Gone Now
A door to an apartment on the 6th floor, of a much taller building, stands open. A forgotten bunch of keys dangles from the lock.
Through the door and to one side is a standing light with a black metal frame that hasn’t been lit for years. On the other side is a three-legged oak coat stand with five long curved hooks, all empty.
The flooring is vinyl, styled to look like expensive hardwood. In the center of the room is a large shaggy off-white rug, frayed around the edges, and past it’s better days.
A brick red sofa with orange cushions and a tartan throw hung on its back, is placed precisely with a matching armchair. Separated by a circular side table. White paint peeling away. In front of the sofa is a low wooden coffee table, on top of which lies three old magazines and a dead tv remote.
In the corner of the room stands a tall elegant mahogany armoire. An intricate weave of leaves carved into the wood above three drawers. One long and two short. All closed, protecting the linen within from moths and mice.
In another corner of the room is an expensive looking white wooden crib. Above which a mobile hangs motionless, plastic planes frozen in their endless looping paths.
There is a staleness in the air, a musty smell, a dampness in the walls. Black mold stretching, reaching out with spindly fingers from the dark corners.
The people who lived here are gone now. Memories of them reduced to faded photos clinging on to crumbling walls. Everything left just relics of the past, objects of meaninglessness, their futures only dust.
A dark mahogany piano with golden pedals stands forlorn, long since played its final note. Next to the piano is a dark wooden desk underneath which sits a black plastic box that once held all the information in the world. Every truth and every lie. Every word in every language. Every piece of music ever composed. Every promise of eternity. Now just a plastic box.
On one wall is a 42” black plastic frame that once held a window to countless lives and worlds. Now just a window to darkness. Opposite is another window, this one with a view. Over the river that was once a road. To empty flats much like this one. The inhabitants nothing but rats and other small creatures. All the pests we once suppressed.
Below are the thoroughfares. Once alive with the constant chatter of people going about their lives, with laughter, with joy, and with sorrow. But those voices are gone now. Replaced by birdsong and crickets, and the groaning of the buildings under their own weight. As if in despair of their missing keepers. Knowing that without them, their very existences are doomed to dust.
The city, once a shining beacon of bright neon and fluorescence. The roads lit up with the whites of cars coming and the reds of them going, blood from a beating heart. But the lights have all gone out now. The city a dark graveyard.
Further out the rest of the world bursts with life. Nations dissolved and humans lost their foothold. But the people there still remain, fading as they cling on to their crumbling walls.
