text: “So close. So fucking close.” Jerry looks up at me. “We’ve talked about this, Lucy.” He sighs. “Right,” I chuckle. He picks up a cigarette and twirls it between his fingers. “We should have known the second they come up with this contraption,” Jerry says evenly. “What? That was a masterpiece!” I exclaim,” They took their already short life and made it even shorter!” “Of course that would make you happy,” Jerry sighs. I wheel my creaky chair over to him. “I’m sorry for suggesting the plague.” Jerry’s eyes bore into mine. Finally, he makes a sort of half-smile. “It was a good idea. Can’t expect it to work too many times though.” Jerry and I are something of an enigma. We had to have come from somewhere; but the truth is, neither of us remembers. I guess we’ve just been around too long. The first thing I remember is watching our ball of dirt get hit by another ball of dirt to break off a third ball of dirt. All we know is we don’t want to be alone. You have no idea how hard it was, watching this dull globe rotate around a glowing globe for eons. Sometimes, we wandered on the surface of the desolate planet, just to break the monotony. One particularly gloomy day on the shores of a long-forgotten ocean, Jerry had a stroke of genius. “You might like this,” he told me. Then he sent a lightning bolt to hit a tide pool. I burst out laughing. “How’s that any better than the meteor shower two rotations ago that didn’t even have the decency to hit us?” Jerry sighed. “You’ll be eating your words soon.” And eat them I did. Only later did I realize that Jerry, my soft-spoken, stoic complement in this dark void, had created life. He’d given us companions and, more importantly, hope. Or at least a way to make some. The first organisms we coaxed out of Jerry’s organic tide pool were little more than moving dust. Slowly, we helped them join together and work as one, and before long we had our very own aquarium. Satisfied, we sat back and watched our planet ripple with life. Jerry looked over at me, amused. “Now we have pets.” For a while, it was captivating to see our creations roam around their cage until the sweet release of death. But, eventually, we grew bored with these creatures. Spending their days eating and making more creatures, they were no better than the dust they came from. What does it matter if they choose to eat and procreate? Debris still absorbs other debris and makes new debris. I rapped my fingers on the railing, falling ever deeper into the abyss of loneliness. We had hoped for a cure, but hope is a fickle creature. What little purpose it gives, it can easily take away. Leaving you with nothing but the memory of better times. “Jerry, can we try again?” He looked over at me questioningly. “We can do better than this,” I stated, gesturing towards our creatures. “What’s the use?” Jerry sighed, exasperated. “It’s not like we can make another one of us.” “How do you know, Jerry? Maybe we just haven’t tried hard enough. Maybe we’re just one step away from our salvation?” He shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Not much else to do here anyway. Let’s go evolve some sea creatures.” And so the dinosaurs began to walk our world. Oh, how I loved our creations. Sure they had the same flaws as their ancestors, but they felt alive. Looking into their eyes was like looking into Jerry’s. They had emotions and desires, playing and fighting just as we did. Finally, I felt we had made something real. But even then, I felt boredom encroaching on me. Our scaly companions did the same thing over and over. They didn’t seem to live like we did. What was it that made us different? Made us want to have something more? I stood up. “I’m done,” I growled. Grabbing the nearest chunk of space flotsam, I sent it hurtling down. “NO!” Jerry cried out. But the crater had already appeared on the surface. Jerry grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard. “What did you do! We spent ages building our world!” I shoved him away. “And for what! So you can feel important? Feel like you did something good for us?” I pointed at the dying planet. “That was nothing to us. Nothing. We’ve been lying to ourselves.” At that moment, I saw fire in Jerry’s eyes, harsher than the burning world below us. “You might be lying to yourself. But I still hope for better.” He left me there, watching the fires burn out. He didn’t come back. But the planet refused to die. The skies eventually cleared of smoke. Seedlings sprouted from the ashes. Eventually, I even saw small mammals, curious creatures Jerry and I had left to their own devices, scamper through the saplings. I saw Jerry playing with them, tossing sticks and feeding berries. They looked happy. Somehow, I had an inkling that they enjoyed living. Something about them felt different. At that moment, I saw fire. I felt such hatred for these mammals. Why? I thought to myself. I shook my head and growled. I don't care why. I remembered playing around with ice in my early days, a pastime of mine in the days before life. Reaching into my rage, I covered Jerry’s precious land in ice. But Jerry didn’t budge. Furry mammals began to roam the world, defying the freezing curse. I countered by sending relatives of our first creation, vile specks I liked to call disease. But even then, Jerry’s animals thrived. And back and forth we went, killing, creating, killing, creating, killing, creating, until one day Jerry came to me carrying two wooden containers. He sat down in front of me. “Please sit.” I snorted and began to leave. “Please, Lucy.” I heard something in his voice, something that made