E.L.E. - Page 3

Roy turned from the window and stood. Looking at the clock, he saw it was 10 p.m. Only two hours to extinction. Walking to the front door, he suddenly felt a great need to be … somewhere. Anywhere. Just not here, in this cluttered apartment, this singular existence, this windowed coffin. If he was going to be …; well, in any case, he preferred to be stomping through mud puddles and listening to oblivious frogs sing their mating songs.

He stepped outside, turned to his front door, then stopped. “Why lock it?” he snorted. He left the lights on and the door standing open. The earlier rain had left the air damp. He moved from puddle of light to puddle of water, swirling mist marking his passage through the night. He felt the droplets on his face and arms for what felt like the first time in his life. The sulfurous rainwater beaded on his lips, and Roy wondered that he’d never noticed the taste before. It was horrible and marvelous.

Roy walked past a church. Looking inside, he saw people praying to the heavens, some demanding salvation, some for the salvation to come. Either way, they were swaying to the prayers; singing, humming, hoping. Most of them were holding candles, or holding someone holding a candle. Roy stood in the doorway, tempted to join that human chain of contact; but having had so little compassion for his fellows prior to this, he found it difficult to advance farther into the church. By the time anyone noticed him standing in the portal, he had moved on.

He came to a little park that he’d passed on the way to and from work every weekday for the last six years. It was open to the sky, and he just stood, alone as always, looking up at the apocalypse. It didn’t frighten much anymore. It almost seemed too real, almost anti-climatic, as if everything had already been destroyed, but it just took a while to fall to ashes.