David's Writing

Whoever thought the world would end? Not me that is for sure. I would never of imagined losing everything in a blink of eye. Whenever I thought of the world ending, I imagined that it would include the end of me. It is weird to not hear a single sound from another human person, animals and I even began to miss the sound of cars. But this is why I began writing, to give me a reason to feel, to think and to inspire myself to continue on. My motivation is to find more survivors even as the odds are starting to seem more and more impossible.

I have found one living creature besides me. A dog, well to be more exact a golden retriever, named Bailey. Luckily, the dog had on a collar so I could identify it’s name. Bailey liked me instantly as soon as she saw me. She ran down the rows and rows of grass towards barreling towards me. Out of all the things to find after the apocalypse, man’s best friend was the last thing I expected to find.

Bailey and I strolled through cities, towns and suburbs together on the search for someone else. But, once again we found no one. Just one day I woke up and went to work where no one was to be found. At first I thought we were given the day off and somehow I was the only person not to get the memo. On the way back home I noticed further lack of cars and people on the streets. It was like everyone just woke up, packed their bags and left.

I had one theory though. I’m not that religious of a man but from time to time I have read the bible even more so recently. I think I might be in purgatory and Bailey is my guardian angel that is why she would never leave my side, not even for instant.

In the bible I continued to read further and further into the idea of purgatory and about the idea of the cleanse of sin. So I decided to everyday go to church and pray for forgiveness that I may be cleansed. I emptied my brain of every impure thought. I took about everything I said and thought against religion. Nothing worked.

I noticed something, I haven’t realized before. It never rains, it never snows, it never has a cloudy sky. It is always the same clear day. The sky actually never changed except it going from day to night. Every cloud stayed in the exact spot, the stars never moved. Is this a simulation, a test? Did the government decide to pick me out of all the people to see what secrets it would unlock and what I would do? I screamed as loud as I could at whoever was holding me hostage, all I got was a confused look from Bailey. Maybe they weren’t listening so I decided to go as far as I could because if the sky didn’t change then there must be a limitation of how far I can go.

So Bailey and I traveled several days, several nights to find the edge of the simulation. On the final day I thought maybe I was just being too hopeful and truly everyone was gone. But then I saw in the distance, what I can only describe as a pure cliff. No land continued past it so I ran to it as fast as possible just in case it was to update and remove the end. I wasn’t fast enough as I saw land appear from nowhere where the drop off was.

I don’t know what this test is. I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t have any clue. But if you watch me so diligently to know when I reach the edge then you will watch me write this. You’ll read what I write. I hope you have mercy, I don’t know how to pass this experiment or if I ever will. Give me a hint. LET ME GO.

A dense winter coat, boots, long jeans and hands held deep their pockets, I walked. Snow fell gently to the ground as I marched up the street. My eyes looked around and took in the beauty of the moment. The cold beckoned as my hands shivered and ears grew numb. I didn’t care. It was one of those moments you wouldn’t dare miss for the world. Stars shined down from the heavens above and moonlight filtered its way in from the trees, illuminating my path. Breath-taking is how I would describe it as the road came to an end and trees surrounded me. I’ve been here many times before but every time it is different.

A t-shirt, tennis shoes, shorts and hands held loosely at my side, I walked. Dew gently lined the grass as I strode up the street. My eyes looked around and took in the beauty of the moment. The heat beckoned as my hands sweat and legs grew tense. I didn’t care. It was one of those moments you wouldn’t dare miss for the world. The beautiful blue sky shined off the grass and sunlight filtered its way in from the trees, illuminating my path. Breath-taking is how I would describe it as the road came to an end and trees surrounded me. I’ve been here many times before but every time it is different.

Same road, different perspective. Even on the days of bad fortunes you walk and remain strong for days ahead will be better. Even on the days of good fortunes you walk and remain strong for days ahead will be worse. Wake up, find yourself on a different road to go to sleep and the next day find yourself on a road once traveled on before. Use the wisdom, use the memory to better face the hardships of that road but also don’t forget to take a new turn and do something different.

