Notes from the End of the World

Why I write - Robert Campbell, Jr. Manuscript

Manuscript retrieved in an attic in New Lexington, OH (USA)

Robert Campbell, Jr.

I write.

Why?

Because there is nothing else to do. Because there is no one else to talk to. Because it is an existential assertion that I still exist.

I write, thus I am.

I found this old Remington typewriter in my basement. Old stuff from my grandfather. It has always been there. Well, at least since he died twenty years ago. I only decided to take a look at those boxes after the world had ended; then I went downstairs, searching for some reason to justify being alive; for some motive to keep me going even if there are no ulterior and transcendental meanings in life. If there were a God or gods or saints, they all died along the rest of humankind. I found lots and lots of photos, and a infinitude of letters. My grandfather had fought in the Great War. Here and there I could see a picture of him in his uniform, wearing a proud smile, probably content for fighting against the Nazis somewhere in Europe. A savior of the world against the evil forces of the Axis. What a life he might have had back then! Afterwards, he married my grandmother, they had five children, settled down in this house and the rest is history.

My father had grown up in this house, and I can swear that once in a while I see his ghost wandering by these corridors and bedrooms at night. It might be only my imagination, or maybe I'm also getting sick and would die in a week or two. Delirium... That's one of the symptoms of the disease that extinguished the homo sapiens sapiens from Earth.

My family moved back here after my grandpa died. I was a teenager then and it felt as a punishment; leaving all my friends in Manhattan to come to this joyless, boring suburb. As soon as I had the chance, I got back to New York to study, met my wife and never returned to this place for some long years. Why would I come? Why would I leave the city lights and the endless thrills of the Big Apple to come to this?

However, when everything started, when everybody started to die, and to come back to life once more as imbecile, ruthless animals, I could not think in a better place to hide.

The world has ended six months ago (I guess, because I had not been counting the time precisely; all I know is that it was Summer during the outbreak, and that it was snowing heavily outside this morning), and during this period I have raised many hundreds of questions. But the recurring one, that haunts me every single day, that I am still trying to find an answer to is:

Why I survived? Why I'm the only one left?