The Void

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There is a sudden stillness that surrounds me as I turn and wonder what it was that happened.

Around me there had been so much activity happening, so much laughter and fun with color filling what was now an empty and devoid place. Nothing seemed to exist in this strange plane of white emptiness that is familiar, but I can't remember from where.

Why was this place familiar?

"Did you have fun?" a deep voice asks from behind me, and I turn to find a darkness splitting away from the white world I stood in.

"What?" I ask when my eyes land on the man clad in a white suit.

He looked familiar, with wavy black hair that just barely reached his shoulders and eyes that glowed a brilliant white.

"Did you have fun?" another voice asks, and I turn to find another man clad in a black suit standing beside the man in white. His short brown hair and deep black eyes also familiar, but I don't know why I can't remember who they are.

"Did I have fun?" I ask, confused by the question as I try to remember what it was that they were asking me.

Without a word, they both point up in unison over my head and I turn around to find a timer with zeroes blaring down at me. The incessant ticking that used to resonate throughout this dead space and became nothing, but background noise had stopped. It was why the silence was now so heavy and why I could hear my blood rushing through my ears. The numbers stare down at me like the eyes of judgement and remind me why it was that I was here and what it was I was supposed to do next.

"Did you have fun?" the black and white entities ask in unison and altogether memories return to me of the past year.

Memories of inappropriate jokes, Neti pot, strange and incorrect therapy practices, children's bizarre toys, extreme exercise challenges, ridiculous drawings, questionable food choices, singing practices, survival tactics, bad acting, great acting, death, life, a generation proclaiming they were not in a cult, and two men that made these memories possible.

I laugh as these ridiculous memories flash in the white space before me, just as they had played out for the past year. Joy fills my heart at the bright images, and I can't help but feel so nostalgic at everything I got to witness in only a year.

A year that feels like it happened a lifetime ago.

"I did," I answer while staring back up at the timer, wondering what this feeling in my chest was and why it hurt so much. "I had so much fun," I laugh and then realize that there were tears prickling my eyes and a sob threatens to tear through my chest.

Turning, I find the two entities watching me patiently from where they stand unmoving.

I want to ask them if this really was the end, but I knew the answer already...