March 30, 2015 (and beyond)

~

March 30, 2015.

The air was filled with an unnatural silence, so different from how it had once been - but then again, everything was different from how it had once been. In that moment, it was nearing dusk, and after a day filled with moderate temperatures a crisp chill was beginning to arise.

In a small town by the sea in the southwest United States, there were no signs of life, although there were definitely signs that some massive form of life had recently taken residence in the area. A number of buildings that had once housed shops, homes, and everything imaginable, were now long since emptied and abandoned. Their innards were hidden behind a cheery glass window, reflecting a sense of bare dilapidation, but also emanating the truth: that, like all abandoned stores, the owners had simply picked up and, quite literally, left shop. Cars were thoughtlessly strewn every which way on the street, abandoned forever, some tucked quietly away in garages, others left to rust against the sidewalk. A bird flew by, chirping thoughtlessly, unaware that it had been left behind.

The wind caught hold of a piece of paper that had fallen to the ground not long before. It sailed through the air, passing by the abandoned shops and cars, making its way through the town, never to be picked up by a living soul. It was not the only one who shared this fate; the remains of colorful streamers and banners that had once symbolized celebration and joy at the prospect of a new beginning certainly didn't look that way anymore. Some floating bits of colorful paper flitted around, while some banners still remained attached to ropes, the tops of buildings, the insides of windows, and anywhere else one could look.

It was a bizarre scene, and if any alien being were to come to Earth and gaze upon it they would surely not have a clue what any of it meant. Was it an ill-fated ghost town, its inhabitants predestined to die off, leaving only their material possessions behind? Was it a grand party, one in which everyone joined in, where everyone had gone off to further their celebrations somewhere else? And how long had everyone been missing?

The final glittering rays of sunlight peeked through the buildings, alleyways, and trees, bathing the ground, intruding into the shops, and painting everything with a golden glow. It was a constant in a mystery, the one clue to the universe's permanence. The sky began to fade from a deeper shade of blue to periwinkle with tinges of yellow. Papers continued to dash around and go amok, structures began to decay, and everything slowly faded into the background. Eventually, the whole world went black.

Over time, everything would become nothing. What had survived would die off, and what had died off would not emerge again. Clocks ticked, and the tides rose and fell, and the world was left in a position of waiting.

After such a long, continuous period of rush and uproar, everything upon it moving about with no final destination in mind, the planet was finally beginning to settle in to its still, silent fate. It would take years before all the grass grew, all the leaves fell, and all the rain would wash away the mess that they had left, but for now it was everywhere, just sitting on the ground or floating around. No one was there to pick it up, and no one would ever be there again, so there was little reason to commiserate the poor, disheveled end of what had once been a great sight to see, but it was all undoubtedly nothing but lonely.

It was peaceful in an eerie way, with an air of it all being too abrupt.

-

May 3, 2015.

For two sweet, short days, two men came to the planet for the simple reason that they would be the sole inhabitants, and the opportunity to explore such a truly deserted land would probably never happen again. They had the means and time to do so - in fact, they had quite literally all the time in the world - and so they ventured off to the last place where one of the men had been, in that small town by the sea, overlooking a vista that stretched for miles of hills and mountains and dirt, dirt, and dirt. They laughed, they yelled out into the nothingness to hear their voices echo, they ran around and left footprints that would stay there until the wind and sand dusted them over.