Returning Tomorrow
For a while there was only Sven, his wife Rana, and his dog Argos. When Rana died, Sven experienced a new depth of loneliness no mortal could have suspected existed. Then came the period of going about life with only Argos, and Sven understood better than anyone ever has, except perhaps Odysseus, the perfection of a dog’s validation of one’s existence. One day he realized it had been a long time since he had seen another human being, and that’s when the idea that he was the last survivor wormed its way into his head. Then as Argos began to grow unsteady on his legs and lose his appetite, Sven looked around hard in all directions without seeing a soul, and his suspicion began to harden into fact.
Then Argos died and that’s when Sven noticed that there didn’t seem to be anything left but today, and something in him knew that, in spite of the thieving nature of tomorrow, actually having no tomorrow was not to be borne. Live in the moment—yeah, yeah, that’s great as long as more moments are coming. And that convinced him: he knew he was the last.
No one to recognize him.
No one to polish the feasting cup.
No meaning to what we used to think of as treasure. Is it really treasure if no one knows you have it?
No meaning to joy.
No meaning even to meaning.
And so he understood the task that had befallen him, and set out towards the baths of all the western stars to return tomorrow.
The only treasure left, and he couldn’t spend it.
Like diamonds raining on a desert planet. Asteroids of gold.
* * *
First he pulled the battered suitcase from under the bed and carefully packed his regrets, his trophies, and tomorrow itself, neatly wrapped in felt. Then into another small carrying crate he coaxed the Bane of His Existence—ill-tempered, of course, but strangely compliant. The feeling of there being nothing but today didn’t play well anywhere, he concluded.
And took the first step of his last journey.
During his long schlep across the exhausted landscape, not a living thing to be seen, he felt some pride at the importance of his mission. Even if you’re the last survivor, and your purpose is returning tomorrow, it’s still a purpose. Any journey, really, would be unthinkable without one.
His thoughts meandered as he trudged along. He already knew that if you felt no pain you got no story, so along with having a purpose there was something to be said for that. Because how much more painful can you get than returning tomorrow? Whether there’s somebody to hear it or not. He also tried remembering everything, but quickly realized that, as always, he could only remember what he had already remembered, and like the whispered phrase going around the circle, it metamorphosed as it pleased. His memories were static scenes and images, and there was no one to incite the discovery of any new ones in him. What was the difference between him and those people who frequented the memory boutiques in town, where the technicians could implant any memory you wanted? Like them, for whom the point was not whether the memories were real or not, only how good, Sven knew that there really is no such thing as memory, no way of knowing if you could trust anything your brain kept on file—no way to tell the fabricated from the real—no way of knowing that there was, indeed, a distinction. As for hopes, well, with no tomorrow you could forget those.
Sven’s arms were aching from his baggage when at last he reached the desk at the end of the road, where he was at first delighted to see the bureaucrat manning it—another soul!—except he didn’t seem to have a soul, and bore the same relationship to souled creatures as Sven’s memories did to reality. There just wasn’t a lot of future for “real.”
Sven unpacked—laid down his trophies, then disburdened himself of his regrets, which no longer meant anything, and finally in a rather sentimental moment let the Bane of His Existence out of his crate, and the creature just stood there with a forlorn look on his aging features.
An ambivalent moment. “So long,” said Sven.
The Bane shrugged, held up a hand, turned and disappeared into the gray.
The only burden left was tomorrow, which Sven dutifully handed over to the indifferent bureaucrat, who stamped it, filed it, then disappeared into the gray himself,
Sven looked behind him at the wasteland of today. That was clearly Hell, so he turned back and faced the gray, where either nothing is left, or nothing has been imagined yet.
And that, but for a curious wave of relief, would reign as his last thought.
July 13, 2022