The remains of my life floated quickly away down the river in a suitcase, sent off to sea.
My body should have been with it. Instead, I returned home without the possessions I had chosen to die with.
At that time home was a home between homes, a room lined with boxes hastily filled and sealed with tape. As I did so, I planned my own demise, filtering out the items I intended to take.
The room was in an otherwise empty and secluded block of tiny flats; one of many in one of the many abandoned parts of the city. I wasn’t meant to be there so, on my return, I set fire to the boxes and began my return to your arms.
I broke into a car like I used to back when it first happened, but unlike then, I drove slowly and carefully away from the burning buildings and into the inhabited zone. Along the streets that used to throng with people, buildings that used to be so bright, and tried to remember the sounds we would hear there.
Upon arrival at our home I sat outside staring at the steering wheel, the radio on, tuned into static, to try and get my head right. Eventually I managed it and I left the car, walked up the garden path, opened the door, paused; climbed the stairs, turned the corner, walked past the bathroom and the spare room and paused again, for a long time, before entering our room to find you exactly where I had left you.
I laid down next to you and placed your arms around me, holding my breath against the stench, for you were not as I had left you, and closed my eyes, again remembering the sounds of before, hearing your voice tell me what I should have done.
I carried you out to the street and stole a fresh car, one with enough petrol still in the tank, and carefully placed you in the backseat. Together we drove, this time listening to Amnesiac, though only in my mind, back to our bridge. I spoke to you one last time, told you what I needed to tell you, before placing you onto a boat. Finally, I pushed you away and watched as you floated calmly away.
Maybe I should have joined you, maybe our bodies should have floated down the muddy river together, but I didn’t just back out of my own suicide to do the right thing by you.
As far as I know, I am the last human alive;
but what if I am not?
That thought, that single thought, flickers dimly in the back of my mind and keeps me alive.
Having cried once more for you, I left the riverbank and went back to the car. I knew that our inhabited zone was empty so I picked up our old A-Z, still full of the markings we had made when we first made this plan and began to drive to the next nearest inhabited zone.
Written for the Light and Shade Challenge from the following picture prompt, which is in the Public Domain:
