The End of Days

By Peter Bowden

The air had a weight to it, as if time itself had grown thick. The man sat on the porch, a chipped mug of coffee cooling in his hands, watching the sun melt across the fields. Every sound carried farther now, the call of a crow, the rustle of dry grass, the creak of the old swing on the oak branch. The world seemed to be holding its breath, waiting. He thought of all the small things he had loved: the scent of rain on dust, the sound of her laughter in another room, the taste of peaches straight from the tree.

Inside, the clock ticked without hurry. He had stopped winding it days ago, and yet it persisted, stubbornly marking seconds as if it refused to believe in endings. Sometimes he spoke to it, just to hear another voice. “Not long now,” he’d say, though whether it was comfort or confession, he couldn’t tell. Outside, a wind rose soft, uncertain, and he thought it might carry the sound of his mother’s hymn, the one she used to hum when light fell through the church windows like spilled honey.

When the last evening came, it was not with thunder but with calm. The horizon burned a deep gold, and the trees shimmered like memories trying to stay. He set the mug down, the dregs cold, and stood with a sigh that felt older than his bones. The swing moved once, twice, as if someone unseen had given it a gentle push. “All right,” he whispered, and the wind seemed to nod. In that moment, the world neither ended nor began, it simply continued, softer now, carrying the scent of peaches and rain toward whatever waited beyond the light.


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