# In the blink of an eye.



## Ambush Beast (Oct 31, 2010)

In the blink of an eye.


The sky is growing dark but just over the cityscape the clouds are painted red and orange and pink. It is beautiful to the extreme and I watch with tears running down my face. The awe I feel at what I see amazes me and I can barely stand. Birds used to fly these skies but have long ago faded from most people’s memories. We, the old, remember what they were like, what life was like before the end. I don’t want to remember, the pain is too great. I don’t want to turn around so I watch the sun’s descent and the clouds change in color until they turn grey and die in the darkness of the onset of night. 

I don’t want to turn around, but I know I must. My heart has long ago been broken and there is nothing for me now but the sunrise and the sunset of each new day. It torments me to think of days gone by. It drags at my spirit, the loss so profound, the desolation so complete. I am alone in a world gone awry, but I am not alone. The shadows are all around me, memories in the darkness plague me, they laugh at me as from afar and weep for me to help them. It is odd the way they move in and out of my eyesight, how they come and go like long lost friends or the hated enemies that are out to take my life. Maybe I am lost already and don’t know it. Maybe I am one of these shadows but I am too dumb to see the truth.

If I am one of the shadows, I don’t want to know. I could not take the pain that understanding would bring. The fires have long since burned out and the rains have failed to come. It is dry as death here and dust is kicked up by the wind. I don’t want to turn around for the end is nigh and I don’t want to see it coming for me. 

I wish the sunrise would come. I wish the sunset had not faded. I wish I could grasp it in my mind’s eye and never blink it away from my consciousness. Doubt plagues me. Everything I have ever known and believed has been stripped away and thrown to the winds that blow across the wasteland that I call home. Everything I have ever dreamed of becoming has faded away and has been replaced by hopelessness. 

I never thought that life would turn out like this. I never dreamed, even in my wildest imaginations that when the darkness came I would be alone with nothing but the shadows to keep me company. I don’t want to turn around even though I can hear them coming, even though I can feel them at my back. 

I was afraid when it had happened, when all life ceased to have meaning, but not now. I am no longer afraid; I am devoid of fear and mirth and dreams. I am broken and impaled by sadness. 

“We have to go.” they say. 

I don’t want to go. I let the moment pass and close my eyes as if to will them away, but I know they will not go without me. I know they cannot go without me. Tears well up in my old eyes and boil over, running down my cheeks. I can feel them carving through the wrinkled flesh and dripping from my chin. I don’t want to turn around for to do so would mean the end of me. 

“We have to go.” they say again, more insistent this time.

“if I turn around I will cease to exist. I will never see another sunrise or another sunset. I will never feel the warm sun upon my face again or remember the life I have lived. If I go with you I will …” I shut my mouth and open my eyes once more. The inky darkness of the night is before me as are the shadows of a dead world that I no longer wish to know. 

“You are the last. It is time to go.” 

I know that I must go. I know that they need me. I weep at the thought, at the knowledge that for me to wait others would be lost. The shadows shift in the moonlight, they rise and fall along the buildings and stretch along the ruined streets. They wait for me like impatient children. They never let me rest. 

“What will become of my memories if I go with you? What will become of all that I have loved and lived for if I am not here to remember them? 

They let me stand there in the darkness for a few moments longer. They let me think of the days gone by. They let me remember for a while longer until I close my eyes again. 

Hours have come and gone and the morning light begins to break upon an ancient sky. The shadows retreat from me and move into the darkness of the burnt out buildings behind me. I can hear them weeping. They are trapped here until I go with them and they curse me for making them wait. 

I know that the end has come and if I turn around the calling will be complete. I don’t want to turn around. I want to remain here and watch the sun rise again. I want to see the clouds alight once more with heavenly fire and watch the darkness fade away. 

I have been selfish for too long. The shadows mourn the loss of lives once lived never to be lived again. I know they are in pain and that they fear the end as much as I do. I know the calling is at hand and the end must come but I don’t want to let it end. I don’t want to turn around!

I close my eyes and break the scene unfolding before me. “The end must come.” I say. “I’m sorry it must end so soon.” I turn from the dreams and the last tie I have to this world. I turn away from everything I have ever known. There is a flash and the light of a million suns and everything turns to ash as I open my eyes. In the wink of an eye everything fades away, all is gone, hope is gone, love is lost, dreams are broken and life has faded away.


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Good work.

I feel the lack of a detailed context to the moment adds to the feeling of desolation.


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## Ambush Beast (Oct 31, 2010)

*hi*

I read this to my wife and she almost cried. She said, "It's amazing how much of a downer this story is." I said, Thank you. Thank you. I was feeling melancholy. I hadn't written in a while and had to get my feelings out.


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## Romero's Own (Apr 10, 2012)

This is brilliant work.

Congrats


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