Once upon a time, the last star faded cooly into the dark universal night. It took hundreds of billions of years to die, but no one remained to count the eons. Eventually even the electrons died.

This is not my story.

Once upon a time, a sentient race was born under a sky full of red and orange stars, and it matured and died without ever knowing that beyond its galactic pocket were a hundred billion other galaxies, carried away at redshifts faster than the speed of the light that would otherwise reach these beings to console them in their loneliness.

This is not my story.

Once upon a time, the last remnants of life–radiation-resistant spores and hyperthermophilic single-celled archaea–gave up their long evolutionary battle against the red sun that grew in their sky.

This is not my story.

Once upon a time, the human race nearly extinguished itself for the ninth time. There would be no tenth opportunity. The last whisper of the last woman was also the last breath of homo sapiens sapiens.

This is not my story.

Once upon a time, I was born and cried for my mother’s milk and suckled with all my tiny might, but nothing flowed into my dry mouth.

This is my story.

Once upon a time, I threw lye into the eyes of the man who raped and punched me daily, and I raged and screamed and spat all the way to the gallows.

This is my story.

Once upon a time, I told my friends to love each other and to treat each other well no matter what race or gender or class, and generations later people murdered and enslaved and cheated each other in my name.

This is my story.

Once upon a time, I tricked a general and his army and led them away from my village. When he cut me down in angry realization, I smiled at my cleverness and my bravery and the thought of my people fleeing to live and fight again.

This is my story.

Once upon a time, I lived out my days on the edge of starvation, harvesting my Lord’s rice and looking forward only to the numbness that the sour ale brought, and fucking my woman at night.

This is my story.

Once upon a time, I wrote stories of a war that another writer wrote down and sold across the sea as his own. He died from fame and cirrhosis, and I spent my life full of self-doubt, in poverty and obscurity.

This is my story.

Once upon a time, I stole from another woman’s retirement savings, and spent my last days knitting with friends under the warm Florida sun that she dreamed of.

This is my story.

Once upon a time, I enjoyed a long life filled with loved ones until my body betrayed me and mutant growths starved and pinched and twisted my internal organs, and I spent my last months thinking only of me, and my pain, cursing my existence and longing for death.

This is my story.

Once upon a time, I fell in love with him, but was afraid he would reject me, and married a man I did not love. I died not knowing that he loved me all along.

This is my story.

Once upon a time, I lived, and I loved you or I hated you, and I acted, and you responded, and this was my universe, my earth, my history and my future.

These are my stories.