My latest story idea, based on entropy and what I interpret it as. To be honest, this wasn't even written for Namine and Roxas. I just switched the names I had used and fixed some descriptive details here and there. In any case, enjoy.
Above his head the fan spun lazily, stimulating the stagnant warm air that had been trapped in that tiny apartment for days. Roxas Hikari had left his bed 3 times in the entire week and only to use the bathroom. He hadn't eaten in what had to be the same amount of time, and the only water that he had, precariously placed open on the corner of his dresser, was nearing the bottom of its plastic bottle casing. None of this, of course, bothered Roxas. He'd gone just as long without doing much of anything only a month before, and would've continued to do so had the rent not needed to be mailed out – something he couldn't do from his oh so precious bed.
Not a single thought had pervaded the mind of this man for that entire week. His skull was like a holding tank, his mind, some sort of radioactive sludge lying listless and languid and unable to be reached – or to reach outward. Only what he was observing before him could be said to be a "thought"; the slow rotation of the fanblades above on the ceiling. After a week he'd grown tired of seeing nothing move. The very fact that he even expended the energy to turn the fan on signaled the end of his period of absolute lethargy.
With a groan he emerged from the bed – after thinking it over for hours before – and made way to the shower.
Roxas Hikari had done something like this many, many times before his in his short life. It was something that even puzzled his mother, and would've puzzled the father who left as well, had he not…left. Normally Roxas was a reserved, quiet person, but someone still able to converse and live normally. And yet every month, for just about a week, he'd be overcome with a state of an absolute lack of energy, or really, the condition of being drained of all ambition, drive and will. There was nothing that could end this or even show signs of when it'd come next. But every single month it'd come and pass. And, invariably, it was the main reason his previous girlfriend – a Namine Penn– had left him after a year. Hell, it was her in the first place who had the ambition to ask him out. This lack of ambition and drive on his part proved to be a constant in his life and permeated it in all aspects. If he was even slightly satisfied or content, he had no will to do anymore than whatever it was that was bringing him those feelings. He had the potential to be a fantastic professor but had dropped out of college for the simple fact that he didn't have the feral desire to succeed as the rest of his peers did. His simple job of writing monthly short stories for a local literary magazine was enough to pay his rent and allow him to live his simple life. And this simplicity was all he felt that he needed.
Entropy was the theme of his next vignette, and something he had thought about throughout his most recent period of nothingness. After his shower he sat down with a small sandwich and pondered entropy for a while. What did it mean? How could he portray it in fiction? Why did it happen? For a long time he just stared at the word processor on his laptop and the blinking insertion line that would be a constant companion before and after everything he wrote.
Entropy he thought is the process that every single bit of matter will go through. It's the progression into nothingness, how everything in the universe itself eventually breaks down and is converted into a listless energy.
For the first time in his life something managed to break through his skull and into his mind, a flash of an idea, of inspiration from an unknown source. The radioactive sludge that was his mind began bubbling. And he began to type.
eNtR0pi: or, the Base Desire of the Everything
They had done it. They had finally done it. All over the world scientists paraded in the streets, threw parties, embraced in excitement. For the first time in human history – no, for the first time in the universe, something was created that was not subject to the progression of entropy. It was an android in the shape of a human boy and with an artificial intelligence equaling an actual human of that age and development. They had run an ungodly amount of tests on him but it appeared as though the robot, for all intents and purposes, was untouched by entropy and would remain so for ever. They named him eNtR0pi.
For decades the little 'bot lived and learned with his creators. He watched them grow old, weak, deteriorate, and eventually die. How each and every person he knew would go through the slow, painful procedure of spending years breaking down until nothing left of them remained. He even observed how, once dead, their bodies would still disintegrate until nothing, absolutely nothing, was left. But he couldn't understand this. Why did this happen? Couldn't they heal themselves? With such leaps in medical technology and science, reversing the aging process had to be simple. But unless it was for cosmetic purposes, no one would research it. No one, it seemed, wanted to live forever.
When he was allowed outdoors eNtR0pi loved examining flowers and insects and animals. Trees were his favorite, as they reminded him of himself – they would just go on and on and seemed to disregard deterioration. They could live for hundreds of years. But even the large oak outside his building, one he had planted just after his creation, eventually withered and died and became nothing. Not even the tress, which took their nutrients from the land and their breath from the air and their energy from the sun without moving, couldn't stay alive forever. All of this sent a particular sadness through the robot's unnecessary mechanical heart.
Passively he watched many millennia of humanity come and go. He'd interact with people, scientists, savages, and despite all the advances that came and went, there still was not one human working towards defeating their natural progression, nor even one more creation like the lonely android. Entropy, deterioration, death; these were all base desires of the living, of all organic life. They wished for it in the most secluded sections of their hearts and minds even though no one would ever say so.
Despite the impossibility, some humans remained on Earth towards the end of the sun's life. It had grown into a low, throbbing red, had expanded slowly and slowly and was now threatening to destroy everything in its path. Even the sun itself was dying, was fading and deteriorating. The humans sent eNtR0pi off in a rocket ship as a testament to their greatest creation before they boarded their own to join the rest of humanity on distant planets. This time, he was all alone.
