The Dying of the Light

I slept, having finished yet another day of self-imposed work in a world that gives me no chance for employment, attempting to catch up on all of my loosely tossed aside projects, wondering about my partner, hugging my boyfriend.

I woke up, realizing it had only been three hours. My body, it seems, did not want to sleep the full night. I knew I would sleep later, I know myself enough by now.

I go to my computer. Everything is as it always was, everything is as it will always be. One day, this faithful tool of a decade will fail me, but that day is not today. Today, it greets me with a glow that resembles the smile of an old friend.

My Fallen London Wallpaper greets me, my tasks for the day are shown in my calendar. "Do your exercise routine!" it says, not realizing I haven't done those in weeks. "Don't forget your meds!" it continues, not realizing I have forgotten several times this past week.

I click on Firefox, opening ten tabs immediately. My email, there is nothing worthwhile in there; my Whatsapp, only there so I don't miss my mom's messages by leaving my phone on mute; Youtube, for when I need background noise; Itaku, so I can pretend to catch up with the artists that fled Twitter; Fallen London, so I can continue to explore a place that is Deep, and Dark, and Marvellous.

But there are new tabs too.

A Fediverse tab from an old instance that I joined back when I first tried the fediverse. It's not my style. it's confusing and feels like a much more limited version of twitter with few to none of the clarity or ease of use. There are no porn bots in sight, though.

An Akkoma tab, part of the Website League. Almost identical to the Fediverse tab, but smaller, more concentrated, fewer people and fewer posts. There is a voice in the back of my mind that laughs -- will the Website League exist in ten years? Five? One? I will be here, at least, for as long as I am able.

A Forum Tab, a nostalgia that flows through me as I look at the attempted Cohost Forum Project. It's janky, it's new, it's earnest. Maybe it will last long enough to give me some time to remember my old forum days, back before everything seemed like it sucked.

But the very first tab in my list. "cohost! - home"

My eyes go down to remind me of the date. It is September 30th. It is almost four in the morning. For most of the world, it is September 30th.

It is the final day.

After today, a light in my sky will dim. In only three months - less, perhaps - it will blink out completely. Whatever community, whatever group, whatever culture existed here will scatter to the four winds. Some will vanish entirely.

A part of me hoped for the past three weeks that a miracle would happen. That someone was rich enough to keep Cohost running with pocket change, and would be willing to do so with no disruptions to the values. That more time could be bought. That maybe doom could be averted. But it can't. It won't.

There is no miracle. There are only people. People who loved Cohost. People who hated Cohost. People who wanted to see it thrive beyond imagination. People who wanted to see it burned to the ground. People who eulogize the good times they had here. People who were harrassed off the site. People who, even in its death, cannot help but mock and insult everything and everyone in it.

If we lived in a world where a miracle was possible, Cohost wouldn't be necessary.

I look out of my window. It is four in the morning. In less than an hour, the first rays of light will begin. In less than two, it will be bright out. People will be walking the street and heading to jobs and obligations in this Monday morning. Most of them won't be the wiser to Cohost. Most of them wouldn't care even if they were. Their lives will move on. My life will move on.

The sun will still rise today. It will still rise tomorrow too. It has risen these past three weeks, it will rise the next three, and it will rise forevermore. Time doesn't wait.

It is a demoralizing fact, to know that no matter how you feel, no matter how you grieve, no matter how un-ready you are, time will keep moving without you. There is nothing you can do, and you have to keep going, to keep functioning, to keep pretending you're okay, even when you're grieving.

In less than a month, I'll be 28. I won't get to celebrate it on Cohost. In two days, Firmament will release, and I won't get to enjoy it on Cohost. On that same day, I will finally get back to my psychiatrist with the results of my ADHD diagnosis, and I won't get to share it on Cohost.

I'm not as optimistic as others on the future. Cohost succeeded in a culture, but it succeeded only if you were white, and it couldn't last long enough to be defining of anything on the internet.

I don't know if a better future is possible, frankly. The "smart" cat in me tells me it isn't, that most people are tired, but can't do anything about it. It will take more than a tiny Website Archipelago or a single forum of Cohost retirees to change even a tiny portion of the world, let alone the whole thing. Capitalism still has its iron grip on the planet, and we are marching ever onwards to a climate disaster that we won't be able to recover from.

But an angrier wolf in me tells me that possible or not, it is necessary. There isn't much we can do, but we will do what we can. Maybe this movement is just the catalyst to a bigger tide. Maybe it will fizzle out in only a couple of months. Maybe it doesn't matter. The sun will still rise in the morning. It will still set in the evening. Time will still move.

But the continued rotation of the planet should not be our basis for existence.

Today, a light dies in the sky. Let's make sure that tomorrow, a million more will be born.