I wanted to leave one last thing behind, that's all. One last hurrah for the end.

---

When All is Said and Done

Night, that’s how this begins. Night, maybe ten, maybe eleven, but not midnight. Definitely not midnight, it’s too cliché. And cliché is bad, so they say. People don’t understand cliché really. “Oh, that’s so cliché” someone says with heaping scorn. Why? Cliché is cliché because it works, and it’s cliché because it works and gets overused because it works. That’s simple to understand. Cliché isn’t bad, it’s just playing it straight without trying to add your own spin on it that’s bad. Now THAT is real cliché. Which is why this night time vigil is not cliché, but perhaps this meeting is. In his office, N is very much aware of the time, he stayed late. He had things to do, but it wore on too long. He knew that, but it’s not like his boyfriend sleeps, much. “I thought I told you there’s no point seeing me” he said aloud to an empty room.

“I thought it would be worth to try, hehheheh!” a voice giggled.

Walking out from behind a deep pot plant was a skeleton of a cat. A skeleton that gazed with pupils of blue light, out of a skull whiter than snow, with a skeletal grin that belief humour and terror simultaneously. He gazed while dressed like a demented ringleader of some hellish circus, with a top hat held on by two glowing cat ears of indigo flame. Bonetooth gazed at the komodo dragon, who gazed back with indifference. “There’s no point to this” N plainly states.

“No point to what, exactly?” the skeletal Cheshire inquired curiously and curiouslier.

“No point to us being here. It amounts to nothing” the lizard states calmly.

“Oh, but there is a point, and it does amount to something” Bonetooth purred, his clawed hands raking deep cuts into the wood of the desk he gripped ever so tightly.

“And that point is what?” N inquired.

“The point is you. The point is I, heh heh heh. Without you and I there is no world. This wouldn’t be happening. We are the point” the skeleton explained.

“But even if we are the point, if there is no meaning then there isn’t a point” the komodo countered. “And there is no point to us being here.”

“But there is a point if we make it, ha ha ha! There IS so much of a point, heh heh. All that’s required is that it ends” Bonetooth giggled, his pupils glowing brightly with his emphatic point.

“And if it doesn’t end?”

“It has to end, that’s how it goes. A pencil always becomes a nub. A story always has to end. Anything less is not worth the effort” the Cheshire explained.

“So how does it end?” N questioned.

“Very easily” Bonetooth answered. Reaching out, the lizard didn’t even flinch as his head was gripped tightly by those strong bony claws. Strong enough for small droplets of blood to glide down his smooth scale. “It would be so easy” the skeleton promised.

“Easy is why you won’t do it, and why this doesn’t hurt. It wasn’t said it does, and so that’s how it goes” the komodo explained.

Bonetooth’s pupils dimmed, and without a word he released the lizard, his bloodied claws at his side. “Words words WORDS! Always the words! Why bother with the words when we could do so much else?!” he moaned while overdramatically splaying himself over the desk.

“Because the words are all we have. We don’t have anything else. Just words” N sighed.

“Then why don’t we try to have more than the words?” Bonetooth lamented. “Why do we even need the right words? Why don’t we just use any old words, so we stop worrying about the right ones and live?”

“Because then the world doesn’t make sense! And if the world doesn’t make sense then the world is meaningless. If it has no rhyme or reason then it doesn’t matter what words you use without either” N explained while sweeping a hand over his desk, the claws marks inexplicably vanishing. “See? The words exist, but does it make sense? No, it doesn’t. Us being here doesn’t make sense either, which makes the whole situation very nonsensical!”

“So what if there’s nonsense? It’s better than nothing. And nothing is better than nothing after all! So it’s already got greater value than nothing has over nothing” Bonetooth exposited.

“Because that’s not how it works. Nonsense has its place, but when it’s in someone else’s place it makes the world lose value. Why should nonsense fit where logic and reason goes? To force some other bit of nonsense to work? If all we do is patch nonsense with more nonsense than what was the point of trying to patch the nonsense? You just made the nonsense worse!” the komodo insisted.

“So what? Sometimes it’s good than worrying about everything else! Just wave it away and let no one worry about it” the Cheshire pointed out.

“Because somebody HAS to care, because if someone doesn’t then the world becomes worthless. Somebody has to care, which is why I sit here and care while you go off and do your nonsense” N explained.

“And supposing I don’t want to do that? Maybe I want to sit and care and not do nonsense. What would that do?” Bonetooth inquired.

“Because your words always say to the contrary, except for that moment. You’re written as you are because that’s what you are. And maybe if we felt a lot more resentful at the world you’d have more to do” the komodo scowled.

The Cheshire glared resentfully as he pulled himself from the desk, just so he could rest his hands on them to stare N in the eye. “Are you trying to imply I am not me and you are not you, but we are just words? That I can only do as my words say?” he inquired.

“Yes, because you are just words, and so is this whole ridiculous world. And when those words are said the world will exist so long as they are remembered, and be destroyed when they are forgotten” N dryly responded.

“Then this has no meaning?” the cat inquired.

“It has meaning so long as anyone can understand and remember it” the komodo nodded.

“Then why can’t you just remember it?”

“I can’t remember everything, as much as I try too. It’s not easy remembering the words and knowing how to use them” N bitterly answered. “And it’s exhausting to do so as well.”

“Then give up and let the words die” Bonetooth suggested.

“Believe me I’d love too. But sadly I can’t, and you can’t. You don’t give up, Bonetooth” the komodo answered.

“Maybe so. But remember that I’m always here, as a dark reminder of the words. Someday the logic and the nonsense will both die” the skeleton promised.

“And will you be happy when they are?”

“I won’t be unhappy.”

“I didn’t think you being unhappy was even possible.”

“If the words say I am, then I am” Bonetooth answered as he walked behind the plant and was gone.

“The words say it because that’s just how we’re written. And if we were more resentful you would be written more often, I know that much” N muttered as he took his suitcase and was gone, and the world with it as the words end. That’s just how it goes, when all is said and done.