A World on Fire

I had always thought that life was meaningless.

I was right.

The world is crumbling to ash. An endless ocean of fire consumes the lands.

There is no green.

There is no life.

It was not always like this. There used to be rolling hills of flowers, and cities teeming with life. There was laughter, and the expectation that everything was always going to be okay.

We were fools.

I could tell you how this happened.

I could go on about the science of it all, of why our world is only days from its expiration date. But why would I bother? It does not matter why any of this is happening, because when we get down to it, no one cares. We only care about the now and how we will survive. Of course though, in this situation, we won’t.

Surviving is impossible.

The air is thick and dry, every inhale leaves my lungs burning. The sky is no longer blue, as a thick veil of gray ash hovers in the atmosphere. I can not remember the last time I saw a living human, days, weeks, even months could have passed, there is no concept of time in a world where it is always day yet the sun is no where to be found. Like your slowly being murdered by an invisible killer, you know he is right in front of you, yet you can not do anything to prevent it.

How long have I been walking? The heat has wrung every bit of moisture from my body, it has left me to strip from my tattered clothes and wander aimlessly. There used to be so much pain as the sun burned my skin from above and the heat shriveled what was left, leaving only what resembled a dried up creek bed with cracks running in patterns through the hard clay. There were some times when all I could do was sit and try to sleep away the pain, there was no shade to cool off under, or building to hide in, there was only the inevitable pain.

However, I do not feel the pain anymore, though it is still there, I only feel numbness. My face is numb, my arms are limp and numb, my legs are numb, yet I keep walking. I force my brain to keep control of my legs, if I cannot keep moving then…then what?

I never thought that a person’s life held meaning. A person is born; they grow up, have a family, and die. By my own logic, I suppose my story is no different. I had never planned to have a family, but I figured there were plenty of other people that could continue the human race. Even so, why do I feel as if I am missing something?

I wish I still felt the pain.

The pain kept me occupied, I did not have to think about all this, I only had the pain. But now I have nothing, nothing but the thought of my own meaningless life.

How did the life of the last person on Earth end?

Well apparently it does not matter, because they are all the same.

No, it does not matter because there is no one left to care.

My legs keep moving, the ground beneath my bare feet shifts and what used to be brim stone is now course sand. The feeling is numbed, but my feet sink into the ground and my dry eyes look across the vast expanse of water in front of me. The ocean’s edge is still far away as the heat tries to take claim of its enemy. Nevertheless, it is there. My legs move forward of their own accord. Maybe my brain has also gone numb, or just that my body is more honest than I admit, all I know is that I need to move forward.

Is this it?

Is this the whole reason why I have been moving forward, or why I have been so stubborn as to live this long?

My feet touch the edge of the water, from the amount of heat it should be boiling, but to me it feels colder than ice.

My legs keep moving me straight into the water.

Is this the whole reason why I am here, so that I can drown in an ocean in the middle of a world on fire?

Is this why I was chosen to be the last human alive, so that I can mock the world with my irony?

Or was it because I am the human that believes no life has meaning?

As the water wafts around my waist, I can feel it taking the numbness away, the pain is returning. My legs keep moving and the water keeps rising, it hits my chin and covers my dried lips, it submerges my nose and eyes and now here I am.

I had always thought that life was meaningless.

I was right.

Yet here, in this secret blue world, in this small bit of pleasure during the inevitable pain, here I can finally see. As humans we are born without meaning, so it is our actions and decisions that determine what meaning our life holds. It is up to us, our very own inconsequential selves, to provide purpose.

As for mine, I see now, that it was to represent all of humanity. The way we would move forward every day despite the pain, how we would become numb and forget our purpose. How we would then wander aimlessly until we finally found it again, we would welcome back the pain because it meant we made it, it meant we survived the journey.

I am here to give one last hit for mankind, and be consumed by water in a world being consumed by fire.

There is nothing.