There was a WRITER here. He's gone now.

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OH GOD HOW LONG AGO WAS THIS I’M SORRY I HAVEN’T WRITTEN IN A WHILE AND I HAVEN’T CHECKED PAW-MARKS IN A WHILE AND OH GOD I’M TERRIBLE I NEED TO WRITE AND POST AND OH LAWD

Survivor’s Log

THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT IS THE TRANSCRIPTION OF A RECORDING FOUND AT ██████████ ON ██-██-████.

THE SPEAKER IS BELIEVED TO BE THE ONLY/FINAL SURVIVOR OF EVENT █████.

LOG BEGINS:

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“Okay. Okay. Just- get it together, Marilyn. Just- deep breaths, in, out…oh god they’re all dead and…and-”

[SOBBING. CONTINUES FOR ONE MINUTE THIRTY TWO SECONDS]

“No. No, have to be strong now, have to tell people. Have to let them know what they, what we did so that it doesn’t happen again…and then I can leave. Just. Deep breaths.”

[BREATHING. CONTINUES FOR TWENTY EIGHT SECONDS]

“Right. Okay. This is Marilyn Cook, and I am twenty seven years old. I live…lived, on fifty three ██████ terrace, in ██████████. I…I don’t know how it began. I’m still not even sure what it was, and I don’t know why I’m recording this. Given what it’s doing I don’t think anyone will find this…but if they do. If you do. Get it out. Somehow. Make sure people hear this. Make sure they know what happened, rather than just thinking they know, rather than just being spoon-fed some bullshit cover-up while the government cleans up its own mess. They did this. Make sure people know tha-shit!”

[SILENCE. FAINT RUSTLING IN BACKGROUND. RUSTLING ESCALATES, THEN FADES TO SILENCE. SILENCE CONTINUES FOR THREE MINUTES FOURTY FIVE SECONDS. SPEECH IS NOW HUSHED WHISPERING.]

“Okay, I think they’re gone. Jesus, that was close. I’ve seen what they do to survivors they find. I’m not letting that happen to me. Got a gun here, found it in the bedside drawer in the main bedroom of this house. Don’t know who owned it before.”

“Anyway. I’m not exactly sure how this all started, or what started it; but I know when I knew it was happening. Things felt…different. From the moment I woke up. Something in the air. Of course, then, it was a metaphor, but now…”

“There was a flash. It didn’t seem to originate from anywhere, just appear everywhere, filling your vision, and then it disappeared as quickly as it came. It was like a divider of lives; normal, and then the flash, signalling the end of that normalcy – and then life after the flash. I guess it really was that. People referred to it like that, at least. What were you doing before the Flash. What were you doing when it came. No one asks about what you were doing afterwards. Everyone’s heard that story too many times already. It was something in the air that day. The Flash was just a precursor; a warning. Something to say ‘Here. Here is the last of your life.’ Oh, god.”

[FAINT SOBBING. CONTINUES FOR ONE MINUTE FIFTEEN SECONDS]

“After the Flash came darkness. It was like the world was balancing itself out; such brightness so quickly, and then this dark to compensate, to make up for it. It lasted a two full days, fourty eight hours, but after that it may as well have stayed. Try and imagine that. No sun, no moon.  Just darkness, like a perpetual midnight. For fourty eight fucking hours. That’s when it went to work. When it got to people. I’m still not sure if it was the darkness or not, but people started…breaking down. Minor things first, looting and such, like you’d expect from a riot or something. But then murders…rapes…screaming filled the hours, the minutes. Somewhere, someone was despairing and wishing to end their life because of the horrors of other people. And then having it ended for them.”

“The…affected…they didn’t look any different at first, not obviously. They’d twitch occasionally, but you’d only notice it if you properly looked at them. But then, after the darkness lifted – replaced by a red sky, and a bloody sun, like the upper atmosphere had rusted over – then, it was obvious. Maybe the darkness hid it. But their eyes, bloodshot and red. Always frantic, searching for the next victim. And then, after the first day, their skin started as well. You saw it in their veins first. They came up, a deep, diseased brown, clear through the skin. Then…then the skin started coming away. In patches. The worst ones had bits of cheek, forehead missing. Just raw muscles.”

