Skyline | Chapter One

 This story begins with an ending of a world. And like most such occurrences, this ending was not a particularly happy one.        

           Tobin’s name meant “God is good,” which was ironic because a) he was an atheist and b) the world was ending, which, in the eyes of many, argued with the name’s simple statement. I only mention this because Tobin was the last person of this age I’d ever see, and because “God is good” would be the last words of his I’d ever hear, and at this time it seemed as though that moment was in itself poetry personified, an instant that I would die to preserve if it were to be my last waning memory.

            It would surely be  his.

            We were standing on seventy-second floor of a pure glass building. As people scattered like ants on the distant streets, I looked out instead at the proverbial calmness of the deep blue sky. Clouds, it seemed, had been picked off like petty blemishes, the rising moon having peeled away to a faceless new and unseen self that allowed the night to consume everything in the grandeur of an ever-deepening indigo. The stars began to blink their eyes, watching, waiting for our end to come. The universe was passive in regards to our fate, despite the fact that human arrogance had so often begged to differ.

            Tobin was a lank and awkward figure before me, a catastrophe of unkempt autumn-colored hair and unabashedly sincere eyes that held mottled irises of browns and greens beyond the rims of his glasses. He was always pale, but now worry washed him out and he stood like a ghost, breathing his last unnecessary breaths and staring at me with a gaze that I would never stop seeing.

            “Alethia,” he murmured, “we’re going to die.”

             I didn’t know what to say. He didn’t sound sad so much as vacant, and he was the first to utter these words in a way that wasn’t angry. For that I loved him. He wasn’t mad – no, not at the inevitable. He was much too wise for that. Tobin could find no response beyond a profound, hollow sense of loss. I envied him, because I felt everything, and I was crying because of the tragedy and laughing because of the inexplicable sense of irony and shaking because I swore that I could feel the world falling beneath my feet.

            “I know, Tobin. We are all going to die.”

            Then he looked sad. Just a little as his eyes creased as he looked at me. A small, bitter smile played along his lips. We were not just the only people in the room, it seemed, but the only people in the world. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

            I laughed. “Thank you, Tobin, but that really doesn’t make me feel any better about any of this.”

            “It should,” he said, “because I made something for you.”

            And from his pocket he pulled out the thing that would inevitably save my life.

            It was a small wooden box.

            “What is it?” I asked.

            “Quite a lot of things,” Tobin admitted, scratching his head, “but most importantly, a time-traveling device. I built it for our university independent project. I was going to present it today.”

            Apparently I didn’t look convinced. He rolled his eyes.

            “It is.”

            “It’s a box.”

            “Yes, but like I said, it’s quite a lot of things.”

            I stared at the unimpressive object in my hands, something that could be used to house a piece of jewelry, maybe, a dark mahogany case that looked like nothing I’d ever owned. Jewelry had long since gone out of style, and the only reason this image had come to mind was because I’d seen jewelry boxes before in museums. We no longer lived in a world of glittering trinkets or unnecessary aesthetics; artists were a rare and peculiar breed, great minds wasted on their longing for emotional fulfillment and expression. We were a world of scientists and businessmen. If you were like Tobin, you housed both science and art within yourself, but while one was applauded, the other was a secret longing that beat and breathed within you like a child who would always grow but never be born.

            “If it’s a time-traveling device,” I prodded, “does that mean we can leave?”

            “Well, not exactly.”

            “No?”

            “It’s meant for one person. It can’t carry two.”

            I handed it back to him. “Then you should go.”

            “No, Thea, please…”

            “You built it.”

            “I made it for you.”

            “I don’t care!” I screamed. “Just GO! Just LEAVE! Just escape this godforsaken end of the world and be the hero of another time! Do good things! Things that I could never conceivably do for humanity!”

            His smile was so soft that it struck me as painful. He brushed my hair behind my ear, looked as though he would kiss me, and then hugged me instead. I could feel him trembling as he did so. “You, Thea, are the one good thing I’ve ever found in all of my exploration of humanity. Our generation was destroyed before it even began. As far as I’ve found, we’re the only true people on this planet anymore – we’re the antithesis of Adam and Eve.”

            Christianity was yet another thing of the past, but I understood the reference and grinned. “Then you know it’s Eve who’s tempted by the serpent.”

            “But as I said, we’re their antitheses. You aren’t fooled by anything.”

            “I can’t leave you.”

            “I can’t let you die,” he pleaded. He released me from his grip to stare at me. His fingers clasped between mine. “You’re my best friend.”

            That was Tobin’s innocent way of saying that he was in love. “You’re mine, too,” I promised.

            By now the darkness had crept up and swallowed the last of the sun’s light, leaving us now only in the company of the last night and its array of celestial candles. Tonight the city failed to glow in response, and without the light to cloud our perception, we could look up through that wide glass ceiling and see the night as we never had before. Beside me, I heard Tobin laugh in awe. “It’s incredible,” he whispered, “how we always find comfort in the light, when it’s the darkness that reveals the truth.”

            The shy universe, it seemed, was unraveling a polluted guise to expose its naked anatomy. If the people beneath us were not so afraid, they would instead be amazed.

            The only thing to ruin this moment was time. Tobin said, “we have three minutes left.”

            My chest swelled up with panic. “I’m not leaving,” I determined.

            “Neither am I,” he said.

            The little box was pressed to my chest by my two crossed arms, but I held it in the way a mother holds her dying child, knowing that its potential will flicker and end in only a moment. Tobin’s greatest creation would never be used. Tobin and I decided to lay on our backs and live silently together, for the last few seconds as they ticked, ticked, ticked.

            60 seconds left.

            Tobin: “I still don’t believe in God.”

            Me: “I’m on the verge of believing that you’re the closest thing to a god we have.”

            Tobin: “I am very much a human. That’s why it’s all so flawed.”

            Me: “What’s flawed?”

            Tobin: “My machine. The planning behind it. And what I’m going to do next.”

            Me: “What?”

            Tobin: “You know what I think God is? Humanity. All of humanity personified. We just gave it a name and a concept and a story that we could understand.”

            Me: “And?”

            Tobin. “And...God is good.”

            Suddenly the box – or whatever was inside it – began to glow. The sterling light was so strong that it gleamed through my fingers and caused them to look as though they were made of stars.

            I looked at Tobin, who looked lovingly at me. He’d set the timepiece, however it was to be set, and I knew that now there was nothing I could do.

            The world ended, but I did not, and all of humanity would pay for this clever glitch in time. 

            It was only when I opened my eyes that I thought of our unbelievable logical flaw - he could have set the timepiece back three days, and I could have simply told him to make two devices instead of one.