Chapter #1 | Everything Will Be OK
Bill dropped his keys on the counter and stood there staring at them, suddenly thinking about all the times he’d thrown his keys there before and how many days of his life were wasted repeating the same tasks and rituals in his apartment over and over again. But then he wondered if, realistically, this was his life, and the unsual part was his time spent doing other things.

Chapter #2 | I Am So Proud of You
The guy in the next cubical over told Bill about a thing he saw on TV about identical twins who were seperated at birth but had individually grown up to be serial killers. It was as though they didn’t have any choice in what they turned into. “Genetics is pretty messed up,” he said as his chewing gum flung itself from his mouth. At lunch he told Bill about a physics book he was reading about time, how the passing of time is just an illusion, because all of eternity is actually taking place at once. The past never vanishes away, and the future has already happened. All of history is fixed and laid out, like an infinite landscape of simultaneous events that we simply happen to travel through in one direction. Bill made a joke that he could have sworn he’d been told that somewhere before, but the guy just stared at him like he didn’t get it.

Chapter #3 | It’s Such a Beautiful Day
It’s Such a Beautiful Day. …wait a minute, he’s not gonna die here? But he doesn’t die here. No, no, no, Bill, get up. Get up, Bill. Bill, get up. He can’t die here. He’s not gonna die. He can’t ever die. Bill? Bill? …He will spend hundreds of years traveling the world, learning all there is to know. He will learn every language. He will read every book. He will know every land. He will spend thousands of years creating stunning works of art. He will learn to meditate to control all pain. As wars will be fought and great loves found… and lost… and found. Lost… and found. And found. And found. And memories built upon memories until life runs on an endless loop. He will father hundreds of thousands of children whose own exponential offspring he’ll slowly lose track of through the years, whose millions of beautiful lives will all eventually be swept again from the earth. And still, Bill will continue. He will learn more about life than any being in history, but death will forever be a stranger to him. People will come and go until names lose all meaning, until people lose all meaning and vanish entirely from the world. And still, Bill will live on. He will befriend the next inhabitants of the earth, beings of light who revere him as a God. And Bill will outlive them all… for millions and millions of years… exploring, learning, living, until the earth is swallowed beneath his feet. Until the sun is long since gone. Until time loses all meaning and the moment comes that he knows only the positions of the stars and sees them whether his eyes are closed or open. Until he forgets his name and the place he’d once come from. He lives and he lives until all of the lights go out.

It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012)