24 November 2010

A famous freeway runs alongside this warehouse. Through the window in the wall I can still see my car where we finally ran out of gas and ditched it along the side of the road. Already, only two months later, it is being rotted out by the invisible forces of seasons and time. The gas is better served in here, for the generator. I've nowhere to go anyway. I can close my eyes and picture so many places in the world I've only ever seen in books or movies. Places with beaches, or with snow. I want to be there. But they aren't what I have in my head anymore. The beaches are deadlocked with blizzard and the snowy peaks are bone dry. And then vice-versa all over again. Deja vu all over again.

Mary is gone. All of her gone. No bones. No clothing. I found a bobby pin in the dirt and it may have been hers. She wore them. But I found it deep, coated my fingers up to the nail. Could have been there for years, fell from the head of a child playing in the dirt before there was an industrial park here. It is in my pocket now.

I spent the day arranging and rearranging my supplies. It makes me angry to think of how little I have to survive on and how much longer I might live, so I won't write it and do my best to keep it out of my head. Spent many a long hour pacing the length of the warehouse. The heat grows inside every day and outside feels like an oven on 450 and even when there is no low-hanging fog, the heat tricks me into seeing it...three bottles of water each and every waking hour just to keep from passing out.

Last part of the light hours I propped my elbows on the window in the wall and stared out. Took the time to contemplate the silent freeway and I could almost hear the cars that used to charge up and down. I could almost hear them. But they are not there...

I am almost certainly not the last living person on this planet. I doubt that very much. But miles have been turned into journeys of days and states and countries have become flatland Everests, stretching on for longer than we can imagine. Those other people, for me, now they're aliens on distant planets, millions of light years away. And for them, I am an alien too and despite our wrenching suspicion that intelligent life elsewhere exists it is simply a matter of distance and time.

We are all alone now.

23 November 2010

I opened the gate before I went to sleep this morning. They charged at her with a ferocity I can still see when I close my eyes. She must be gone by now. But I don't want to look. I don't want to know. I found more tears just now and they are staining this page.

I will sleep now.

Fuck!

22 November 2010

I know I should bury her, but I can't for a lot of reasons I don't want to describe. I'm not sure why, exactly. I sat on a tire and stared at her body for hours today...baking hot in the sun. The heat is like nothing I've felt before. No thermometer, but has to be around 120 Fahrenheit. No storm clouds on the horizon and no reason to hope for rain.

The smell is more than I can describe. Invades the nostrils with a force. It stings. Her body bloats and the skin looks like a balloon, filled with meat and blown up to capacity. Curious. Hard to believe someone I loved used to reside inside that carcass...

Animals are at the fence whining. I think I will let them in and hope they go right after her and leave me be, too busy with the easy meal to worry about a fresh kill. They pace back and forth, ever behind the chain link as if they are the ones in a cage. But they are not. I am caged, trapped here, nowhere to go. They are free. And in their freedom they are doomed and dying. Rib cages clearly visible through flesh pulled taught and showing no sign of muscle or fat...how long since they last ate? How long before they turn on each other?

Part of me thinks denying anything a meal at this moment is cruelty at its zenith. Part of me wants something to be punished for her death. Maybe she's too rotten to eat. Let them eat her: they die too. Good. Part of me wants to see something else die.

I will wait another day and then commence the buffet. But that I will not watch. I will go inside and try not to hear them ripping her apart. When I return, there will be nothing left -- perhaps not even bone. They may take the bones with them. How long before I won't remember her at all? How long before the next tragedy?

I am going to try to sleep.

21 November 2010

Mary died today.

I knew she was circling the end when the leg began to drain and when it drained it drained something green and smelling of rotting food that I had never encountered before. Her head, burning to the touch, was ever the color of seared tuna steak and looked to me like the beads of sweat evaporated even as they formed. She choked on all of the water I gave her.

It didn’t take long for the smell; it must have been gangrene, of her leg to force me to move her outside. But it was better that way. Better for her. Occasionally, when the clouds parted just enough you could almost make out the stars. She loved staring up at them and even at the point just before it was over, maybe the day before, when she could no longer speak in words that made any sense to me, she looked up at them and smiled.

She began to breath in heavy, raspy breaths and when she exhaled blood came up with it. I sat down on the grass, brown and dry singing a mocking song as it crunched beneath my tortured jeans and I slipped her head onto my lap and sat Indian style with her and rocked back and forth as she slowly died.

I told her I loved her and thought I saw a tear roll down her left cheek, but I’m sure she didn’t hear me. I saw Patrick and Mason go through this when June and Leanne died and I thought they were insane. They bellowed with anger and sadness and paced back and forth inside the warehouse and they never slept. They never dreamed. The never stopped. It’s probably what killed them. I didn’t realize that until I cradled Mary’s head between my hands and sang to her as she died.

I am alone now. I have not seen another person for three months. My food supplies are dangerously low and it looks to me like oil is seeping into the well. I need to move out of the heat, but I don’t know where the next supply drop is. Nothing on the radio for longer than I can remember now, so I sleep during the day and come out at night when it is cooler. Just enough power from somewhere nearby to run the fans, but it has to stop running soon.

Only three gallons of gasoline left. Twenty-two cases of water. Cans upon cans of beans.

It is midnight now. My watch battery still works. I wonder what concern time is anymore, but I still keep it. Coyotes are howling in the distance. Empty spaces where the moon should be.

I found this diary under a box of dried macaroni and cheese I can't cook or eat. I'm going to write in it until I die. No one will ever read it. No one will ever care. And if aliens land and if they did this to me and they find me dead clutching this diary they either won't be able to read it; or they will and they'll laugh at the stupid thoughts keeping me company at the end.

But it is not the end of everything. Just for me and the people I know. Small little grains of sand, or even something less substantial. And again I feel the fear caressing my neck...I want to cry but have no tears. This is what alone looks like.

I wonder what it feels like to die. I wonder if it hurts more than being alive.

I cannot stop thinking about what clothes smelled like when they came out of the drier.