The Last

Can't quite remember why I wrote this!  I've always liked the idea that love will conquer all, and that all humans are part of a single organism, so this is that idea taken to its logical conclusion!

Last night I watched the last specks of dust fall over the houses, the slow machinery giving way to steam, the coughs of engines giving way to joy.  There were whistles, whoops, as the men, women and children came out of their houses, clutching the rare morsels of their lives, mostly bedding, shelters, the odd item of romantic foolishness.  None of it was necessary.  The dawn was moving fast, and we had to go.  I looked for her hand and there is was, as smooth and delicate as the first time it fell into mine, flushed pink with a knot of gold.  It's lines and curvatures were the grains of our life together.  And as we finally met on the ridge, the whole world we had known lay before us, so small, built by children who were dreaming, lost in a game that was never packed away.  We are accidents, all of us.

We looked down on the city as the smoke rose from the factories, the houses, the shopping centres.  The fires were small at first, then took hold more powerfully.  I found myself whistling a tune, couldn't remember the name of it, and she was rocking slowly backwards and forwards, humming a song we used to dance to when we were courting.  She caught me watching her and smiled, something so warm, leading the path to this, wondering how it had taken so long.  Occasionally something big would explode, the sound bouncing from the hills, and the children would point and wave their flags as another building sank.

There was a dark fog now seeping from the edge of the city, which I recognised as the rats and other feral animals leaving.  The meat they had lived on had all but gone.  They were discovering it too, that there was another life, another world better than this.  I was crying, I realised, when my glasses became too clotted with salt to see.  I laughed when I thought about all the arguments, all the wars, and then felt a little tug where the others might have been, across the lands, on the other side of the world, having similar experiences to our own.  I would never see or hear from them ever again.  But it really didn't matter, since the distinctions that we had clawed against, killed each other to maintain, meant less than this feast of trash that was now being burnt below us.

Slowly, love in the particular was fading.  People were kissing other people's partners, playing with other people's children.  I had forgotten which were mine, but they were all so happy it didn't seem to matter.  The woman next to me, who looked familiar, rested her head on my shoulder.  “They're coming!” someone shouted.  I looked up and the light was finally upon us, and I thought about the moon, but then I forgot about that and got ready.  We didn't need it all now anyway, so I left my bedding on the hill, folded my glasses up for the last time, then followed the others down to the circle.  It didn't take long for us all to be connected, and as the last hands reached up to touch each other, I thought this is it then, this is it, then after that there wasn't a ‘me’ as such, and this was nothing to tell anyone, as we were all the same thing.  Love.