Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

This Is the Way the World Ends

I took my mom to a Mother's Day brunch at a fancy restaurant in the financial district of San Francisco. My dad decided to tag along.

My mom admires the intimate setting, we marvel at the $40-per-half-cup Kopi Luwak on the specialty coffee menu, and I show my dad how to look things up on Wikipedia using my phone.

Then, inevitably, my dad brings up his latest readings in theoretical physics. He's not a physicist, and neither am I, but we share an inexplicable curiosity about the nature of the universe. We talk about how entropy cannot be stopped, and how the eventual fate of the entire universe is to decay into a thin, homogeneous gas slightly above absolute zero. Throughout our conversation, my mom remains silent, enjoying a fruit tart.

"So in the end, all this will be for nothing," finishes my father, gesturing at the lavish furnishings around us, the bustling city outside, and human civilization in general.

"These blueberries are delicious," my mother informs us, taking another bite.

We resume eating.

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