me want to stay. I sat down. “What do you want, Jerry?” He offered me one of his boxes, which was filled with frozen slush. “I call it ice cream. Try it, it’s good.” I took his offering. “So is this why you’re here? You found a new recipe?” He smiled, infuriatingly happy and at ease. “It’s made of one of my plants, an iris flower.” I stabbed at the ice cream. To my surprise, it tasted amazing. “This isn’t bad,” I grudgingly admitted. Jerry smiled, bringing a spoonful to his mouth. For a while, we ate in silence. I set down his gift, polished clean. “Just to be clear, I’m not stopping because of your frozen flower stuff.” He laughed, a pure sound I hadn't heard in centuries. “That’s not why I’m here.” “Then why are you here?” He pursed his lips. “Lucy, how do you think your antics are affecting this planet?” “I imagine they’re causing you a lot of trouble.” Jerry grinned, leaning back on his hands. “Actually, it’s kind of helping me.” I stared at him, utterly confused. Jerry laughed. “You are definitely troublesome. Yet, I’ve found your disasters to be quite useful in ironing out the kinks.” “What do you mean?” “Well, every calamity kills many, that’s true. But, that’s taught me to create variety. Then I find the best traits and incorporate that in my work.” “So I’ve been... helping you?” Jerry stood up. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve been working on this species. They’re incredible, solving problems like nothing I’ve seen before. They even look like us. I need you to help me make them better. They have potential, I can feel it. Will you join me?” He extended his hand out. I slapped it away. “Are you joking? Why would I help you? I hate your creatures. Insignificant and useless, all of them. You can’t possibly believe you’re doing any good for us. At the end of the day, they’re false hope. Can’t you see how bad it is to cling to hope when it's so clearly hurting you?” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I know you. You’re lonely. I’m lonely too. But, I really believe in them. Why are you resigned to be alone? We can do it, you and I. I know we can. Just give this a chance.” I felt that emotion again in his voice. The one that made my eyes water. Hope, I realized. How did he still hope? I remembered feeling hope for the first time, staring at that tide pool long ago. That hope had turned to anger and rage during my deadly game with Jerry. But, I began to feel that rush, that passion again. His hope was infectious. And so began the story of humanity. Jerry and I had a grand time with this species. Boredom was a thing of the past. Before long, we had created societies, filled with humans going about their existence with just as much vigor as us. We walked among them, loving every moment of our creation. Humanity held the rage we felt. They fought viciously, like Jerry and I. Every once in a while, the humans needed a check. That's where I came in. I sent every manner of disaster: plague, earthquakes, drought. Jerry took the pieces and put them back together better than ever. We didn’t always succeed in our goals, but humanity had a way of adapting to anything. Maybe that came from us too. Which brings us back to the present, looking down on a slowly self-destructing world. It looked like humanity was on its last legs. I sigh. “We may have to start over.” Jerry shakes his head. “No, they’ll be fine. We have to hope,” he says, his voice trembling. It’s incredible that Jerry and I still held out hope in our pathetic creatures. We’d watched them commit unspeakably heinous atrocities and impossibly shortsighted blunders. But, then again, in this bleak void what else is there but hope? I tried filling it with hatred, but hope seemed to be the only thing that works. “It seems that's all we live for. Hope. Hope for a better future. In all the time we’ve lived, the only constant has been hope.” Jerry’s lips quiver. “I can’t,” he says shakily, “I just can’t hope anymore.” I turn to him. “Jerry, I didn’t mean it like that-” “Then what did you mean!” He yells. “Jerry don’t-” “Even humans know it! Existence is suffering... oh Siddhartha, my child, you don't know the half of it.” Crying, he looks up at me. “Who are we to inflict the suffering of existence?” “Jerry-” “Why do you think so many take their own lives? They feel the void eating away at them. Loneliness and pain, that’s all there is. Humans think their creators are gods, but we’re just as human.” “Jerry that’s enough. Was this suffering? Making humanity, making life?” He just looks at me, hopelessness filling his eyes as his tears trickle out. “Jerry, we’re alive. Before all this, we were just existing. You’re right, that’s suffering. When all that exists is the void, there’s nothing but suffering. But we made something out of the void. We don’t just exist. We choose to live. We choose to hope.” He closes his eyes, tears spilling between his eyelids. “Our precious humans know this too. They make their own existence worth living. They hope for a better future, and then try their damndest to make it so.” His tears do not stop. “Do you know what makes our humans different from the floating dust we started with? It's the desire for more. The desire to do more than just exist. They choose to hope for more. I need you to do the same” I took his head in my hands. “We don’t just exist. We live,” I repeat, “We hope. Don't give up on them just yet.” His eyes finally open, cloudy with moisture. Wiping away his tears, he looks me in the eyes. He smiles slowly at me, like he was trying for the first time. “Alright then. Thank you. Lets try this again.