We both knew
what was coming,
but still we argued
until the end.
Until the attendants
secured the mask
over my face
and lowered me
slowly into stasis.
At the last second
you put your hand
up to the glass,
just like in a movie;
I was too drugged
to lift mine,
but tried to tell you
with my eyes,
It’s not too late
you can still join me
on the other side…
But I was not alone
that day in passing over;
in the week before disaster
over 50% of humanity
chose to take the leap
into an artificial world.
In this place,
time is slowed
and the final hours
will seem an eternity,
lifetimes will pass before
the final solar flares lick the earth.
It was cold comfort for some,
to me the only option,
but you, like many, chose
to stay on the surface of reality
feverishly working the problem
up until the end.
Nothing I could say
would make you accept
a false future with me
and nothing you could do
would stop me from passing over,
living on somehow.
And the new world we find
ourselves in is paradise
gorgeously rendered, pristine, organic,
and built for us, first world refugees
fleeing apocalypse in creature comforts.
Far East mansions and deep rolling hills,
long and dripping hours-long sunsets
new and twisting purple constellations,
stories to be lived, secrets to find,
games to be played,
every distraction and amenity waiting,
the world we wish we’d taken the time to build.
Here I live alone
in a cottage by a stream
fishing and reading,
listening to records,
and taking long walks to see
others I know across the fields.
Each day I hope
to see you there,
in the wavy meadow
I built for you,
you would touch my hand
and tell me we have
seconds left to live
— an eternity you chose
to spend with me.
Here in the endless dream,
I wait.
Mack W Mani is an American poet and author. His work has appeared in Strange Horizons, NewMyths, and The Pedestal Magazine. His screenplay You and Me and Dagon Make Three won Best Screenplay at the HP Lovecraft Film Festival in 2018. He currently lives in Portland, Oregon with his husband Jordan Seider.