The “suction” unleashed by the Cosmic Cleaners was no mere physical act of tidying.
It was a sacred, yet merciless process of “recycling”—a forced reorganization of this planet’s “filth” (its life and its strata) into the grand energy cycle of the universe.
As the masses of matter were torn from the Earth’s gravitational pull, they accelerated through warped space toward a colossal “Event Horizon.”
This was the boundary where light, time, and even Edward’s very existence were instantly decomposed into mere “informational residue.”
To an outside observer, Edward might appear frozen in the zenith of his adventure, suspended eternally upon the Event Horizon.
His face remains locked in that same expression of ecstatic狂信 (fanaticism) from the moment he uttered, “Beautiful…”
However, the truth is far more dynamic, and devastatingly beautiful.
Beneath the crushing gravity of the black hole, Edward’s body, along with the sediment he loved, began to be converted into “advanced energy.”
The carbon bonds unraveled; the memories of his cells were translated into quantum information. Every atom that constituted his being was refined into the purest “resources” of the cosmos.
He was ceasing to be a “human” of matter; he was being sublimated into a “seed of light.”
And then, at the antipodes of the cosmic waste disposal (the black hole), that energy was expelled once more—through a “White Hole.”
It emerged in a corner of a different galaxy, millions of light-years away, in a realm yet unknown.
There, another civilization was preparing to celebrate the birth of a new star.
Suddenly, a spray of brilliant light particles erupted from the void, becoming the sand and the seas of that world, eventually forming the “lush forests” of a different planet.
Edward’s “aesthetic” was woven into the circulation of the universe.
Sucked in as waste, redistributed as energy, he would once again bloom as part of the “beautiful trash” of another world.
The universe was, simultaneously, a gargantuan junk room and a perfect recycling plant.
In a distant corner of the galaxy, a new life gathered those grains of light and whispered in awe,
“Look, what a beautiful radiance…”
The resonance of those words achieved a perfect, haunting harmony with the final words Edward had gasped deep beneath the earth.
(The End)