“Death,” she said, her chin lifted, “is just a myth invented to scare young children.”
“Oh Annie,” he stated with a smile. “You can’t be serious.”
“Of course I’m serious,” Annie remarked with a hint of annoyance. “Carl, do you think that I’m *not* serious?”
“Well I don’t know,” he mused. “I mean I know the stories as well as anyone. There was a time when people ceased to exist. They grew old and died but it goes against the natural order of things,” he continued with a pointed grin. “We live in an ageless world.”
“Yes,” Annie agreed. “We do live in an ageless world. The days pass and nothing seems to change. It is quite a…”
“Utopia,”
Annie nodded. “It is a Utopian world that we live in and I have to wonder if something so perfect can last forever.”
Carl fell silent knowing that it was a valid question. Their perfect world had been going on for untold millennia. Death or an ending of any kind was just a myth that was meant to scare children into behaving. After all, to travel between the stars required a certain amount of time and what good would it be exploring the vastness of the universe if you ceased to be before you reached your destination.
But all that aside, Annie’s question still held true. How could something so perfect last forever? Certainly the had seen examples on the edge of space of things ceasing to be. Stars eventually burned themselves out. Planets used up all their natural resources and were suddenly unable to support life, and yet their people endured. They would always endure.
“You know,” he began suddenly snapping the two of them out of their internal musings about their being. “I don’t really care how long our forever lasts, so long as I’m able to spend it with you.”
Annie’s eyes opened wide. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. “You…” she sputtered out, her heart beating wildly. “You mean…”
Carl smiled. “Yeah, I mean.”
Annie threw her arms around her boyfriend, after ten thousand years of dating it was high time that he proposed to her.
On a side note, I know that drabbles are supposed to deal with fiction that is 100 words exactly but for me a drabble is anything less that 1000 words for I count 1000 words as a short short story.
The Writer's Journey 