At the end of the universe, one man stood to witness it.
A short man, Indian, we'll call him Devan.
He was perhaps the most fitting man to witness this event.
He had seen the entirety of the universe (after all, what is a few billion years when he has
been around for trillions).
He had mastered particle physics and fluid dynamics and astronomy and organic chemistry,
everything there was to learn, he had learned.
He comprehended every language and was compassionate to every culture.
He had been mocked growing up, he said he was going to live forever, but he was the
last one alive.
He was the most intelligent and the most well versed in living.
Truly no one could have been better suited to be the last human alive.
It was civilization terminating with the best it had to offer.
So, he wondered, as the final ponderance of the human race, what was it all for?
And he started from the beginning of his species.
He wondered why humans tamed fire.
He had seen fire many times before.
Houses, campsites, torches, forests, whole planets even.
It was mesmerizing.
He watched warm reds, oranges and yellows rise and move as if they were alive.
He saw the end of people's livelihood in some fires, or simple beauty in others.
He had watched how fires died, the thought bringing him to the universe he was standing
in, and how that final death was not unlike the fires he had witnessed before.
He thought and concluded that fire was there to allow our brains to get bigger and begin
turning the wheel of civilization.
But he knew that it was not the point.
All of civilization was going to die, and so, he concluded, that it was pointless and
that is not what is was for.
He advanced in our history, Moving forward to agriculture.
It had employed every human alive at one point, dwindling to almost none by the end.
Providing food for everyone and keeping everyone alive.
He had witnessed it all.
From the planting of one wheat seed, watching it grow and grow, from green to brown to harvest.
He saw people taking the wheat, making flour and then the consummation of this seed, used
to make a cookie for a small child.
It was golden with dark brown spots of chocolate all over.
The aroma was pleasant and sweet, seemingly perfect at that moment, reminding him of pure
bliss.
And so, he thought about agriculture for some time, how it accelerated the wheel, bringing
civilization to new heights.
How the food postponed death, something everybody was going to experience anyway, even him,
he knew it, though not wanting to admit the ultimate truth quite yet.
He concluded that agriculture was not what it was all for.
And he continued to advance, each improvement more rapid than the last.
He pondered about mastering metals.
Iron, bronze, silver, gold every one of them he had seen and touched.
Iron was the basis of a billion structures at one point.
Bronze began a new age in human history.
Silver used to be the key to connecting the world then the galaxy and finally, the universe.
Gold was the metal of awe, it emanated wealth and class.
But he was wise enough to know that wealth can't get you the things that bring true,
long lasting happiness.
He considered how these metals brought humans to the height of heights.
Their sheer mechanical strength doing what a billion humans could have never done.
Cars to planes to rockets to warp drives, and everything in between.
However, he understood that controlling metals and the outcomes of that subordination couldn't
give a point, or meaning, or an answer to what it was all for.
And so, his thoughts moved forward, to the era in which his matter was awakened.
He considered how water was brought to everyone.
A seemingly endless length of pipes, bringing safe, drinkable, life juice to anywhere those
pipes lead to.
It granted 7 billion people the necessary component of life.
Consuming the liquid postponed the inevitable.
He thought of this ultimate fact.
There will be no more metaphorical drinking for his cosmos.
He could even see the end, right over there.
So, he concluded, that water for everyone, preserving life for all, was not a solution
to what it was all for.
Finally, he moved forward to what humanity had worked toward.
He reflected upon the expansion of the human empire.
First terrestrial, the entirety of their home planet.
Then solar, their home star system consumed for the people's purposes.
Galactic, a whole imperceptible speck occupied by the human race.
Finally, universal, everywhere you went, there was a hominid.
Connected by wormholes and ships faster the light itself.
He acknowledged that the achievement was great.
But it wasn't satisfactory.
That did not answer his question.
What was the point of it all?
And he had a revelation.
Much like the one that people had a trillion times before, like Algebra and Chemistry finally
clicking.
He understood that the point of it all was life.
And he knew that was because while there is life, there is hope, happiness, joy, and love.
There is sadness, anger, indifference, and contempt.
He wondered what the point was if there was as much bad as good?
And then he knew that the bad ones weren't there to bring meaning or a point, they were
there to bring true respect to the ones that do.
He knew that point was not calculus or essays or doing some job you hate.
He fully comprehended that it was all to make yourself and other fellow humans feel the
good emotions and have great experiences.
He fully understood that those are the ones that give you the point and provide a truly
satisfying answer to the contemplation, "What is the point of it all?"
And with that, the final breath was breathed, the final eye was blinked and the universe…
finally… expired.
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