If you lose sight your roads can all become extremely similar, less unique. They’ll be unique as the roads will be yours but lose uniqueness as become repetitive even to a point of being boring. The only thing changing will be difficulties like the changing of seasons. People you’ll miss due to walking past them as your path remains parallel.

Open your eyes, take a risk, take a new path. Don’t necessarily change for the sake of changing but instead change to have new encounters and new experiences. The people you’ll meet that you would never have met, the memories you’ll make that you would never have experience.

As life progress you’ll feel pain, anger, despair and at some point agony. The road will grow thinner and thinner, more and more rugged as the concrete turns to grass and grass to dirt. It’ll seem as if your road is coming to an end. But instead this is where the adventure begins, where the road ends. Continuing may be difficult as you journey where no person has inhabited before. But the sights you’ll see, that have never been seen before. But the experience you’ll have, that have never been had. A new beginning, as you journey to where new roads begin.

A tall mirror stands in front of me showing me the reflection of my younger self. Happy, care free is what I saw looking back. Life was so much easier so much more lucid. It is as if it was all just a dream.

A dream of a clear spring day, running through the grass, playing with my friends. Ability to bend over and see every drop of fresh dew on the grass. Simpler. I never thought why or how, I just did as kids do and chose what was easiest. Do I hangout with friends or stay at home and face the possibility of chores? Friends it is.

Friends I hung out with day in and day out. We played football, we played soccer, we played basketball, we played volleyball, we swung, we talked, it seemed like we did everything together. But too soon the classes appeared rearing its head around the corner. The time we spent hanging out was shorted by more than a half as now we had to sleep early to wake up for the bus in time.

We still hung out. It was just less, it wasn’t the freedom to do what we want when we wanted all the time. Every single day it seemed like we hung out less and less, grew farther apart and apart, meeting people anew and anew. Until one day we spent the last time ever hanging out. I wish I could remember that day, that day when boys would play. Play down in the creek, play in the yard, play in street, play in the playground. No drama, no thoughts of romance/love, just us and our imaginations left to our own devices. We created worlds, we created empires, we created games that never existed before.

I still talked to a bunch of them until I left for college and now I think I lost the most important part of my boyhood: the friends. You could always go down to the creek by yourself and play imaginary games by yourself but it wasn’t the same as exploring and being curious together. Worlds created by us, worlds destroyed by us. Everything that could be thought up was at our fingertips as we were ninjas running in the forest or wizards with magic powers. I think the word I could use to describe this time the best was pure. Pure joy, pure fun and pure imagination as we spent the day away doing the stupidest things. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

As I stand in front of this rose tinted mirror, I look back I see youth at its finest. Not wasted one bit, I wish I could’ve spent forever being young and foolish but being now older and wiser I understand it was only temporary and we all have to grow. We all have to feel pain, have are hearts broken, get a job, go to school, have an endless list of things to do and things to work on. The pain is what makes this life real. The pain sometimes isn’t temporary. But, we learn from it and we grow from it. Each time we make a mistake, we become better people. I do still wish I was back in the days of youth where I have no worry in the world but make no mistake that I would never trade in the life I lived and lessons I learned.

I can write poems that whisk you away into the stars. I can write stories that whisk you into shoes of the characters you read about. I can think of stanzas, lines before they go down on the page. But what can I not do? I can not write, well. Every time my pen or pencil hits the page it turns into a flurry of bizarre lines, barely legible symbols and awkward placed dots. No matter how much I slow down and turn my patience into the page, it still looks unpleasing.

You’d think someone who writes a lot would have a solid foundation in the simple calligraphy of the English language. But instead I get ahead of myself when I write and focus on the developing the story or poem rather than how my penmanship looks. I lose my self on the page as my pen does the lettering. It is exhilarating.

