The dirt still held the smell of napalm. Charred flesh and black earth rested underneath the feet as casually as concrete once bowed underneath our shoes. It has been a long time, a very long time, since things have been normal. I have begun to feel the overwhelming loneliness that I had expected I would eventually feel. Things that have accumulated in my expectations have constantly and consistently amazed me. One takes for granted the gentle brush of a pet or a simple and awkward smile from a fast-food cashier, but here, there is nothing but miles upon miles of dirt and decay. This is decadence completed, the ultimate in hedonism; there is nothing to stare at for miles but naked, charred flesh.
Hedonism is no equivocated happiness.
I have mapped the outer regions of this city as best I can. Things have been difficult due to the overwhelming amounts of detritus which has racked up on the grounds. Fecal matter of unknown and unseen animals have built up a new ground, as have fallen buildings and abandoned toys. Earlier today, I picked up a blood-stained teddy bear, its gaze looking at me as if pleading, begging, praying to be released from this scorched earth that has become our hell. I stared into its beady eyes, those black pearls which have managed to see countless things, and have been overwhelmed by the beast’s lack of communicative skills. So much knowledge would be hiding behind those pearls had the thing a brain and mobile lips with which to communicate, but there is nothing.
Exploration has been the pinnacle of human interest. We are cartographers of everything, ourselves and our inner psyche included. What have we found? Has there been something lying underneath this destruction that I cannot see, that escapes my ever-probing eyes?
Today has been the same as yesterday and will be the same for months to come. Slow progress, scavenging for burnt and appropriate nourishment– the usual grocery list of grab-bag necessities which were once automatically and routinely subdivided amongst our species. I have become my own alpha and omega, my own dominant and submissive. There is no grocery store cashier, no power company, not even company of any kind.
Ink: a spilled thought; a tattoo; an octopus weapon; a thought. I found pools of it in a wracked store, an army of pens and a cache of paper with which to entertain myself. As I sit here, writing atop a makeshift table with an arsenal of stationary, I often wonder what precisely drives this act of linguistic entertainment. There is, most likely, no one to read these words. There is, most likely, no one left at all, and these words will surpass our species. Perhaps this act of immortality is all I seek. Knowing that at least something has survived my death, even if it itself eventually becomes pulp and seeps into the ground, brings me some type of depressing salvation.
Our culture had developed Attention Deficit Disorder. It was not the sort that could be cured by chemical compositions, Ridalin deficiencies or improper digestion leading to problematic serotonin absorption. At least, if that was what lead to this disaster, than as a species, we must have marketed our poor diets to such a degree that ADD was universal. We became disconnected, poorly communicating if we communicated at all. Relationships started to degrade, fights began erupting with more and more violence. We were our own enemies, and our wars were not fought across distant seas, but in our living rooms, in our kitchens. We turned to each other and saw an enemy. We felt depressed and blamed each other. Our over-population lead to steady increases in controversial and confused behavior. In short, we were our own worst enemy.
Mutations in our blood began to boil. There was something in the air that did not belong, and there was constantly a slight hint of almonds on the tongue. There were reports that dangerous levels of cyanide were being released into the air by robotic home additions (RHAs), but these RHAs were deemed safe by regulation standard. Nobody truly understood the strange taste, and cyanide could not be found anywhere in the air. Cyanide was not the poison, however, it was contamination of a different sort: we were all poisoned, not only by our highly pathetic and unnatural diets, but by a growing paranoia, a growing sense of urgency– in short, a growing demand for good business and high productivity.
The brain sometimes works in a very strange way. A writer finds himself writing faster than he can speak. If one extends this logic, perhaps it is possible to write faster than one thinks. This was essentially what productivity was attempting. Before even knowing why productivity needed to be at the levels it had found itself, the product was being bought off the shelves even faster than the customer could understand why it was needed in the first place. Homes were littered with accessories to the greatest lie of all: our nests were being cluttered with poison.
Protests against this extreme forms of consumerism and materialism were attempted, but doomed to failure from the beginning. They argued that this blatant obsession with material possessions was a form of unnatural social conditioning. However, this argument was a noble attempt to debunk a nasty habit, but ill-based. Looking to nature for examples, it is not uncommon for materialism. Many birds collect random objects to build up a nest, and we are not terribly separate from our winged brethren, at least in that respect.
The problem was not in the accumulation of stuff, per se, but in the accumulation of poisonous philosophies and experimental animosities. "Try anything once" encompassed the sins of hatred and insanity. To try anything once is to try murder and cannibalism, and though no one knew why they were out of control, a loss of control is what spread blood unto the streets. Everyone had become conditioned to not feel for their neighbor-- xenophobia and anti-materialism accompanied by a diluted and numbed emotional state brought on the greatest of enemies. Apathy ruled the streets, but its grasp was beyond just the proletariat. The comfortable and well-off threw great orgies announcing their abandonment of values, and it was not very long before an orgy of sexual exploration, in which bodies were used for satisfaction without any regard for identity, turned into what was appropriately called "the blood-whore."
This only furthered xenophobia. Looking into the eye of a co-worker or a friend, one could not tell whether the individual was sane or one of the virus. No longer were dark thoughts pushed to the subconscious. The darkness spread across the earth, and you could see it in the uncomfortable and paranoid eye on everyone's face. The hedonists feared each other, and those who had retained their sanity were constantly fighting paranoia and xenophobia. I didn't want to believe the extent with which the blood-whore had taken over. It is written in the Christian bible that she would make us drunk on the wine of our own immorality. It was the coming of the end of times, but I still refused to believe in hatred and destruction. But what little trust I had left was to come to a smashing end.
