in perpetuity

Life is a series of eternities strung together. Some are the kind of eternity that can't last long enough, playing outside in the autumn leaves with your sister and never wanting this to end, a chill in the air and something magical and perfect about the leaves. These are the days that feel distant. Some are the kind of eternity that we pray will end, where the whole universe conspires against you, when everything goes wrong and hope is a word you say with contempt--the world is fucked, society is fucked, you're fucked.

Except this particular eternity really has lasted forever. Or perhaps not. But it's been centuries now--I can't really keep track of time--and nothing has changed. I'm still the same as I was, young, terrified, in love, and she's still living her own life, uncomfortably aware of me but too afraid to hurt anyone.

If "still" is even the word. This is how it's always been. The moments before are just memories, and there is no after. I said it's been centuries but they're all happening at once, continuously, forever, and every part of these centuries have been just one moment.

It should be some sort of hell, but hell shouldn't feel so alive.