Yellowknife, Canada.
Adrian and Philip sit beside each other, wandering into the ionosphere, bathing in photons dancing excitedly, colliding with each other, and for a single moment they become more than mere atoms, more than stardusts.
"Whenever I see beautiful things like these northern lights or a flock of birds soaring up and down the air in unison, I wonder why I ever wanted more, why I ever wanted to be relevant or important, or why I ever sold out the people that I did for money or power, why I ever slept with those many people. I should've just wanted to write about these things and try to capture these moments, so I can always look back at them. It's not like it's going to be good as this particular moment, but at least I have a memory of it. So much time wasted."
"You say that now that you have less time to live, but when you had more, or had the impression that you had, you just did what was right there in front of you. Mortality has it's way of rearranging our priorities." Adrian joked.
Philip smiled.
"Well I wish I wrote something about these things."
"Yes, but people these days they don't appreciate writing like that. Poetry has been overshadowed by advertising copies. Nature and humanism has long been replaced by capitalism."
"Where should we go next?"
"Where do you want to go?"
"It's so palpably close. I can hear the peace of the universe drowning out the violent screams of this world."
"Where do you want this journey to end?"
"I want my ashes to be scattered in a desert."
"Why a desert?"
"Because."
"What?"
"Because that's how I feel like. Just another grain of sand in a multitude of a variety of others."
"Dakar?"
"That's an idea."
"Can I ask you a favor?"
"What is it?"
"You say you're like a god now. You move unnoticed among your subjects but you affect their lives in ways they can't even notice."
Adrian laughed at the way Philip was able to return to him everything he said word for word, letter for letter, precisely and accurately.
"Be a god like none has come before you. Don't rule with a sense of vindication and punishment. Have a true sense of divinity that transcends human emotions and understanding. Don't strive for perfection because that is human. Be a true god and understand the beauty of being humanly imperfect. You have time. After all, you are now endless."
