The not-immortal Blacksmith

On a boat traveling between two Islands, Maxwell stood at the bow of the ship and stared into the distance. Something had shifted in this world of his, he didn’t know what, only that it was a sense of loss felt at the deepest level.

In the Celestial realm, all of the gods and goddesses stepped from their homes and temples, and knelt in silence. Bjorn, in front of his forge, raised a mug to the sky.

At the Smithson School of Blacksmithing, El Gato, god king of all that he surveyed, stood from his perch and stared at the sky. The kittens, silent, rose up as-one and bowed their heads, as the Tree silently wept. The World was, for but a moment, motionless.

And in a certain place that is not for men to see, a bearded man, not young, but not old, adorned in a faded white robe stained with old coffee and new tears, stood at the edge of a fading rainbow, watching a small distant shadow as he waved a Final Goodbye.

From the Annals of Brother Proof, for Clyce, in Memoriam