The End

The Happening wasn’t the worst part. It’s what came after. Mankind kept trying to find ways of keeping the world from ending, but what do we do now that it hasn’t? The present is a blank canvas no one knows how to paint.

Everything is dead. I’m guessing everyone is. There’s a few sounds coming from the outside and I slide the curtains open to look out the window. The sky is grey and I’m expecting rain tonight. The tall buildings cover most of the landscape and there’s nothing more than a few hungry dogs wandering the streets. The bombings destroyed most of the statues and the constructions are all empty. There’s no will to live. 

    I stopped taking showers and I don't change anymore. My stomach hurts and there’s not much left to hunt. Those dogs are sickly skinny but the supplies won’t last forever. I’ve been craving meat for so long and I don’t know how I’ll keep fuelling myself. I take a look at the old can of beans and I know I might regret opening it tomorrow. But I’m unsure tomorrow will ever come.

    I have an old camera right there near the bed and I use it to take pictures of my silhouette in the dull mirror. I'll never be able to reveal the photographs and I have no means of knowing for how long it will work, if it ever did. But I do it anyway just to keep myself busy. I keep finding myself looking forward for night to come. There's something restful in the excuse of having nothing to do. And the absence of day light turned out to be a warm companion. There's a big satisfaction in the simplicity of laying in the dark wondering where all those howls come from.

    I couldn’t find the courage to visit my old neighbourhood, so I’m living in hide in a three star hotel room. I suppose I could find shelter in a better one with a big suite, but what’s the point anyway. It’s just me. I tried to say a few words out loud a few days ago just to keep myself entertained. I wanted to listen to a human voice; but I didn’t recognize it. I haven’t much left.

    My father came from a blue-collar family so I didn’t have to do much myself. He knew how to handle every situation and fix every problem. I was a paper-boy in my childhood and that was the closest I got to some labour. I learned how to make my first soup late in my 30s because my wife got sick. I miss her every day since The Happening. I miss the cuddling and the late night let’s-change-the-world-conversations. I miss the walks and the smell of the house. But what I miss the most is having someone to fight with.

    I used to be a writer, you know. I got paid for it. So life wasn’t much different. The gardens were greener, but I was always indoors. They say artists must have fulfilling lives in order to create, but every true writer knows that couldn’t be further from the truth. How are you supposed to master a craft if you are too busy living? So I lied all the time and the big pay checks finally came.

    Money is now worthless and so is everything material. Or moral, for that matter, since that’s a community abstraction and factions no longer exist. Ethics is all about pain and suffering. 

    I used to shoplift quite often before The Happening. I was four the first time I did it but it wasn’t anything serious. I accidentally took a little red car toy from the preschool activities room and I didn’t put it back the next day.

    The serial stealing came later in life. And it's not really stealing if it had already been stolen - at least that's how I saw it. I did it out of boredom, really, just to amuse myself. And it was minimal stuff. A pack of gum, a cheap ring, a box of cigarettes. Just for the thrill of it. Adult life can get boring after a while. You lose some people, you get lonely. You must find ways to keep dopamine flowing. Social media disappeared way before The Happening and The Meta Verse didn’t last. The entertainment industry crashed after the guys from the rockets decided to never come back. Earth wasn’t the type of place one would miss. But it’s unfair I’ll never have the chance to not miss it.

    Now there’s no one left to steal from. There’s no government and private property is an outdated concept. Meritocracy was the answer for a while. They used algorithms to predict poverty and make life fair and equitable to everyone. But some people might say that was what lead to The Happening. If you fail in a meritocracy you have no one left to blame. And so self petty begun. And with it came envy and a new era of violence. Everything was an excuse to riots. Anger led us to this.

I started praying again after decades of silence from the other side. I no longer mind. I learned how to cope with it. There was never a true atheist or believer in this world. If there ever was, we would be elevated to a degree way above the primal animal we all are. The first true devotee or sceptic shall become the first God. An unpraised ruler of a doomed ending world. 

    That’s what I’ll do now the world hasn’t ended.