I used to pray that god would destroy the earth every night. Just burn it all down and start over. Or quit maybe. All these humans everywhere, fumbling around, fighting, screaming. And they’re all so dumb. A planet full of idiots with nothing to do or say that’s not been said or done before. Waste, all of it. Every breath we take, every move we make.

He stopped there, crumpled up the paper, and threw it in the trash bin that was getting a bit full at this
point. He chewed on the eraser of his pencil. His tongue swirled around it, testing the edges of the metal, the rubber dust flaking in his mouth. Removing the end from his mouth, he wiped the saliva from it and jammed the eraser against his forehead. Out the window to his left, there was nothing, just a black square. No starlight or moonlight or sunlight, only night. His desk was ordered with a short stack of papers and a lamp and three unlit candles. He pulled another paper from the stack.

There was a widespread degradation of intellect. It’s pandemic. Everywhere I looked, I saw the idiocy of nations, of individuals. We acted like there were choices to be made, solutions to be found, but not one single problem can be fixed. Or if they can, no one seemed to care. Let’s all change the world! We said it, Fight for change! But nothing was done. Change change change. Change what? Who cares?! Just change! Empty words and empty sentiment. Fight the terrorists! Kill the nigger! Save the children! Send the boys to war! Build the bombs! Don’t abort your child! Lynch the murderer! Kill that doctor! Pray to Jesus! We shout and shout, but we were just monkeys throwing our feces everywhere, scattered across the continents. Sightless, deaf, dumb monkeys who point at evil everywhere. A call to arms! Save the children! Save the children! Save the fucking children!

He scribbled it all out, fiercely, until the paper ripped. Another page balled into the bin, another rant unranted. Clutching his head, he bounced it off his desk, once, twice, thrice, then threw his pencil at the wall in front of him where it bounced back into his chest. The pencil tip was dull. He wanted to scream, to spit, to eat his pencil, but he just stared at the rounded tip. He stared for several minutes.

The attic that he sat in was above the second floor of his parents’ house. One light hung naked from the ceiling. Candles were placed strategically round the room, but none of them lit. No one was home or had been home for a year. There was no one outside. There were no birds or cats or dogs or insects to fill the surroundings with noise. Winter had wiped the trees clean and blanketed the land.

Though he stared, the pencil remained dull. He closed his eyes and tapped the metal of the pencil on the wood of the desk. The sound penetrated the heavy air, but only just made it to his ears. It was enough. He tapped it in time and added to the beat with his other hand. A song of his making, never before heard and never to be heard again. His foot caught rhythm and stomped loudly, bursting through the thick dead air. He had not heard music, real music, in a long time. Long enough for him to forget when. The pencil slipped from his hand and flipped through the air, finding peace on the floor where the music died. He stared at the pencil for a few minutes. Not angry or perplexed or depressed, he simply stared. Picking it up, he examined the point again. Still dull.

There’s no one left now. I prayed for the end, screamed for it, fought for it, and now it might be here. There’s a cloud everywhere. It’s thick and black, and sometimes I imagine the snow that falls is made of ash. Every day is the same. There is no sunlight or moonlight, just a constant shade by this neverending cloud. It’s been winter for months and I can’t remember if this is longer than normal. Not even really sure of the date. I saw a dog a month or two ago. Maybe shorter.

The noise of the pencil scraped against his skull, ran up his spine to the very base of his neck. He spasmed, trying to shake out the sound, but it was stuck in the cracks between vertebrae. Placing his head down on the desk, he looked to the window again and saw himself in the reflection. He pushed back his chair and walked over to the mirrored glass. It was cold against his fingertips, but he placed his palm firmly against the glass. Closing his eyes, there was nothing else to feel or do, just this thin layer separating the outside from in, the end from him. He cupped the reflection of his face in his hands, ‘I forgive you.’ He returned to the desk and examined the pencil. Teeth marks and still dull.

It only had three legs. How it survived that long, I don’t know. It was skinny to a scary degree. If I wanted to, I could’ve counted each of its ribs. If I had thought more about it, I would’ve eaten it. I was afraid then, but I can see it now. Even how I would’ve done it. Take a big rock, call it to me, hope it didn’t run or try to take me down. If it had tried, I think I could’ve still got it. But I’d take that rock and crush its skull until the pink and red of its brain came out its eyes. I would’ve taken the legs and cooked them like a lamb’s. I wou

The pencil tip broke. His hand remained in the same position, just done with ‘u,’ about to start ‘l.’ He realised he was covered in sweat and his hand was shaking. A tear fell from his eye onto the page below. Unaware at first, and slowly coming to realise, he broke down, doubled over onto the floor, and wept.

The sobs crescendoed and he pounded on the floor with his hands, with his head, kicking the chair and his desk. An infant again, without language, just a want, a desire, a need, but he was empty. The tears ran down the stairs and out the door till they froze and were forgotten. Spittle connected his lips to the floor by a thin iridescent thread that glimmered faintly.

The tears mixed with the sweat and his body drained. He rose through the sobs, and lit the candles in the room, each and every one. They lined the walls, glowing dimly, fighting against the overhanging bulb. He pulled the cord, extinguishing it, causing it to swing like a pendulum. The candlelight turned the room dark and heavy, like piano keys kissing the harvest moon of fall. He stood under the overhead light as it swung back and forth, keeping rhythm, time, each swing a second or two. It was still hot in his hand, now motionless. The glow of the candles fisheyed in the bulb. Shadows danced back and forth, the light flickering here and there. A ghost in there with him, breathing cold down his neck, reaching dead hands into his chest, stealing his breath, he threw the bulb and it swung elliptically into the ceiling where it shattered. The phantom in the broken snowglobe poured out.