“The other ones…the ones with bits of arm coming off, or leg, or torso…they could hide it. And they knew to do so, as well. They hid it, and they walked around during the day, mimicking the survivors, scavenging food, blankets…and then they’d take you. And they’d…they’d do something. And no one would see you again.”

“They got more primal. Less cautious, less wary. They stopped caring about being seen; the ones with faces falling off walked about during the day, screaming and laughing. We avoided them all, cast out those that showed the beginnings of changing. We should have killed them when they started. Should have killed them, rather than condemning them to those already gone. Some were left, those in the later stages, those who they could see would join them soon. But the others…the others weren’t.”

“I’m the last one of our group. I killed the last one, rather than push him out onto the street like all the others. His name was Walter. He was Hispanic, tall. Used to be toned before all this started. I noticed his palm was flaking off. He tried to deny it. I shot him where he stood. He was twenty.”

“My calf’s been itching for a day now. I looked at it this morning. Peeled of a full three square inches of skin. Didn’t even hurt. I can see the veins on my arms, too. A deep red, but the ones on my hands have already gone brown. There’s no mirror to look, but if there was, maybe I’d see veins creeping into my eyes.”

[SINGLE GUNSHOT. CLATTERING, METAL ON CONCRETE. SILENCE. SILENCE CONTINUES FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES TWENTY SIX SECONDS. RECORDING ENDS.]

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LOG ENDS

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Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Okay, so this was an apocalyptic piece. I thought about including the White Men but I’m not clever enough to have my own fictionverse and not create gaping plot holes, which would be reality-holes in the fiction verse, which would be bad for my characters. And I like my characters. Sort of. I mean, I haven’t been very nice to many of them so far.

I’m not sure if I like the ending of this. I shared it elsewhere and someone said it felt rushed, and honestly I agree with them. I’m terrible at finishing my pieces as well as I start them.

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They Ran (short abstract romance piece)

They ran. Each of them, pounding foot over foot on the tarmac, grass, dirt, in the mud and dust and cold, still night air. They ran inextricably and inexorably toward each other, and running was all they needed to do.

While he ran, he thought of all the things he’d said in those last few moments, heated words that were birthed from the fire of raw pain. A pain of shock, like a superheated pin sliding into the tip of your finger, searing tiny fibres of muscle as it wormed down, stopping as the pinhead came to rest at the end of the index; far from the dull ache he’d felt since. And now the pain was clearing, replaced by adrenaline and the joy of action upon decision. Things would be right again. They must.

While she ran, she thought of all the things she’d given up on in those final moments of weary apathy, a wave of numbness that had since subsided and opened the gates for all the pinpoint feelings that struck her in precise ways, beating at the foundations to topple her soul. Regrets that slithered down her vertebrae, seeming to knock each one out of place and leave her crooked.

When they met, they embraced. Words poured from their minds and bodies and souls but not their mouths, and the night air seemed to part from the light in their hearts; they silently swore to carry that light forever; they wordlessly promised to nurture it and light their paths with each other’s. And then, hands held in a bind stronger than those that tethered the heavens, they walked away together into the rest of their lives.

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This was, as I’ve said in the title, just a short, abstract, (hopefully) romantic piece, though not romantic as in the adjective, romantic as in the noun as in the genre. 

It’s (mostly) based on a small music video that usually plays through my head whenever I listen to Mumford&Son’s ‘Little Lion Man’. Since I can write better than I can direct, I thought I’d at least get the idea down somewhere. 

Final Journal Entry

they have shown me what i can see without looking and i can watch the world and it is beautiful we do not need eyes to see they are useless they are limited they are obstacles against what we can see if we look and observe

i will join the white men in their watching and i will weep invisible tears at the beauty and i will sleep forever watching weeping sleeping come join the white men they will show you they will let you see we will show you how to look we will wait for you

i will sleep now

hello white men

can i watch too

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Journal Entry 7

Journal, 14/06/11

I’m so tired. So tired. So tired. Can’t sleep, looking, watching. So tired. Hair gone. So tired.