Young Writers Society

I hope these words tug at your wrists with a wry smile, and a face painted like psychedelia in summertime. To pull you down a rabbit hole, with shotgun in hand, saying stories are nice, but supper is something more concrete. And you'll sputter out every excuse for escape—make lists of dates to which you're late—but following these words all the while.

I remember that denim June night when we found aliens off of route 54. They touched our fingertips like they'd seen in movies, and treated us to mouthfuls of god, with their flippers and their gills and their stars and their love. But you swatted a fly and they left us in the graces of summer's heat (that noiseless highway), to consider the consequences of an insect's death. You laughed and tugged at my wrist, and tasted my lips like you'd seen in movies.

This story isn’t about that night—not exactly. This story is about a different night, one that takes place a million years earlier, in best-guessed memories, when people sometimes stopped breathing, and started to live.

…

A million years ago, when automobiles had cut-glass vases, and odorous air surrendered to the freshest daisies; when disputes were settled with shotgun shells and smiles, and fame was passed out like some incurable flu from blackened tongue to beckoned ear: a boy sat on the front porch steps of a bricked building on an island full of other, bigger buildings. Some were built of brittle brick, like his, but some were put together with sticks of steel, or else cut out of copper, even though they would fade to a watery green with time. His eyes were leaking; he wiped at them with the back of his hand absentmindedly, watching the seagulls eat off of the street with a vague sort of disinterest.

Seagulls used to be things of feathers and disease; they caused people to pinch their noses in disgust as they looked on with vague sorts of disinterest.

This boy wasn’t feeling particularly disgusted, though his damp cheeks and running nose lent a kind of discomfort. He couldn’t recall why his eyes were leaking--something sad on the radio, maybe. The truth was that the radio had been silent all day. There was no one to manage the station anymore, and so the clever little box sat next to the boy, useless for all its antennae and gold wires.

A lot of things were useless just then, because the truth was that the boy happened to be the last boy alive. But don’t shed precious tears for him, reader, for underneath his parchment skin is only these words. You have your own blood and bones to worry about. Besides, it so happens that the only girl alive was approaching him at just that moment.

“Well, what have we got here, then?”

The boy turned his head towards her and blinked.

“The name’s Lilith. What are you doing outside? Christ, it sure is a funny thing to meet someone. I figured I was the only one left. I’m a survivor. Always have been. What about you? I expect you’re a survivor too.”

“Um.”

“Sure is funny, though. All these buildings, empty. I get a queer sort of feeling when night comes on, and it’s just me and the moon and the mice. I always planned to make something of myself. Be successful, y’know? I guess that’s kind of silly now.”

“Um”.

A million years ago, people worried themselves with making things. If you weren’t making money or making love, you were something of a waste.

‘Money’ used to be very important. A million years ago, you could buy death or life in little pills, and find fountains of youth in gushing needles and veins like sunsets; on streetcorner heavens and doctor office hells; and on the tip of trickster tongues, all set out to make a buck.

“Well, we should probably stick together, since we’re the only ones around. But don’t get any ideas about repopulating the earth or anything funny like that. I suppose we’ll have to think about it eventually, but for now staying alive is as good as it gets.”

The girl called Lilith was being impolite. She took a large-sized bite out of an apple the size of the moon; her teeth made a large-sized noise as they broke the skin to slice through the fruit, leaving craters in the face of a man. She smiled an awkward smile, with torn bits of red apple skin caught between her teeth.

“You’re a funny sort, aren’t you? The quiet type, I guess.”

The boy indulged her with a noncommittal nod, and she let out a deep, ringing laugh that echoed through the hollow street like gunfire. The seagulls grew alarmed at the noise, and abandoned their hunt with a few squawks and many flapping wings.

The girl didn’t notice the birds’ departure, as she was again busying herself with her apple. The boy did notice, though, and he started to feel sad again, though he was still unsure why.

The truth was that he had every reason to be sad. His family and his friends and everyone else in the world had grown tired of shedding precious tears over both fiction and fact. Realizing how little they mattered, and sighing sacrificial sighs, people decided to do the only thing they still could that made any difference at all. They died.

“Boy, it sure is nice having someone to talk to. I think that’s what I miss most—having someone to talk to. What about you?”

“Um.”

“Nah, you don’t seem like much of a talker. Hey, it’s starting to get dark, what do you say we go find something to eat? Most fresh stuff has spoiled by now, but there’s still good canned things to be had. I’ll tell you, though, I near cried when I found this apple.”

She bit into it again rudely, letting the sticky juice roll off her lips down to her chin, where it hung awkwardly: a pointed goatee. Looking like Satan or an artist, she tilted her head to the side and gave the boy a ponderous look. He had started to cry again.

“Hey, what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.”

And he hadn’t. This, in fact, was the first time she’d heard him speak at all.

“Look, I might be the only person you’ll ever see. You can tell me your name”

After an instant that lasted two thousand years, he answered her.

“It’s Noah.” he blinked.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Noah.” she lied.

…