But the problem occurs when I want to share my work as people look at my page with confusion and questioning eyes. They look at every dot, every line, every little misplaced pencil stroke with disgust. They don’t read what is on the page, they only look at the mistakes and problems with my handwriting. The handwriting says something about me though: I don’t slow down, I don’t lose concentration on my train of thought and I’m hardworking.

One of these days though, I’ll reteach myself to write. Write every single character with a perfect swirl, a perfect stroke and a perfect spacing. Until that day I’ll still look down at my page and be proud of what I wrote in between the lines rather than the way it looks written.

I knew something was fishy about this facility as soon as I entered it. No clocks, no calendars, no nothing. Nothing confirmed my suspicions more of this joint than the day Prisoner 4A6F686E736F6E3432 was caught with a count of days he was locked up for on the wall of his cell shortly after he first arrived to the prison. During inspections near the time right after I got to the prison, we were all lined up facing away from our own cells as the sentry robots search every inch of our cells tearing down posters, moving beds out, searching air vents and anything else you thought would be a smart place to smuggle something they checked it. The robots go cell to cell usually finding nothing except comb blades and other homemade contraband but poor 4A got caught with something we didn’t know was contraband. We all stood relaxed out of our cells knowing that we didn’t have any contraband or items hidden in are cells as they went from 1 cell to the next. They soon got to 4A’s cell as he stood with a sly smirk on face that quickly vanished when the sentry in his cell made a loud buzz and let out a bright red light. The other sentries stopped their searches and rushed in to take 4A away. We didn’t see him at all for the next couple days and when he got back he was as pale as a ghost and didn’t make a peep. He just meandered around like some sort of zombie, just not the same guy at all.

After that happened I knew I had to keep track of time I had spent in the prison. Luckily the same search that ended in 4A getting caught with a way to keep track of time was the way I was going to keep track of time. The sentries searched the cells the same time, same day every week. So instead of keeping track of the amount of days I would just have to keep track of weeks. As time went on and weeks turned into months and months turned into years. I realized what I was fearing all along. No one left, not a single person. The same people that were in this prison when I got here are still here. You probably asking “If you were keeping track of time since your arrival to the current time why didn’t you just ask people their time of serving time?”. Well, man we can’t speak. Speak to ourselves? No. Speak to other people? No. Speak to the sentries? No. You never know how much you’d miss people to talk to until everyone to talk to is gone. People go insane due to less things. These evil bastards even banned books, yard time and everything else that would be considered a moment of relaxation.

Every single day in and out we were required to build the newest phone, the newest laptop and any other device the ‘law-abiding’ citizen could dream up. Even though I counted years changing rapidly I still held the belief that one day we would be set free from this tortuous camp. But I guess the idea of free labor all together was too appealing idea for any politician to take on the enormity of wrong-doing in the system. The prisoners I was with also came to the same conclusion I did, lost hope and started trying to do bizarre things to get out of work. One guy 5061726B65723333 lost it and tried breaking his hand by smashing it into his cell wall. He took his shirt and put it in his mouth not to make a sound but he yelped a little too loud a few punches in and alerted the sentry. What followed is what I can only describe as a brief snap and 50 was dragged out of his cell never to be seen again.

Some people in the prison even went so far to try to hang themselves with their belts. The sentries seemed to have a system to know our vital signs at a constant rate, probably with these chips they implanted in our necks. So when Prisoner 4361727465723633 tried to hang himself it wasn’t a surprise when a sentry came out to check on him pretty quickly. He squirmed on the end of the rope as the sentry watched. The sentry could’ve cut him down but instead it just watched as 43 breathed his final breath. We were worth the same dead as we were alive: nothing. Belts were outlawed after the death of 43 and during the next inspections they took all of them and replaced our jeans and long sleeve shirts(as they were seen to be too long) with pairs of gym shorts and short sleeve shirts.

