The Final Act of 2018

  "You seem so certain about this. I can't believe you are actually doing this." Amethyst sips a cup of ginger beer and lime as I throw some of a sketchbook into the fire pit. We both look over to the bin of thirteen journals, a writing prompt book, and what remains of the sketchbook I tore apart. I am determined to get this fire pit going, even in four inches of snow and a cold wind blowing around. "You know, your mother and I thought you were going to do this tomorrow, in 2019. Not now."

  "Might as well do it now, just to send a message to myself." I shiver with a few matches in my hand. A handful of matches later, and I start enough of a fire to put the rest of the sketchbook in. The fire accepts the fuel and burns the pages quickly. I throw in some more of a different broken journal that fell apart earlier. Amethyst watches it as I grab my smallest journal and toss it in. The flames dance around their new prey. I toss in the rest and watch as the fire takes them in and dissolves them into ash. Amethyst stands beside me and looks across the fire pit to a slightly odd sight. "You seem to have a phantom here."

  I look up to see a translucent younger variant of myself, wide-eyed at the sight. "Why are you destroying my life?" It asks. New and old emotions mix together and come to both the phantom and I: agony, pain, misery, obsession, love, joy, uncertainty.

  

  I sigh and look to the ground. "Because I am clinging onto a future that is no longer mine. It is a future that has never happened, and maybe never will. So why hold onto it?"

  "Years of work, just gone?" It wonders. "What about the universe you have created?"

  "It knew its fate a month ago." Amethyst butts in with a growl of annoyance. "Now it will become the fertilizer of a better place for all of us."

  

  "And what about me?" It inquires. "What about your past?"

  "It remains, but only in vague memory. Just as I want it to." I answer. "Not even a thread of emotional attachment will remain with it." I grab the fire poker and shuffle the remaining pages as they relight and dissolve into ash.

  "Then I will pass with them." It sighs. "With nothing to be remembered by."

  I smirk, but say nothing. Amethyst opens her mouth to say something, then shuts it again around another glug of her drink. I watch as the phantom looks confused, but suddenly fades into nothing. I look down to see the embers of the fire snaking with the last thoughts of a fire. I take a handful of snow and use that to start cooling the embers. A bellow's worth of smoke and last tethers to my past float out into the air and toward space; an incense to a being I know would be interested in my actions. I look up and watch the smoke as I cover the fire pit. "Do you think this is part of Elyon's mystery?"

  Amethyst chuckles. "I think so. If it isn't, then you are going to have a trip of a year in front of you."

  Pandora -my mother- peeks her head outside. "You're done already! How does it feel?"

  Amethyst ignores her as I turn to her. In the turn, I realize the final feeling I'm having toward this whole practice. "It feels like a person I cared about has died. I mourn her death, but I know it is part of my life and I will have to move on."

  Pandora nods in thought as she absorbs my answer a little. She was worried about what I was doing when I first suggested it yet supported me anyway. "Well, at least both of us have scanned copies of them. I do want something to read after my daughter becomes famous." She sticks her tongue out at me and laughs. "Do you want to come in and play some games with your dad and I?"

  I shrug. "Sure, why not." As she closes the door, I turn to Amethyst. "I'm guessing you are going to go travelling while the time passes here?"

  Amethyst nods. "I shouldn't be gone long, given the task you gave me. But we'll see." 

  I nod back to her and head inside to play games with my family. Amethyst finishes her drink and leaves herself. The fire pit remains and cools as the snow melts what was left of its temporary heart. 

  In the words of Ted Dekker: Everything I have written up to this point is crap; now I am going to write the real thing.