Still Here and Heading South

It was a useless exercise—he knew that. No one would ever see his name because no one existed. He was the last person on earth.

He didn’t understand how it had happened. There was no bomb, no apocalypse, no mass disease. He had simply woken up one morning to discover every other person had vanished. Over time—and there’d been 126 days of time so far—he’d begun to suspect it was really the other way around. Somewhere, on the real earth, he was the one who had mysteriously disappeared in his sleep. Maybe he’d slipped into a parallel universe. The police had probably quit looking long ago, and his family was probably starting to give up hope. Meanwhile, he carried on here. Alone.

It could have been worse. He was lonely, of course, and he had no electricity. But all the inanimate objects had stayed here, so he had plenty of canned goods to eat, and a bicycle to get around and bottled water to drink. He wouldn’t die unless he chose to make it happen. The jury was still out on that—so far he was okay.

Plus, he had meaningful work to do. It might have been useless, but it felt meaningful to him, so that made it important. He wrote his name everywhere he possibly could—on the sides of buildings, on sidewalks, in the sand. He always wrote the date with it, and a brief note about which direction he planned to go next. It wasn’t likely anyone else had slipped into this parallel world with him, but it was possible. If so, he wanted to make sure they wouldn’t miss each other.

Even if there was no one else, the work was important. He still existed. He wasn’t gone. His name was a way to proclaim that.

James Kincaid. 9/16/13. Still here and heading south.

It was enough. For now, at least.