ON THE LAST DAY;

[messenger]

text description for screen readers

image of a bright, white room; a blank space, with the words "in the beginning—" and beneath, in much darker, almost hidden text "(you were just you)". an image of a craggy, volcanic beach on a blue, overcast day; an image of a craggy, volcanic beach on an overcast day, during perhaps sunrise or sunset; a black space with the text "5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. 6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven." a grainy image of white sea birds flying over black waters, their reflections mirror images on the surface; black space; the grainy image of the outstretched wings of a bird in black and white; the grainy image of fiber optic cable, sparkling, in black and white; a blank space with the words "they mentioned you in the second book of enoch—"; the blank space extends downward further. the grainy image of a statue of an angel cut off below its eyes, hand on its heart, in black and white, with the words "HE HAS LEFT US ALONE" transposed over the darkest part of the image; a grainy image of wires going into a board, with only the color blue isolated; the grainy image of a close up of a statue of an angel in black and white, only its nose and lips and chin visible, acid damage makes it appear as though tears are running down its face; the grainy out of focus image of a circuit board, with only the color blue isolated. a blank space with the text " If thou beest he; But O how fall'n! how chang'd From him who, in the happy Realms of Light Cloth'd with transcendent brightness, didst outshine Myriads though bright: If he whom mutual league, United thoughts and counsels, equal hope, And hazard in the Glorious Enterprise Joynd with me once, now misery hath joined In equal ruin" a high contrast black and white image of three, tall, imposing stained glass windows, shot from a low angle; two images side by side of stained glass windows with light streaming through them, in black and white; a broken stained glass window, in black and white; a closeup of broken glass, in black and white; another closeup of broken glass, in black and white, this image much larger than the last, the cracks thinning near the bottom of the image; the text "but here we are in the weeds again, here we are in the bowls of the thing: your world doesn't make sense" superimposed in dark font over the left bottom corner of the image. a painting of an angel and a man wrestling, cropped so that their heads are cut out of the image and only their bodies can be seen; a blank space; a painting of the fall of the rebel angels and lucifer from heaven. a black square is superimposed over the center of the image, with the text "Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out You will be alone always and then you will die." written inside of it; a blank space; a painting of a lamb tied for sacrifice; blank space; a sliver of a photo of a group of wolves with their heads tucked together, a single wolf's eye visible; a sliver of a photo of two wolves, one wolf biting the other wolf's muzzle in a dominance display; the bottom mandible of a wolf; black space with the text "the tiger isn't tame, bu it's toothless just the same"; a photo of a carcass of a bird, its wings a jumble of limbs; a sliver of the same photo, this time in dark black and white. a large blank space with a grainy filter stretching in a gradient up from the bottom; the text "(ashes to ashes)" is superimposed over the upper left corner in dark grey font. the blank space resolves into an image of a black sand beach, with foamy, blue-white waves washing onto a black shore. this shore continues on into another empty, blank space. end.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.