Solitude
After a cataclysmic event you are the only human being left alive on the planet. What does your life look like, how do you stay alive, how do you cope with a solitary existence and how do you feel you would cope physically and emotionally with the prospect of never seeing or hearing another human being again until the day you die?
(Source: https://thesuffolkjournal.com/27995)
So the World has ended and I'm the only one left alive..
I can't say I was surprised. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had always known this outcome was a possibility. Strange however, I had always imagined that my 'End of Days' would be spent fighting Zombies (Or simply avoiding them by living on a Narrowboat.. @scubahead 😉)
In the beginning everything was just too overwhelming to comprehend. I used to send messages to my family out of pure habit. Sometimes not remembering until I was met with the now all too familiar appearance on the screen of 'Message Not Sent'
It's already been four years since 'The Event' and I am only just now sitting down to write this.
I can't be accused of being lazy (there is nobody left to accuse me)
The reason I am only just writing this now is because I have been busy.. seriously busy.
If I could go back in time to before this all happened, knowing what I know now. I would have learnt how to farm.
It's not like I'm going to starve.. There is enough tinned food in the world to last me, well, a lifetime.
(Source: https://www.insider.com/long-lasting-foods-apocalypse-2018-10)
But if I had learnt how to farm then I would have been able to keep a supply of meat, dairy, eggs.. those kind of things.
I had some chickens that were giving me eggs, but they died. I was going to eat them but got too worried that whatever killed them, might kill me too.
'The Event' was just unbelievable. I thought our Government had finally poked the Bear one too many times and we had been taught a lesson. This didn't stop me spending one entire year driving around England, Scotland and Wales trying to find other survivors.
(Source: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/725381-wheres-waldo-wheres-wally)
The first time I broke into a house to take their carkeys it felt weird, it felt criminal. Nowadays I dont even bother closing the door when I leave.
Alas, my search was fruitless. But how could I be sure 'The Event' had affected the entire World.. I figured, as I wasn't expected to be in work for the foreseeable future, I might as well expand my search area.
I had already logged hundreds of hours of flight time on a copy of Flight Simulator that I had taken from a Games Shop and so I momentarily entertained the idea of flying a small Cesna across the Chanel to France. I only changed my mind because I remembered it was the sound of planes falling out of the sky that had made me realise 'The Event' had begun in the first place. What if whatever made that happen, was still in the air. It was a risk I couldn't take.
(Source: https://www.techspot.com/products/pc-games/microsoft-flight-simulator.214966/)
And so I drove to the coastal town of Dover, located the RNLI Lifeboat station and set about reading all of their training materials and watching the DVD's on handling the Lifeboat. It was a pain dragging a great big diesel Generator around everywhere I went, but it sure did make watching TV easier.
Two weeks later, I launched the boat and sailed to France
(Source:https://rnli.org/what-we-do/lifeboats-and-stations/our-lifeboat-fleet/tamar-class-lifeboat)
The great European road trip had begun. Not a single person to be seen, dead or alive.
The days, weeks, months, years just ticked by without anyone to talk to.
Sometimes I see seagulls and other birds fly over. their presence must mean that there are still fish in the ocean. There are probably still wild animals in other countries. but I haven't seen any so far in the ones that I have visited. I went to a Zoo in the hopes I would be able to find a parrot that I could talk to. But I was too late.
Like I said earlier, I haven't been lazy, I've been busy. I have learnt Spanish and German.. Next I'm going to get started with Cantonese.. Or maybe Mandarin, I haven't decided yet.
So, why am I writing this.. If nobody is ever going to read it?
Well, what If someone does read it.. Maybe someone is reading it right now.. You, You are reading this and that means I was right to write it.
But if you are reading this, it means that you have come back. That means that maybe everyone has come back!
Do you remember that Movie from the year 2000 'Castaway' where Tom Hanks' character gets marooned on a desert island for years and has nobody to talk to, so ends up becoming mates with a Volleyball?
I constantly think about that bloody volleyball but I have made a pact with myself... If I ever get to the point where I think an inanimate object is my friend, then I'm calling it quits.
If I am completely honest with you, I'm bored out of my mind.. That's probably the real reason I'm writing this. I can do whatever I want to do. (within reason).
Obviously I can't do things like Bungee Jumping because I wouldn't be able to get myself down afterwards. And I tried driving a Formula 1 Car but it needs more than just the driver to make it go.
Multiplayer activities such as Paintball, Laser Tag and Monopoly are also a waste of time.
But worse than all of that. It's difficult to bother doing the things that I technically can do, because, what's the point in doing anything if you will never have anyone to talk to about it, or anyone to share the experience with.
Somebody said that 'Loneliness is the byproduct of a gifted mind'.. Whoever it was that said that was obviously never the last person on earth!
I was discussing that quote (and others) with Meghan the other day and she said, she said, she.......
Well, she didn't really say anything as she is actually just a figment of my imagination, so I was sort of having the discussion with myself.
It's ok though, and the reason it's ok is because I know she's not real.. And do you want to know what else Meghan isn't?
A Bloody Volleyball!!
(Source: https://www.nme.com/news/film/tom-hanks-volleyball-cast-away-sells-for-230000-auction-3091382)
