Heat Death

In five billion years the sun will swell

and take the oceans, then the crust, then the name.

That is not the story. That is the first page.

That is the part that happens soon.

In a hundred trillion years the last star fails.

Not dims — fails. The final one. There is no next.

And the galaxies go dark, and they keep turning,

and there is nobody to say that they went out.

Everything cools.

Everything cools.

Not violently. Not cruelly. Just completely.

Everything cools —

and then, and this is the part that people cannot hold:

there is more time.

There is so much more time.

When the last black hole evaporates

after ten to the hundredth years,

the universe will be a thin cold fog

of things that used to be inside of things.

And the fog will last longer than the light did

by a factor with no name.

Everything that ever happened

will have happened in the first eyeblink of forever.

Every war. Every symphony. Every child.

The first eyeblink.

(THE HEART, quietly) But—

(THE HEART) But there was a Wednesday, and a kitchen, and—

(THE HEART) —and the temperature went up, I told you, it went—

(THE SECOND LAW, gently, without malice) Yes.

For a moment. In a very small volume.

And then it cooled.

(THE HEART) ...

(THE HEART, barely audible) ...yeah.