He had called himself my friend. This was what I truly believed, for I saw in his behavior the marks of the sane, the marks of the ethical and intelligent beast that was rightfully called homo sapiens. He began warning me that my lover was less than loyal. I had no reason to doubt him, but still, my intuition refused any paranoia. I trusted her without question, and I told him that he had to be mistaken.
He told me that he would show me my own mistake. He gave me a time to return to our home, when she thought I would be gone. He arranged it with my workplace for me to be gone. He arranged the entire thing, and I just went along, unquestioningly trusting both my lover and my friend.
I would have come to that room more prepared had I the trust in my own instincts that would later help me survive in this godforsaken land. But I had been conceived in a world of trust and understanding. I told myself, if I showed up in that room and caught her doing something that was unexpected, than my friend was justified, I would have my display of power over the betrayers, return to him with thanks. Alternatively, I told myself, should nothing be seen in that room, I would kiss my lover, smile, and love her with my usual intensity.
When I close my eyes, I see his blissful gaze and her horror. Forced ontop of her, his motions were each an insult, each a parasite. If it were a perfect world, I would have took the image out of my head, walked away, and immediately worked on forgiveness and understanding. But the beast had been released, they had released the beast of imperfect sexuality and its inevitable consequence, jealousy and anger. I am not proud of my actions, but I am surprised at my creativity. Bludgeoning him with a large book, tying her up before she could explain... setting the entire place on fire. Normally, I am sure that the police would have been able to see through the simple ruse, but the world in such a state, there was no time left for explanations and motives, research and investigation. I should have believed her when she said that it was a mistake.
It was months before I would find out the truth. While rooting through her possessions, I found a diary, recording her love for me at each moment. I read it through tears that racked me through and through with the severity of my mistake. It made little sense, for the diary was her most sincere and secret thoughts, and there was no hint of problems. It didn't make sense, that is, until I searched through the belongings of my friend.
The videotapes, even in my present desensitized state, turned my blood cold. Hundreds of women, and you could see on their faces confusion and anger. But still he pressed onward, still he enjoyed himself. Some of them offered little resistence, and on some of the faces I caught the hint of a smile, which only disgusted me further. Women I knew were smiling, women I had never met were frowning, women who were close to us both shed tears and pleaded for release. I understood how the holes in the plot had become created.
My god, the tears on her face were not tears of fear and confusion-- at least not pointed towards me. They were tears of betrayal, and I was her betrayer! In her time of vulnerability, I had played Othello to her Desdemona. Ah, my wretched and beautiful demon! To think of her, surrounded in demonic and hateful flames that were sparked by my rage and incomprehension... what am I to do knowing that I had begun the end of all times with my betrayal? Even before the fires began to take down cities, even before humanity began its descent into self-defeat, I had killed myself in the most distraught of suicides.
So now I look unto this desolate landscape the wiser, the more calm. The destructive facet of human nature is the simple fact that the most important lessons we can learn are those that are learned through great loss. If we were to already somehow understand, somehow already know what we should not know, O, the lives that would be saved from ruin and damnation!
This landscape deserves my broken wings, and I deserve this destroyed landscape. As I root through the burnt flesh of yesterday, I know who I am today, and know who I always will be.
I cannot write on this paper anymore. I must search for someone with which I can reunite myself with compassion, that necessity of human existence. I cannot be solitary anymore. I can never love with the purity that I once felt, but at the same time, I cannot be destroyed as utterly as I am now without truly destroying myself.
I hold out on this project, and hope that even if I should die in my search, that this paper reaches someone's hands before it is too late to throw away everything that they care about due to paranoia and hatred. When we turn our backs on others, we turn our backs upon ourselves. And once we turn our back on ourselves, mending our broken hearts is a great and terrible accomplishment indeed...
... Ah! Heavens of heavens, I have found evidence of another life! I was mapping the area when I found footprints in the bloody and ash-ridden ground! In an area that I have never entered, I have found evidence of humanity! I cannot write anymore, I must go out and seek this friend...
... I am truly damned! God does not forget my sin, and His eye must be ever-pointed toward my pathetic soul. I followed the footprints, and found a freshly dead body of a very fair woman. Held in her rigid hand was the following:
I threw away my life and this is my punishment. I am alone and I have nowhere to turn. Why did I do the things I have done? It was like I was watching myself outside of myself, do horrible and evil things in the name of desire. I tore the world down, and now I have no choice but to tear myself down with it as well. I hope that someone finds this, but if not, may my ashes be spread across all that I have helped destroy. They lie when they say that "nothing is real". While ethics and morality might be a human invention, I can vouch for the pain and suffering that leads to the abandonment of these ideals. I didn't fight to save myself, and so I am lost. I deserve the obscurity that my long-forgotten body will get, I deserve the finality of my destruction. I had stared at shadows, and now that I have stared at the sun, I realize that I have done nothing in my life but spread fog in its wake, in the attempt to see no longer.
O, the ultimate of missed messages! One should never stare into the wake of destruction and make a leap towards it! But I am not one to speak, for all my mistakes I understand where she has come from. I have contemplated throwing my hands down, succumbing to the overwhelming heaviness of being. Or perhaps it is the unbearable lightness, that I could just float away like a leaf in the wind, to be free in my destruction... but alas, I am not an advocate of self-destruction.
I have seen enough blood, I am not curious of my own.
I... I must search more. I will bring this pad and paper with me and record my sights as I go, but for now, I must hike... I pray that I might make another entry before I pass on, that I have met another like myself...
....