Out of Time

Dusk arrived in a riotous display of color, the varied tones washing across the sky like oil paints on a canvas. Kasey sighed and leaned back in his chair, pressing his fingers together in a complex pattern he was only vaguely aware of. A few clouds floated into view, turning their wispy forms into fantastical shapes before a natural wind tore the images apart. His most recent favorite was of a dozing dragon, with light wisps of cloud coming out of its imaginary nostrils, mimicking smoke on a sleepy exhalation.

A particularly strong gust of wind dissipated the cloud, scattering the elements across the vast expanse of something that existed between the solidity of ground and the vacuum of space. He watched it go, a sad look in the depths of his eyes. Amazing how something so beautiful could last such a short, fleeting amount of time. Kasey took a deep breath and released it slowly, his mind’s eye conjuring an image. With the delicacy of an artist, he shaped the clouds, using the very sky as his canvas.

After a time, the sun sank fully beneath the horizon, allowing the stars to shine like diamonds, sparkling in the distance. He knew moonrise was still some time away, and even then, the cloud cover had begun to clear away. There would be no more painting of that sort this evening.

His wife came outside to stand beside him, the silk of her clothes sliding whisper-soft across her skin. “You should use your gifts better,” she said softly. “For something useful.”

Kasey smiled ruefully; she said the same thing every night. “People wouldn’t understand it. They might even fear it. Besides, Laura, I’m an artist. What I do, I do to make people happy.” Every night, he gave the same response. It had been this way for long years now; his gift had granted them both long life. They hadn’t aged a day since his powers had developed, almost as if they now existed outside of time.

He looked up at his love, his gaze caressing her skin. She felt a light tingle on her cheek and smiled, shaking her head. “Come inside, dear. Supper is on the table.”

Their routine was comforting to them, though most people would have found it dull, unexciting. After supper, he would go into his studio to paint, and she would go to her study to write. They were old enough now to be working under assumed names, their original lives gone in a mountain of paperwork proclaiming them deceased.

Kasey had long since lost track of how many years they had been ‘dead’, though he knew it had been something along the lines of decades. Still, they had a good life. Their cottage was small and out of the way, nestled in the mountains, but they liked their privacy, even more so with his strange gift. Living in a populated area would risk their being discovered, and he feared what would happen should people find out. So they lived here, alone, growing and raising their own food, using natural energy for what little electricity they needed.

Entirely self-sufficient. It was a good life. They had no need of money, though both drew a tidy income with their works. Every year they made donations to various organizations: children’s hospitals, animal rescues, rainforest conservatories, third world medical care, food donations. In the past five decades, their hefty donations had provided millions of people with food, shelter, clothing, and medicine; it had saved thousands of acres of rainforests, hundreds of species of wildlife.

They had no children of their own, and Kasey anticipated they would outlive several generations of people, if not the rest of humanity. Laura had often commented that they should perhaps spend their time doing more than painting and writing, but they never strayed from their chosen paths.

In his studio, Kasey picked up his brush, dipped it into a soft pink paint, and began to work. Their routine continued on like this, until the end of the earth and all who lived there had either fled or died.

They disappeared into time, then, and were never heard from again, though some claim to have seen glimpses of a couple known only as the Timeless Ones until the very end of time itself.