After all of these events the mood shifted from a dull, boring environment to being a cold, dark environment that lacked any hope whatsoever. New guys came into the prison all the time with a feeling of optimism and hope which was quickly devoured as the looked into the eyes of us old fellows of the jail. Working day in and day out with minimal food and minimal sleep (barely enough to keep us alive and well enough to work). People got sick all the time but at the sight or sound of their first sneeze they were never seen again.

Many times people tried to revolt against these lifeless machines by throwing rocks and other electronic components at them to try to disable them. It never worked, they were all taken away. People tried to run, many of the people even made it out of the main compound but just to be followed by the sound a belt spinning up and a brief moment of gunfire. Every single time something like this happened we mourned and spent the entire day sulking in the memory of our lost prison-mate.

The losses of people started being more and more everyday until at a point I’m sure we were losing more people than people being admitted to this insane asylum. These losses went on for awhile until one day I guess they decided it was too much. We got a new chip installed. Out of nowhere people were pulled out of their rooms and the assembly line disappeared for a few hours then once they got back they were smiling from ear to ear. These new people (I wouldn’t exactly call them human) even starting humming a tune together in sync during the work hours. It took me awhile to recognize the tune after not hearing music in awhile. But I realized they were humming Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now”. People without these new chips were even nodding and shaking their heads to this new tune.

During all of this I remained hopeful, optimistic really. Before I got put in the jail I got the experience of being computer programmer for awhile taking on different jobs and hobbies to keep my skill up. One day I got pulled over for going to fast, which was peculiar now that I think about it because we all drove self driving cars, and the EAP (Electronically Assisted Police) approached my car, told me I was going to fast and told me to get out of the car. The situation went quickly from slightly weird to bizarre as I was put in the back of the autonomous police cruiser.

With my experience, as a programmer/electronic enthusiast as soon as I realized they didn’t check the work stations as hard as they checked the cell rooms I began to devise a plan with the spare parts I found from people left in from the people down the line from me. I began building every single day until I have what sits in front of me now; a glorified typewriter with access to wifi. I don’t have much time, the cell inspections are about to begin. If you read this send help, tell people of these cruelties.

Yours truly,

Prisoner 436C61726B3231

Some questions in life are not supposed to be answered. Some questions in life have no answers. Some questions in life have an infinite amount of answers.

Every which way you look, life is full of questions of what, when, why and how. On the search to find the answers: we find more questions. Questions are the way of life and how we keep it new like a baby learning how to walk for the first time, when we ask if we could and we can, it springs us forward into a new question like can we run, jump or even skip! An endless array of possibilities from facing the simplest of questions. An endless array of lessons from the simplest of questions.

When we stop asking questions is when life becomes monotonous and even miserable as we get swept under of the wave of unchanging work, unchanging schedule and a unchanging life. When we stop asking questions is when life stops progressing in ways of science and thought. No new achievement has ever been done without asking if it was possible or if it could be done.

Question everything to not regret asking nothing.

All of the years of us running through the battlefields. All of the years of us trudging through trenches covered in red of the blood of allies and enemies. All of the years of us fighting forward through hills and valleys in quest of cleansing this earth of evil. All of the years tentatively moving forward through cities someone use to call home and try to decipher the innocent from the guilty.

All of these years of fighting just to lead to a standstill and for some bureaucrats to decide it is over and whoever lost the least is victorious. The side that we are on lost the least and we get declared the winner of this pointless conundrum. But, then why do we feel like we are the losers?

Winners get to stand courageously on the top and feel confident in what they did was right. We aren’t winners. The more we look at the war; the more we see we aren’t winners. Families tore apart in acts of cruelty. Soldiers tore apart in acts of misery. Countries tore apart in acts of insanity. Lines running up and down the map remind of us of the scars we tore through the continent. We simply can’t declare ourselves the winners without starting another war and putting our kin through the same living hell we made it through.

We are the losers. For every act of violence causes an equal reaction of violence because the people we hurt will not know the reason we did. Every textbook will have blank pages to describe the reasons we had to intervene in world wars. Every soldier will have words scarred in the backs of their minds to remind them we are the enemy. We won and what we won was a target on our backs.

