Master Apprentice Archive The End of Time Quick search:

Fandom: TPM

Archive: MA and Insomniacsdream.com only please

Category: Angst, PWP, POV

Rating: G

Paring: None (Sort of Q/O implied?)

Spoilers: only for TPM

Warnings: Watch out! It's another one of my philosophical pieces (with a wee bit of physics).

Summary: Obi-Wan sighs and picks up the pieces. An introspective.

Disclaimer: Goddammit George L! I don't get squat! Oh well...

Author's note: Many many many thanks to my Master Sage for the terrific beta job. I need it because, on the whole, I'm a moron. And thanks for the encouragement too.

Time is excruciating!

However, according to some, time does not exist; only the moments or the "Nows" as a few temporally sensitive sentients called them. Nevertheless, I could count the seconds as they dragged forward. I could count my own heartbeats in each moment. If I had been in the presence of one of the CeruleanChi adepts, they could have easily explained this phenomenon for me. Was it not one of the seven proofs of the non-existence of time? Amazing, that a phenomenon which made one so painfully aware of the passage of time served as partial proof that time, itself, did not exist. My Master would have said: "It is not time that drags. It is merely your perception that drags. Time becomes arbitrary under the weight of your perception".

If my perception creates an existence for time to inhabit, then how is it that time can, in turn, shade my perception of loss, of emptiness? I exist in each moment, an image of a man surrounded on all sides by his world, yet within, void and empty. The backdrop I survive in does not change. The other beings in it become superficial and two-dimensional. All the depth of their character is pulled away, not by anything that is of their making. They become automatons, mannequins, unreal and negligible beyond my immediate duty. It is merely my emptiness that has drained my perspective of the ability to have concern.

I stood here once in this wide walkway, looking out over the continuous city at sunset, my Master's hand on my shoulder, his voice in my ear and I thought, here, I am satisfied. A moment, a 'Now' that existed, still exists, will exist in the perpetuity of space and motion. A single moment grouped with other moments in a continuum that exists in an eternity without time, moved only by the inertia of the universe and my perception within it.

Herein lies the problem, if my perception and motion within the space that I fill can rule the perpetual flow of events in my life, how can I take back all the moments that went before? How do I get back to that brief image of the past: me, my Master, a sunset? I do not ask for much. Only that. If I could gain so much, then, if only I could exist in that moment, I would cease the motion and destroy the continuation of perception. But to manipulate so much would be the same as stopping the very spinning of the galaxies, releasing all gravity to send the universe quickly into chaos. Stopping motion of a hundred trillion years with a single implosion of grief and loss from one small being in one small place on one small planet across the vastness of eternity is not possible. A single moment of grief to match the energy of a billion billion suns. A single moment to the end of time.

So I move through time or it moves through me. I continue, as my Master would expect of me. I could never let him down. Master Yoda examines me with his critical eye and his perception of the Living Force, but if he sees anything more than ordinary Obi-Wan Kenobi, he does not say. I work for the purpose of others, but I think only of myself, these days. I keep these reflections of self-pity and self- doubt well concealed within the confines of my rational thought. Consequently, my thoughtful serenity becomes my cloak to both conceal and protect.

The Unifying Force is fluid. It flows like a river. It moves like silk. It slips through my perception like threads of time, gossamer and shining. Past, present, and future move in space. The Unifying Force is the very thread from which the tapestry of life is made.

In contrast, the Living Force is the story that the tapestry tells. The threads unravel and a life is lost. Time ends for one and goes on for others. Perception ceases. However, existence does not...or so we are taught. The thread remains and because it can be neither be created or destroyed, existence continues. The energy that held the tapestry together in that one sentient being continues. Luminous and everlasting, there is no death, only the Force.

But what of the living? A question I am in no mood to answer. Is there an answer? Do I wish to hear it? And if I dive into such deep waters, what will I find? Will I find answers to my grief or will I find yet more reasons to grieve? Will I look into my own soul, into that empty place where once he stood, his hand on my shoulder, and will I find a desire lost? Will I unveil a dream never realized?

I have no words for these emotions. Jedi training does not prepare one for this. I have no point of reference. I call it grief, for I have seen others grieve. But the complexities behind the reasons for my grief are more than I can bear to explore. They lay before me unexamined. I realize that I must open my eyes to see my own center or live in distortion.

Love is gone.

There. I have admitted it to myself, and I watch in fascination as my world takes on an absurd peculiarity and all my life becomes meaningless within a flash of a moment. Suddenly the void becomes apparent in its existence. It's purpose comes to bear down upon my fragile serenity. At the same time, it produces an agony for which I was entirely unprepared. Another moment wrapped in remorse, with the intensity of a billion billion suns. Energy enough, yet I do not implode.

I continue, as my Master would expect of me. I will never let him down. I center myself in the Unifying Force and open my perception to the Living Force. I pull it into myself to fill the void. I wrap it about myself to dull the pain. I put myself into my duty to refocus my sense of purpose. I become my vocation utterly and completely. I fall back onto the flow of time. I let it carry me on its currents, and I drift further away from that single moment. After time's currents have carried me far enough I will look back. That single moment, locked in space, will be so remote that I will barely remember his face, the sunset, his voice in my ear. A picture, washed out with age and viewed from a distance, will stand as a single reminder for me to the inevitable truth that dreams fade in time.

End