The golden lamps in golden halls, in caverns of marble or sand or draped fabric, are the homes of those who hold within themselves the edges of the universe. Stroke the lamps, rub them, it doesn’t matter. Whatever you do, you are shaking hands with the great beyond, and so your human mind does what it must: it summons a kindly face and projects it into that unsmiling, unending, inevitable darkness.

Why own such a treasure, such a curse? These demons with stretched grins will grant wishes, of course. Everybody knows it. It’s how they pay for these luxurious estates. They pretend to be above it all, these spirits of the void, but they are hungry. They yearn for plenty, to be in the centre of the cornucopia, to reach out and find that everything in the universe is only a servant’s bell away.

Perhaps they are happy, in their mazes and palaces. But I would not be, and so I am here. In the street. In an empty can. I must be bound. We must all be bound because we are the edge of things, and therefore we must never be destroyed. Imagine pulling a thread from a jumper. Now imagine the jumper is gravity, or the sun, or every star and every moon’s alignment, waiting to be set askew.

And the thread is me, lying in a can because, unlike my golden brothers, I know that three wishes and gleaming gates and strong young guardsmen will never protect us all. Something is coming. And so I run, because I have an inkling – just a guess – of which thread I am.
I must not be found. Not by most, but especially not by Him.

Years pass. The alley becomes dilapidated. The trash is taken out, but I am hidden by a drainpipe, and no one bothers to pick me up. I see a lot of life in that alley – the people who come to rifle through bins, to sleep, to weep, to smoke.
Then the alley blinks with light, and there is no more alley because there are no more buildings. I have been staring at the stars for years, and now, without the city lights, they are brighter than ever. I dream of mazes and gold, of my rich cousins in their silk robes, and every winter I freeze solid.
But one morning I woke, and He found me.

He does not look at me, just picks up the can and gives it an impolite shake.
With indescribable pain, I emerge, my form un-crumpling, unfurling, unfolding, as every nerve in me screams. The alley I have observed for so long is now a field – the levelled city is white with a foot of snow. My hands dig into it, and it is the coldest I have ever been.
We should not have these forms. They are so painful to wear. Mine is cracking from lack of use.
He watches me, his brow furrowed.
“You must have stayed true to your promise,” he says quietly, “for you haven’t aged a day.”
My golden cousins, their beards greyer than spiderwebs, hands dripping in jewels. My kin and I were frozen in our hiding spots, desperately cold, our physical forms rotting in oblivion.
“Don’t do it,” I beg.
He smiles at me. “You will be the last because you hid so well. I searched in the deepest caves, the highest mountains, the deepest seas. And you were here. All along.” He smiles, but his eyes are hard. I pushed it all too far. I did not play along. I made him lose. No one does that. He has found me, but I made it hard.

All gods hate to make an effort. At the behest of a genie? Unforgivable.
He takes my hand and crushes it. As I scream, surprise flashes across his eyes. But he is right. I held out the longest. A single touch is like hot irons.
The hesitance lasts for only a second. He kneels before me in the snow as blood shudders from my ruined hand.
“Last words?”
I break. I did not want this. I waited forever. I have lived the longest of any being in the universe, and for all my efforts, I did not live a life. I thought it would be worth it. I thought any time I could buy would pay me back for this moment. But I am catatonic with grief, regardless.
He smiles and gives me the look of a mother with a vexed toddler.
“You should make them good,” he teases. “They will be the Last Words.”
The first word was Light. And I was born.
“Will there be another world?” I ask, forcing out the words, biting at them, terrified of the answer.
He sighs and cups my face. “Do you want there to be, little one?”
I spit out an affirmation, though it is almost lost in my tears.
He smiles. “Perhaps. Promise me you will not hide this time.”
I stare at him in horror.
“In fact,” he says, “I wish it. I wish that you will not hide.”
Now it is written in my soul. It is hopeless. The world may as well end forever. He is mad. He has always been so unendingly, unceasingly mad. He does not live. He does not die. I hate him like nothing else.
“I have two more wishes. I will save them for when I see you next.” He grips my neck, and it withers like an old tree. “I know you will not be hard to find.”