The Melody of Eternity

One day, death disappeared from the world, and... silence fell. Not an ordinary silence, but a deep, heavy silence... one that would not yield even to time. Pain, loss, and fear were no more. The world stood on the threshold of eternity, but instead of celebration, an odd emptiness prevailed. Trees grew to infinite heights, but the wind could no longer stir their leaves. Animals stopped running, for there was nothing to flee from, and people... lost in their immortality, became soulless shadows of themselves.

Time, once flowing like a river, became the surface of a still lake. The water rippled no more, the horizon never faded, and each moment was merely a reflection of the one before it. The clocks stopped ticking, and the future lost its meaning. The world was immortal, but in its immortality, all beauty had died.

In the streets, where laughter and chatter once echoed, an unusual stillness now reigned. People no longer felt the need to speak. Every word could wait for an endless tomorrow. Hands, once busy with work, embraces, and touches, hung motionless. No one created, no one loved, no one dreamed.

Only Maia, a young writer, refused to accept this state. Driven by questions burning inside her like fire, she walked the empty world. “If everything is eternal, why does the world feel so empty? If beauty cannot fade, is it still beauty? What does it mean to exist if nothing can ever end?”

She came across an old man sitting on stone steps, his violin resting in his lap. The music he played was the only sound breaking the endless silence.

“Why do you play?” Maia asked him. “If nothing has an end, what is the purpose of music?”

The old man smiled, gently placed his fingers on the strings, and played soft notes that resonated deep within Maia’s heart. “Music has no death,” he replied. “But not because it lasts forever. It lives because each note has its end, and a melody comes alive only through the silence between the notes. Without an end, every melody would be mere noise. What we remember is what has ended... and yet, it remains within us.”

Maia fell silent. She realized that beauty is not beauty if it lasts forever. It is its fragility, its transience, that compels us to pause and admire it. Like a leaf that gently touches the ground, or the sun that sets beyond the horizon. If the sun never set, if the leaf never fell, they would become nothing more than lifeless scenery.

At the end of her journey, on the summit where the sky blended with the earth, Maia met Truth. The being who had created this state of immortality appeared as a presence without form... intangible, infinite, and pure essence.

“Why did you take death from us?” Maia asked.

“I created eternity for you,” Truth replied. “I wanted to free you from pain, from the fear of death. I thought it would make you happy.”

“You were mistaken,” Maia said. “Death is not the enemy of life... it is its reason. Without death, there is no reason to love, to dream, to create. If nothing can disappear, nothing can be cherished.”

Truth was silent, as if these words carried a weight it had yet to comprehend. Then it asked, “What would you suggest?”

“Let the world live and die again,” Maia said. “Let impermanence grant beauty its meaning. And leave immortality only to things that never had a body... music, stories, ideas. Only they can bear infinity without losing their significance.”

Truth accepted her words. The world began to move again. Trees shed their leaves, which fell to the ground so that new ones could grow. Animals ran through the fields, seeking and finding their ends, only to begin anew. People felt time flow in their bodies once more. They lived, breathed, and aged.

Music, stories, and ideas remained immortal. Like beacons shining through the ages, they carried beauty and truth. People came to understand that it is transience that gives them the reason to dream, to love, and to create.

Maia returned home and wrote a story. A story about a world that almost lost death... and, with it, beauty. A story about the power of endings and the beauty that exists only because it can disappear.

And this story, immortal like music, became the echo of life itself.