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There is a sudden stillness that surrounds me as I turn and wonder what it was that happened.
Around me there had been so much activity happening, so much laughter and fun with color filling what was now an empty and devoid place. Nothing seemed to exist in this strange plane of white emptiness that is familiar, but I can't remember from where.
Why was this place familiar?
"Did you have fun?" a deep voice asks from behind me, and I turn to find a darkness splitting away from the white world I stood in.
"What?" I ask when my eyes land on the man clad in a white suit.
He looked familiar, with wavy black hair that just barely reached his shoulders and eyes that glowed a brilliant white.
"Did you have fun?" another voice asks, and I turn to find another man clad in a black suit standing beside the man in white. His short brown hair and deep black eyes also familiar, but I don't know why I can't remember who they are.
"Did I have fun?" I ask, confused by the question as I try to remember what it was that they were asking me.
Without a word, they both point up in unison over my head and I turn around to find a timer with zeroes blaring down at me. The incessant ticking that used to resonate throughout this dead space and became nothing, but background noise had stopped. It was why the silence was now so heavy and why I could hear my blood rushing through my ears. The numbers stare down at me like the eyes of judgement and remind me why it was that I was here and what it was I was supposed to do next.
"Did you have fun?" the black and white entities ask in unison and altogether memories return to me of the past year.
Memories of inappropriate jokes, Neti pot, strange and incorrect therapy practices, children's bizarre toys, extreme exercise challenges, ridiculous drawings, questionable food choices, singing practices, survival tactics, bad acting, great acting, death, life, a generation proclaiming they were not in a cult, and two men that made these memories possible.
I laugh as these ridiculous memories flash in the white space before me, just as they had played out for the past year. Joy fills my heart at the bright images, and I can't help but feel so nostalgic at everything I got to witness in only a year.
A year that feels like it happened a lifetime ago.
"I did," I answer while staring back up at the timer, wondering what this feeling in my chest was and why it hurt so much. "I had so much fun," I laugh and then realize that there were tears prickling my eyes and a sob threatens to tear through my chest.
Turning, I find the two entities watching me patiently from where they stand unmoving.
I want to ask them if this really was the end, but I knew the answer already…
It was.
After this moment none of what I lived through would exist outside of this plane of memories. Everything that had happened in the last year would be gone and only be remembered by those who had experienced this wonderful adventure.
Since the beginning, when these entities showed up and offered a year filled with endless possibilities I knew that the end would inevitably catch up. I just didn't think it would happen so fast… so soon, and now here we were, at the end of the race, the promise, with nothing left for us to do except to say goodbye.
"What's going to happen now?" I ask them, stealing as much time that does not exist as I can. Clutching onto air that keeps slipping through my fingers no matter how tightly I try to hold onto this reality. Waiting for the clock to keep ticking, but the clock has long been dead.
"Whatever you want," Unus, the one clad in black, answers poignantly as he tucks his hands into the pockets of his pants.
"The future is yours for the making," Annus, with his piercing white eyes, answers sternly, "Learn from what we've taught you this past year and go further beyond."
I nod while feeling a deep suffocating pressure in my chest as I continue to grasp at the sands of time that don't refuse to spill through my fingers. I then realize how frustrated I am at the thought of the end and how fast it arrived. It was also frustrating how hard it was to let go even when, from the very beginning, I knew that the contract I signed willingly would need to be paid.
"Will I ever see you again?" I then ask, feeling a strange calm wash over me as a soft breeze blows the last of the sand away.
"One day," Unus and Annus answer together.
"But for now…"
"It's time to say goodbye…"
Before me, a paper appears with the terms and conditions I had memorized a year ago and signed without even thinking about the consequences. Signed without acknowledging the end and what it would mean when the time I was given with Unus and Annus would finally end. Now I needed to sign the paper again to end the agreement we started a year ago. To let them go and return back to the real world where they would no longer exist except within my memories and those who got to know them alongside me.
Thinking back on it now, I remember how a year ago Unus and Annus had shown up and offered me a chance to experience something monumental which, at the time, felt nothing more than a joke. Now the reality was hitting that this wasn't a joke, and the adventure was now over. This was the closing of a chapter in a book that would one day no longer be remembered except for those who helped write it and experienced first-hand the wonderful adventures that occurred.
Many people would not know what Unus Annus was and the greatness it had brought to a suffering generation during a time where the world was stuck in purgatory. A relief from the daily life we were forced to endure, an escape that brought us much peace, and now it was time to say goodbye. It was time to let go and restart our own clock without them.
"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened… right?" I ask the entities who smile and nod as I take the black and white pen that floats beside the contract.
The pen feels warm and heavy in my hand where it had once felt cool and light as a feather a year ago. My hand trembles as I take a deep breath and hold it for a few seconds before releasing it slowly. I then proceed to sign my name one final time before the paper and pen disappear with a pop.
"It's time," Unus Annus say together, and I nod while heaving one last sigh.
"It's time," I agree and stand up straight while facing them one last time, "Thank you for this adventure," I then say while forcing a trembling smile, "I'll never forget you."
They smile but say nothing as they turn and walk off into the darkness until I am alone in the empty plane, waiting to be returned to "reality" but nothing happens. I remain stuck in the empty black and white world wondering what it was that was going on and why nothing has changed until a noise catches my attention.
Behind me I hear a heavy ticking begin and when I turn to look up at the clock, I find that it is now counting down the seconds.
364:59:55
Before me, a new contract appears with new terms and conditions while two familiar voices ask,
"If you had a year to do whatever you wanted,"
"Would you take that chance?"
And without another thought I take the unfamiliar pen and sign my name to begin my new adventure filled with my own rules.
Will you?
And if you, dear reader, know nothing of Unus Annus and what it was and what it represented, that is perfectly fine. There is no longer any time to learn the truth about it, but if you had signed the contract and lived the adventure alongside those of us who did sign, I have some final things to say...
We were not a cult
Heehoo and the Gongoozler are still out there
Mark is not a masochist
Eef still can't read
Don't ever Forget
Memento Mori
Unus Annus