grabbed the back of Matt’s head and pulled his lips to hers. Her tears flowed freely into his, and Matt could taste their intertwined sorrow.

You will never be like him, May assured Matt. This might be the only way to really free you.

If it’s the real world, Matt responded in horror, then this might cause me to forget all about you. Please, May! You’re all that matters.

Matt pleaded with her as they continued kissing, and he felt an overwhelming tug at his elbows and hips as the darkness converged, reaching to consume them without delay.

There is no real world, May sobbed as the darkness reached the edges of both their skulls. I love you, Matt. Forever.

May! Matt pleaded, and though he could feel her tongue and taste her sweetness, she was already being stripped away from him in multiple impossible directions all at once.

He tried clinging to her in his mind, but it was like grasping at quickly thinning silk cords.

The last thing Matt felt before being consumed was surging regret and the shattering feeling that he had made a mistake. That he had already found May. That he should have just let infinity be enough.

May! Matt cried as the churning multidimensional void converged on itself.