The Last Murder at the End of the World

by Stuart Turton

Streaking away from this moment are dozens of possible futures, each waiting to be conjured into existence by a random event, an idle phrase, a miscommunication, or an overheard conversation. Unless a violin performance goes flawlessly, a knife will be rammed into Niema’s chest. If the wrong person steps through a long-closed door, a huge, scarred man will be emptied of every memory, and a young woman who isn’t young at all will run willingly to her own death. If these things don’t happen, the last island on earth will end up covered in fog, everything dead in the gloom.

Everybody dies on their sixtieth birthday, whether they’re healthy or not. They enjoy their funeral, then go to sleep as normal. At some point in the night, their hearts simply stop beating. After a lifetime of service, dying painlessly in their beds is the least I can give them.

The great benefit of being in somebody’s head since birth is that your voice is easily confused with their own. Over the years, I’ve displaced Emory’s conscience and better sense. I’m trusted implicitly, because she doesn’t know how alien I am.

Love is simply a matter of what people need and what they lack. It’s two broken things fitting together for a time.

There are moments in history when entire empires, whole branches of the future rest precariously on the words of a single person. Usually, they’re not even aware of it. They don’t have time to plan or consider. They simply open their mouths and speak, and the universe takes on a new pattern.

“You’re not human,” replies Thea. “You’re a product, Emory. Something Blackheath made and sold, like dishwashers and phones. Underneath that decorative flesh, you have more in common with these plants than me or Hephaestus.”

I’ve learned that the only guaranteed defense against grief is not loving at all.