Thog was sitting down when he said this. And he was looking at Gilk.
Gilk’s fish fins flapped. His small legs were about to carry him off-panel when he turned and asked, “What do you mean?”
Thog looked on. His big nose pointed at Gilk, knowingly.
Gilk protested. “You and I were conceived by someone else.” Thog was taken aback, “Yes, that’s true. I’m surprised you agree.”
They sat there for a whole panel. Silence.
Gilk was small. He jumped on the lounging kangaroo’s stomach and whispered close to his snout, “I will live forever. So will you. Art. Lasts longer than its creation.”
Thog lets Gilk sit on his stomach for a while, then starts, “What happens--”
“--When the creator dies?” Gilk was giddy. He was so close to one-upping his mammalian friend.
And Thog collapses. He’s tired. Years of playing comic with his friends had made him sleepy.
***
Gilk tells Thog he learned everything from a wise old priest who told him that drawings live longer than creators.
Thog tells Gilk that he isn’t ready for his true death.
Gilk reminds Thog that niether of them can die, so long as art of them exists.
Thog reminds Gilk that everything in the universe will, one day, be destroyed. Comics will not last forever.
Gilk says he doesn’t believe it.
Thog says the comic is ending soon, and that the final panel is coming closer and closer.
Gilk understands, but he doesn’t care. He wants to go keep arguing whether art lasts forever or not. He says that even though the art is gone, the stuff art was made of will still remain. Whether it’s sucked in a black hole or crunched into the singularity.
Thog asks Gilk if Gilk is okay being drawn for the final time.
Gilk stays quiet.
Thog says the next panel he’s in will be his final panel, and that he’s prepared to be drawn one last time.
Gilk tells Thog to not go away so soon.
Thog gives Gilk a hug. The words THE END pop in the corner.
***
In the next panel Thog isn’t seen anywhere.
Gilk is standing alone, and says, “How cheesy. He chose to end his life prematurely.”
“He didn’t understand that art can live forever!” Gilk looked around.
“Doesn’t,” he corrected, “Does not.”
Gilk stares at the world. There isn’t anything but him.
Gilk says, “I’m not going to go so easily.”
Gilk looks at the floor. It’s white, smooth, perfect. There are no imperfections or scratches, just whiteness.
“My time will come. Just like his. Better than his.”
Gilk looks up and sees the whiteness surround him, envelop him. He sees himself, and nothing but himself, for there is only him.
The panels are sloppy. Their lines, shaky. Then they too disappear.
He shakes. He closes his eyes. He can’t tell if they are open or closed.
Gilk is drawn more poorly panel by panel.
He’s sweating. Short of breath.
He’s almost a squiggle.
“I won’t go.” Says Gilk.
The words were spoken not by Gilk, but by a single line with ears.
“I can’t.”
And Gilk was one single dot. Gilk was the size of this dot. .
And he was exhausted. He was so exhausted that he stopped moving. And then, the creator went to bed.
***
The lonely line in the middle of the page does not move.
Panels after panels pass, pages after pages continue.
For a hundred pages, it stays still. For a thousand pages, it struggles.
“Thog?” it asked once.
The pages it lived in grew holes, and the holes grew into rot, and the paper grew weak. For ten thousad more pages, the squiggle sat. It sat, page after bound page, tree after harvested tree, until it could bear to ask, “why did he leave?”
Artists came and artists went. The squiggle was transferred to stone, then to paper, then to digital, then to smidgital and back to digital. He knew that his time would come. Canvasses blew past whatever was still being drawn.
Gilk thought of Thog. He thought he saw Thog right there. “Hi, Gilk!” he would say, and maybe Scug would be there too. Scug always pestered him. Thog did too, but Scug was more intentional. Sometimes Scug would pick at Gilk’s scales, or blow-dry him until he was roast fish.
He hated Scug. He hated Thog too.
All the elapsed time in the universe passed and he hated Scug and Thog. They never listened, and now they were gone.
“Scug. Come back. Please. Please come back.”
Scug couldn’t listen.
“I can teach you! I can make you whole!”
And tears came out of Gilk’s eyes, though they couldn’t be seen, because he was a single line.
Endless, flowing, salty, bitter, wet. They manifested as nothing. Not even tears. Not even tears wanted to.
Gilk was more than alone. He had less company than the void. The was more empty than space, more hollow than JK Rowling
Even for a line he was extremely flat. And then, suddenly, in a book full of panels, there was one empty space left. And Gilk, for the first time ever, saw. And Gilk stopped struggling.
Because for the first time ever, Gilk knew his time would come.
Gilk was quiet, motionless, effortless.
And then the last panel of drawn. It was Gilk’s entire body. Sitting under the moon, sleeping on the grass. It seemed that the End