text: They sat opposite each other at a table outside a Spanish bar. The man watched the girl watching the sun near the faraway hills. A clock ticked. The hills were long and gray. Trains passed nearby. Every once in a while the man took a drag of his cigarette. The girl did not smoke. "You sure you don't want to eat?" the man asked. "I'm sure." The man took a drag of his cigarette and exhaled smoke the color of the hills. "They look like gray mastodons," the girl said, the setting sun reflected in her eyes. "I've never seen one." "No, you wouldn't have. You're too young." "I might have. I could be older than you think. Just because you say I'm too young doesn't prove anything." "Just wait," the girl said. "We've been waiting for millenia," the man said. "Be patient. I can start to taste the darkness and it tastes of licorice. That's how it tasted last time." "I don't taste anything." "You're too young," the girl said, and the man said nothing and took a drag of his cigarette. A train stopped. An older couple exited one of the cars and sat down at the table outside the bar on the same chairs in which the man and girl were sitting. They blended together. "Once more for old time's sake?" the man said. The girl said nothing. The man sighed. The couple ordered beers and talked about Madrid. The man lit another cigarette. "It doesn't have to happen. I can stop it," the girl said. The sun was almost touching the horizon. "I'm bored," the man said. "It's not so bad." "It's dull. I miss seeing new universes and trying new physics." The girl looked at the hills. "I just don't care for it anymore," the man said. "It's ours." "We'll make another." The sun touched the edge of the world, bathing it in pink light. The older couple went silent. "Anyway, it's too late now," the girl said. Somebody screamed. The sun had cracked, and its light poured out onto the landscape in globules like flesh colored mercury which seeped into the hills. The older couple stood up. The man took a drag of his cigarette. The girl watched as the gray hills infused with light rose from the landscape as luminous mastodons. "You know I'd do anything for you," the man said. "I know." The mastodons began feasting on the future. The present slowed. The older couple sat down and began talking about Madrid backwards. "It's really a simple annihilation," the girl said. Having consumed the future, the mastodons turned to the present. "It's for the best." The older couple got up and walked to the train in reverse. The train un-arrived, then trains hadn't been invented, Spain and civilization disappeared, and for a while brown mastodons walked among the gray ones. Then they were gone. Existence condensed to a single point. "We'll be happy," the man said. "Yes," the girl said. The point--.