He took a piece of glass and brought it to his wrist, pressed the point into the skin. Pulling away, it left a single dimple that would not last the hour. He searched for his pencil, and found it under the kicked over chair. Using the piece of glass, he sharpened the tip. The glass wetted with his blood and slipped out several times. He persisted and fashioned a tip. Taking the glass to his arm again, he pressed harder and the glass broke in his hand. He threw it and wiped the blood on his shirt, but the cuts were deep, so he took off his socks and wrapped his hands with them. Righting his chair, he sat again.

When it all started, I tried to kill myself. A lot. I couldn’t tie a knot well, so hanging was out of the question, but it didn’t stop me from trying. Belts, ropes, cords, none of them worked or I lost the nerve. Same with cutting, just couldn’t do it. I’m ready to die, I wanted to die, but dying isn’t as easy as it sounds. Your body wants to live even if you don’t, and it will keep on living even after you’ve given up. I’m dying now, but it’s too late.

He pushed the page from his desk, elbows on the table and head in his hands, the socks felt wet and the blood was on his face. It felt like warpaint, but he was not ready for war. Bile rose in his throat, but he swallowed it down. Removing the bandages, the cuts looked angry, full of slivers and tiny octagons of glass. He put them over the candles on his desk to get a better view. The blood glistened and the glass shimmered like a gored chandelier hung from his wrists. The flame was hot, but he was ready for that, and he kept the wounds in them, until he could not take any more pain. They would heal, leaving memories on his skin, but he knew not when, and he had many words to write. He poured the hot wax onto his palms until they dried.

Pealing off the new layer of skin brought most of the glass with it. Blood seeped through the holes in his hand, but he wiped them on his shirt, pressing them hard, hoping they would soon stop. The pencil felt obtuse in his hand, but he pressed on.

It started with animals. Or at least that’s what everyone thought. The news was sketchy and speculations were wild.

He yawned and stretched and scribbled out the words. Then he threw it away.

My name is Timothy Kieslow. I might be the last person alive. I haven’t seen anyone in months. I’m starving. I leave this for whoever comes next. For whatever comes next.

The pencil was wet and he wiped it dry with his shirt. The flames of the candles licked at the darkness, a dizzying ballet, fighting for space, for oxygen, a war of light and shade. Everything was shadow outside his room and he fought a losing battle against it. He had written millions of words in his room, most of them repeats, some of them original, the same words over and over, the same stories endlessly, but, every now and then, he would write a sliver of poetry or a sentence unbreakable. Those were nailed into the walls. Notebooks were filled with everything he knew, quotes, facts, histories. They were stacked and scattered about the room. His life had become that room, the room he was making into a pitiable tower of Babel. He took the page he had just began writing and burned it in the flame of the candle and laid it on his desk.

The flames amused him and he dropped blood into them. Burnt paper, scorched wood, cathedral wax, the aromatherapy of lavender and lilac, and blood all collided in his lungs. His room at the edge of the world reeked of scented candles and musk and rotting wood.

A pile of ash remained. He swept it off the desk and grabbed another piece of paper, and placed his right hand flat against it. It stuck there and he pressed it to the glass of the window. Cold, the blood could freeze and start a chain reaction till every molecule in him ceased, frozen, and whatever came next would warm him to a new world where all his words would not matter, all his histories would not matter, all his pangs would not matter. The outline of his hand in graphite was a misshapen continent round short, thick red rivers that connected with a lake of fire.

It’s not my fault.

He walked outside. A grey sky scowled over a grey earth. The wind did not blow. There were no buzzing insects or beating hearts or murmured screams. His jacket hung open and he breathed deep. Long breaths in, filling his lungs with the cold, the smell of winter, that unmistakable smell of cold, he wanted it to live inside him, flood his veins and keep him for as long as it took. Walking around the block, his feet remembered every step, though the sidewalks were gone.

The chain of the swing was cold against his hand. Pushing it, the clang and jangle of metal reached inside him. The last time he smiled was the last time he heard a bird sing, but he felt something, a pull on his lips. It felt clumsy, his teeth set on top of one another, his lips parted. He did not know where his tongue went or how much stretch his cheeks could take in the cold. He sat down and pumped his legs. The swing swung low, so he pulled his feet up to keep them from dragging. Pumping harder, swinging higher, his mouth relaxed and remembered the shape they were meant to take.

Shivering violently, his eyes blurred and he staggered back home covered in snow. He locked the door behind him out of habit and returned to his post.

I think I was in love once. He was a senior and I was a junior. This was in high school. We had been friends for a few years. His name was Angel, pronounced like Ahn-hell. He had a tattoo that I gave him on his stomach, right on the line of his pelvis, that read, Túrin Turambar. Both the T’s were swords, Gurthang. He tattooed my stomach. It read, Níniel. That next summer, before he left for college, I spent the night and told him I never wanted to be without him and he kissed me with tears in his eyes.

He pushed the paper aside and put his forehead to his palms and cried.

I’ve tried to die, but I can’t. It’s not easy when there’s no one else around. It seems like it would be, like the loneliness would swallow you up, and death would be reprieve. But it’s hard and I don’t think I can do it. I almost killed myself when I was fifteen. I really tried then and it was easy. But now that there’s nothing, it’s just nothing, it’s impossible and I just can’t.

His hands dripped blood onto the page like a tired metaphor, where it mixed with his tears. He wished he had a pen, something to make any of this permanent, but all he had was his worn-down pencil. All that was left to him was this tiny pencil.

He laughed and could not stop. He wanted to shout, to stomp his feet, to die, but all that came was laughter. So hard that his stomach hurt and tears sprang from his eyes until he found himself on the floor gasping for air. He held the pencil to his face, kissed it, and laughed some more.

Dying isn’t easy when there’s no one to show the body.