The Annihilation of Foreverland

clutched at tufts of grass with his eyes tightly closed. There was wind in his ears. Light on his face. There was sound—
    “Reed.”
    Her voice. It was feeble. It was near.
    It was not a dream.
    He blinked. A blurry layer of fluid smeared over his eyes. But he could see her. She was out of reach. She was on the ground, curled up like he was. Her head turned so that she could see him.
    Blink. Blink, blink, blink.
    Her lips quivered. Her body shook. She was in pain.
    He tried to move his hand, tried to reach for her, but he couldn’t feel his body enough to control it. Barely felt the ground below him. But his heart ached. He couldn’t reach her. Couldn’t help her.
    Couldn’t save her. Again.
    She managed to crawl out of the circle scratched from the grass. She pulled her body over the ground, dragging her legs behind her. Her breath was labored. Tears in her eyes. She stopped to gather her strength, then pulled herself closer. One handful of grass at a time.
    Until her breath was on his face.
    “Where am I?” he asked.
    “You’re with me, my love.”
    Her hand, convulsing, reached out. Gently cradled his cheek. Warm and soft.
    And he remembered.
    Lucy.
    He knew her when he was very young. He stopped a boy on the playground from pulling her hair when they were seven. She watched him in church, leaning forward and smiling at him from the end of the pew. He watched her at basketball games, with her friends.
    They held hands in the back of a friend’s truck on the way home from a concert. Their fingers interlaced like broken pieces that belonged together.
    Their first kiss was on the couch when her family was gone.
    He remembered her smell.
    The memories returned, and filled him. All the joy. All the pain.
    She put her arms around him. In a full embrace, the y merged. His body became light. It became sweet.
    He was home.

    The bitch is a liar.
    She manipulated the memories in the Nowhere to fool the Director, to make him forget who he was. He was not those things. He was not a murderer, he was a savior.
    He felt Reed arrive near the sundial. His body appearing like a full grown baby, naked and curled up. So helpless.
    And the Director felt such happiness.
    He’s here.
    The air shifted. Suddenly, it was not so heavy. The gray seemed lighter.
    Reed couldn’t move. He was lucky to open his eyes, to see his memory – the bitch – in front of him. The Director released her from the confining circle so that she could crawl to him like a wounded animal.
    Specks of gray flitted from the sky, penetrating them like tiny bullets the closer she got. And when she touched his cheek, it rained gray pellets. They had become a magnet the Nowhere could not resist. When they embraced, they absorbed the lost identities that filled the Nowhere.
    And in a burst of light—
    An explosion—
    A thunderous clap—
    Foreverland expanded into infinity.
    The Director closed his eyes, shielded his face from the burst. And when he opened them, they were gone.
    Not a hole in the ground, not a depression, no sign they ever existed.
    And the blue sky reached into the heavens.
    And the ocean reached the horizon.
    In that moment, he realized how puny Foreverland had become. Now it was all existence. He was free. For the first time in his life, he was free.
    Enlightened.
    He was these things. He created them. He was a god, after all.
    And it was finally time to act like one.
    To stretch out, let the world know who hears their prayers.
    He reached out, feeling a connection with all of Foreverland. His body, back in the Chimney, was of no use to him now. He was free to be his mind, to be whatever he wanted. He dissolved into the air, his identity drifting like vapor, like the data Danny Boy had demonstrated.
    The Director moved his identity into the Chimney’s network where he would slip out into the world, melt into the vast web of data that inhabited homes and businesses and governments. He would know everything. He would be everywhere.
    I’m God.
    The computers bent to his will, the network did what it was told. And as he streamed through the Chimney network, as he passed through his last portal, just before he graced the world with his omnipresence, a room formed around him. He didn’t recall this avenue.
    It was a large room. There were shelves all around, filled with books.
    A pedestal in front of him.
    A book slid off one of the shelves near the ceiling, floating like an invisible hand had pulled it and brought it to the pedestal.