Nothing much had changed since before the Apocalypse. In fact, if it wasn’t for the desolation that surrounded me, I could have been a paying customer in the cream brick dungeon of my past. There was only one thing missing from my sojourn in the disintegrated motel.

My anxiety increased as I searched for the missing piece of the puzzle, the key to happiness, the controller of my mind. My heart leaped when I saw it on the dusty ground. I didn’t care if it worked-what really mattered was my belief in its efficacy in altering the present reality.

I pointed the remote control at the fractured wide screen television that lay in the rubble and sacrificed my free will on the altar of technology. Although the ruination around me bespoke of the danger of acquiescence, I longed for the chit chat of daytime TV hosts, having been convinced of the paucity of my own thoughts.

The screen came to life and I saw a seething sky filled with ravenous birds and an ugly ogre staring back at me. This was too much to take so early in the day. I tried to switch it off again and again before realizing that I was merely looking the reflected truth of a dying world.

I surveyed the wreckage around me, trying to find a niche or a bolt hole to hide in for the unforeseeable future. Nature had been abused once too often and had retaliated by speeding up the process of degeneration. Colour drained out of the environment, leaving a dull wash that reflected my mood.

The strange depressive creature observed me from a distance, barely tolerating my apathy. I was the last man standing in a soulless wasteland that stretched from here to eternity. Shrieking birds clouded the skies, pillaging the few remaining morsels of food in the broken city.

I searched for a touchstone of normality, a place from the past I could call my own. As though conjuring up my own reality I stumbled upon the remains of a motel, my home away from home. It was gruesome but not much worse than before the devastation.

At least I didn’t have to check in, so I picked my way through the debris looking for room 8. Rats had moved in first but they tolerated my presence, perhaps honoring me as a special guest. I had caught up with the future and it lay smouldering around me.

The Earth had been virtually destroyed but I hadn’t noticed, too busy with my own problems. My despair had preceded the Apocalypse, foreshadowing the general gloom of the remnants of humanity who hid in makeshift fabrications. I might have been the last remaining human, heartbroken at the hubris that triggered this catastrophe.

While I agonized over trivial details, a whimpering animal crawled out of the dark, probably sensing my uniqueness. It seemed disappointed that it was me and it stayed out of reach, content to look inwards with rheumy eyes.

I turned my back on an empty world and plodded along with no real destination left. Twisted metal moaned in the wind and the sun refused to gaze at such a foolish waste. The dog thing walked behind me, both uninterested and menacing, a cypher for my own debilitation. We had almost forgotten our roles in this end of days farce that had embroiled the planet.

The road was barely negotiable, riddled with the pock marks of a diseased culture that had started to spew out into the universe before being cut down in its prime. My melancholic companion had only survived through deep cynicism and a lust for tomorrow. That day would never come.

After the Apocalypse happened I felt bored and disappointed. I was expecting a more glamorous and exciting aftermath, in which the sky would resound with Gabriel’s trumpet and black horsemen might arc across the endless night. The reality was much more prosaic and I began to wonder if it had actually occurred.

Sure the wailing dregs of humanity crawled on all fours gibbering with fear, but it was ever thus on a world drenched in infamy. Flames licked my hand and the acrid smoke stung my nostrils as I staggered through the remains of the city. Nothing much had really changed except the poor had got poorer and the dogs howled louder.

I fell to my knees before the terrifying ambiguity of my emotions. The shriek of war birds filled my ears and I held my hands tight over them to block it out, along with the ambient screaming around me.

I was still the same failure before and after, a scarecrow dressed in lies and illusions. The destruction of the world was a mere backdrop to a more profound internal catastrophe. The seconds ticked by, each an eternity for the disillusioned, each dragging me closer to a damaged future populated with the orphans of my memories.

In the middle of the night I dreamed of a broken world, spinning wildly into the abyss. I was pinned to the shuddering ground by gravity gone mad. The crows rejoiced as they finally ascended to their rightful place above the decimated dregs of humanity.

The black sky fell onto the shattered city, smothering any signs of life. The dogs of war hunted as I lay exhausted with the effort of surviving on a doomed planet. The angel of the Apocalypse reared up before me, beautiful and threatening like the fist of god.

Time stopped, its great wheel creaking to a halt next to me. Still I lay, too terrified to confront another second in my rapidly imploding universe. The angel showed its true nature, bursting with light that blinded and burnt. I could only watch.

Now that time no longer existed I could relax. Everything was redundant in a void where nobody could hear me scream. The absence of meaning was hard to take at first, but at last nothing happened.

It seemed ludicrous and cruel to force another human to waste precious time with me. What kind of society encourages prolonged torture under the guise of a mating ritual? The more I thought about it, the more absurd the scenario became. I, of all people, would be sitting at a table with somebody risking a vague and ominous outcome.

I woke up allegedly, disappointed in the newly born day like a parent with unrealistic expectations. The motel room gripped me on all sides and I lay transfixed within the cream brick tomb. Consciousness stirred like a mongrel dog and growled, berating me for things I had, and had not, done. Chalk off another day from the dwindling list.

I never really knew who she was. I was too busy keeping my eyes on the open road, ignoring the passing years and relationships strewn along it like roadkill. I never knew who I was either so in some ways we were perfect for each other, except for all the bad stuff. The highway was my elixir and I thought that she was along for the ride.

I tried to illuminate my life through art but only managed to fill the page with disconnected squiggles and dots. Attempting some arabesque curlicues, I gouged the paper and spilled the ink which dribbled in a random manner, ending up as droplets on the floor.

They lay on the beach in the dark, intertwined. The wind had risen from the depths and peppered them with stinging sand like harsh words. They kept low in the dunes, feeling vulnerable and hoped the whole world would go away. The sky had filled with mad clouds and the sea was a churning engine.