text: I was eight years old, when the world stopped. I was at the playground. I just looked away for a moment, and everything went black for a split second, then everyone was gone, and there wasn’t wind anymore, any setting of the sun, any real sense of time. I fell off the jungle gym, when that happened. I was scared, of course. It didn’t matter. After a few months, I learned that I was all alone, and it didn’t particularly matter whether I cried or didn’t cry, since I was the only person listening. The clouds went away, too. I’ve always thought that was weird. I remember them. I’m far older, now. I’m too old to think things will go back to how they were; too old to care much about how things used to be, too old to be human. Not too old for superstition, though. I’ve always thought that maybe one day, something will change if I play on the jungle gym like I did on that day. I was right, in a way. I’ve gone on journeys. I’ve explored every house. I’ve walked across every ocean, read every book, discovered every kind of plant. But I always felt myself pulled to the jungle gym again, no matter how long I spent away from it, no matter how far I was from it. It was the only thing that still mattered, after everything else didn't anymore. I should’ve known that something living as long as myself would break it eventually. I first started noticing signs of serious wear when I realized the bars seemed thinner than they used to. Maybe I wore down the metal on an atomic level, after enough time. Then one day a bar was too thin to hold me, and my foot just went straight through it. I just ignored that particular bar, for however many centuries-or-millenia-or-whatever. But more bars broke. It didn’t even look like a jungle gym, eventually. I tossed them into a pile like broken puzzle pieces, and kept playing. This didn’t last, either. After long enough, they were reduced to dust, and there was no wind to carry the dust away, and I tried but I couldn’t keep all the dust in the same place for forever without making mistakes. I tried so hard. I gradually lost more and more while playing; I’d miss a single fleck on the sole of my foot, and it would get carried and deposited on a street or some dirt or in a home. And one day, there was no more dust left. I swear to God, I tried as hard as I could. I told myself that the jungle gym was gone, but there was still the rest of the playground. Same thing happened to the rest of it. Finally, I spent some eternities playing hopscotch on the blank pavement where the playground used to stand. It turned to dust, too. I don’t think there’s anything left here. Just some dirt to lie down in, and a clear blue sky to stare at. But I think I’m happier this way.