But, no matter what we do: war never changes. Man changes and technology changes but our methods of bloodshed do not change. War is a game to inflict the highest amount of casualties and who ever quits first is the loser. The game never ends and even when we think it is the end of war we haven’t quite learned our history. The cycle will end when humanity is triumphed and all free will is conquered and honestly though it will take years to see that what we did was right. I would choose free will every time.

The night was growing old and he still couldn’t find anywhere to sleep. He walks down the street which was void of life and activity. No one in either direction of the street. All he has is the fear of being caught to keep him alive. But finally the man found a small inn that he has never seen in his life in this small town. He strolls into the inn and the only noise to be heard is the small roar of a fire. But suddenly he heard soft footsteps coming toward him. The footsteps were slow and steady. Frozen in fear the man stood in the main room waiting for the specter. Now the footsteps sound to be behind the counter and inside the door. The door squeaks slowly and a part a man’s silhouette which glowed red from the flame of the fire, slowly took form on the floor in front of him. Finally the door is open and a man in a deep dark suit that looks like it had been overused in many funeral takes a step behind the counter. The man in the suit slowly smiles and stares into the eyes of the man looking for a room.

“Hello my name is Abaddon Mastema but you can call me Lou.” The man in the dark suit tells the man in the main lobby. The man stumbles and looks at the man and feels like he has seen him before. But eventually he pushes back his fear and talks.

“My name is Vivian, do you think I can get a room?” The man asks Lou while still trying to find out where he saw him at.

“Yes, I have many rooms for people that are like you and gone through your travels.” Lou tells the Vivian as he pulls out a clock and starts winding it backwards. The sight of him doing so made Vivian cringe and shiver but he didn’t know why.

“Can I have a room that’s ground floor?” Vivian asks Lou as he sets down the clock. After a few seconds a siren of an ambulance goes by in the distance. Then rain starts coming down rapidly on the building.

“Bad night to be traveling. The only room I have open tonight is room number 6. Also by the way the alarm clocks don’t work properly so many people don’t wake up.” Lou says as a sinister smile goes across his face. Vivian is stuck at a crossroad stay here with the creepy man or leave. But Vivian feels as if his only chance to hide away from what he had done is to stay here until he can make his escape.

“Ok I’ll take room number 6. Do you think you could wake me up in the morning?” Vivian says to Lou as passing him the money for the room.

“I’m going to be pretty busy tomorrow so I don’t think I can wake you.” Lou says as pulling out a black book and a red pen.

“Do you think you can sign this book because I like to remember the people who stay here.” Lou says to Vivian as reaching out to give him the red pen. Vivian takes the pen and starts writing his name. The ink of pen looks like blood scrawled across the page. Many names were on the page but the name above his was Reginald Griffin. Now Vivian walks towards his room but as he walks he hears the book slam closed and the subtle laughter of Lou grow loud and then fade away off into the distance. So, Vivian stops and looks back towards the desk and Lou seems to have vanished and the only thing left was the clock set to a minute to midnight. At this point, Vivian’s body grew completely numb and he feels as if he’s not in control any more. He opens the door and as soon as he turns around to close it the door closes for him and sees a giant grandfather clock in the corner of his room. The grandfather clock strikes midnight and Vivian is in bed then darkness consumes the room like a black veil. Vivian’s eyes slowly close like they are being forced down by an cold hand that feels inevitable. The last noise he hears is a police siren in the distance being overshadowed by the sound of the downpour of rain. Vivian fades to black and ends the worst night of his life and he knows the worst is still coming, his eyes shut and sleep overcomes his fear of tomorrow.

But, finally Vivian wakes up from his slumber and feels an intense heat overwhelming his body. Vivian feels as if he is not in the same place he fell asleep at even though the room is exactly the same as the one he slept in the night before. Something about the room felt different to Vivian and that is when he heard a knock at his door.