It was an eventuality that he could now see coming long before it happened, but even the rocket ship he was on deteriorated into nothingness. Entropy was like a cold, bony finger that drained the life out of everything it touched. Which was everything besides the boy robot. When his ship was gone, he floated alone throughout space. There he observed how other planets and stars and rocks were dying, breaking down into their base materials and even further after that. Nebulae full of stars and gases faded. And all of the lights in the universe, all of the stars, broke down one by one by one until there was only a pervading darkness so inky black and final that eNtR0pi didn't turn his own lights on, as to not disturb the being of entropy itself. It felt wrong to do so, unnatural. But he was unnatural, he began to assume, because everything else was gone and he was left.
At what had to be the center of the universe itself was the last remaining particles of matter, infinitesimally small and yet they too were part of this vicious degradation. There was no energy left in the universe besides these precious few bits of matter and as he watched them intently, saw as they began to slow and gradually dissipate. They were the last markers of time itself, and he, the last observer. And then, all but the special matter in the tiny not-so-real boy was left. Now he, the very thing to spit in the face of entropy, wished for it. It was what he wanted in the core of his being. With an almost giddy joy the robot took himself apart piece by piece. And as he did so, the parts not connected to him deteriorated almost immediately. He was his own god of entropy. First his legs were dismantled, and they burst away into nothing. Then his arms, which he took off at the same time. Then his body, sans the large core of energy and technology that kept him alive, and the mechanical heart that didn't stop beating. Everything was disappearing before him. Lastly, his head disengaged from the body and a peculiar wonder struck him as his vision began fading. That beating heart, and that hot core of energy, were still not deteriorating. Instead, they were growing. Expanding. Illuminating to a blinding brightness. And at once, just as his head flashed out of existence, everything exploded. His core had been made of the universe itself, because the universe was the only thing besides him that wasn't at the whim of entropy. They were one in the same. What those humans so long ago had created was a vessel for the desire that they didn't want, the desire to live forever. The desire to be the universe. But that was exactly what eNtR0pi wished for as his last thought faded out. And that wish had been granted.
The End
It had taken Roxas hours to type that, but when he finished he was content with how it ended up. It was his best story in a while, he felt, and something he'd hand in tomorrow after a nice nap.
Mr. Hikari arrived early in the morning to the publishing company, mind still groggy from sleep. He sipped molten lava hot coffee from a Styrofoam cup to keep awake, but not much was working. Then again, he really didn't want to be there. Or, more factually, he didn't want to see Namine. She worked at the publishing office and wrote articles and interviews every month with various local residents, literary minds, and the occasional published author. Like usual she was dressed for success in a modest stripped sweater and black pants with a knitted cardigan, and her straight platinum rested lightly over her shoulder. As much as he'd like to admit that his life was simpler without her, he couldn't help but still feel attracted to her. Namine was focused on her work at the moment, just as ambitious as usual. Her ambitiousness had filled in his lack of it during their relationship. He missed it almost as much as he missed her.
She took a moment to look up from her work and found Roxas outside in the hall reading over his latest submission to the Literary Monthly. He seemed lost in thought, but his submission was also shorter than usual and he was taking a while to read it. And if there was one thing Roxas poured over with even a fraction of the intensity and ambition she thought he could have, it was reading. He didn't even notice her when she stepped out of her office and stood directly in front of him. He was a slow person, but not slow witted, but all of his actions in life were measured and precious. Namine cleared her throat and he looked up, somewhat shocked, until that quickly faded into guarded curiosity. It had only been 2 months since they'd broken up, after all, and she thought that perhaps he took it harder than she realized.
"Hey, what's up?" he asked.
"Nothing really, I was just interested in your latest submission. You look really focused on it but it's so short."
"Oh. Wanna read it?" he held it out to her, and she took it. As she read, Roxas looked at her and awaited a response.
5 minutes later she looked up and nodded, impressed. "I liked it. I liked it a lot, actually. But I have to ask: is entropy the reason you lay around once a month?"
He pondered this for a second. "Maybe, on a subconscious level, I'm trying to prevent entropy by not using any energy." He saw her waiting for more. "But in all honesty, I have no clue why I do it. Not consciously, anyway."
She shook her head, laughed that cute laugh of hers, seemed as carefree as when their relationship was in its golden age and lacked any of the built up aggression towards his lack of ambition. He couldn't help but laugh too.
Of course, they were still both deteriorating, both degrading, both slowly dying with each breath. It was their destiny, whether the clairvoyant vignette proved this to them or not. But when she grabbed his hand and pulled him into her office for a chat, when she kissed him, when they went out for a walk later that day, when they made love, when they shared heat and energy, they were for just a second fighting entropy themselves. They were overcoming it for a short time. It would catch up to them but at those moments there was only growth and not an ounce of decay.
A month later on the week of his latest period of inactivity, Roxas stared up at the spinning fan once again. Namine rested with her head on his shoulder and tried to see the same thing stared up at the spinning fan again. Still, not a thought permeated that steel cage skull or radioactive sludge of a mind. But the sludge was bubbling. He could've swore that he saw eNtR0pi's core in the center of the fan where the light waited to be turned on again.
And far away, in a lab somewhere in Switzerland, a group of scientists began cheering, calling out Eureka's and Yay's and excitement filled the room. These people had just created an android in the form of a young boy who, for all intents and purposes, was impervious to entropy. They named him eNtR0pi, and he smiled the knowing smile of the universe.