Somnambulism

I guess we’ll never know what brought us to this end. For the few of us that remain, it has become an irrelevant question. There’s no one left to blame anyhow. Blame is a pointless effort in changing the outcome. I tend to think it was a compilation of everything. One thing I know without a doubt is we all had a hand in destroying ourselves. A little part to play that we either did or didn’t.

In the beginning, it was hard to know what was real and what was not. Everyday brought a new terror along with it, as it broke through the dawn. It got to where we just stopped paying attention. Besides, the last thing any of us needed to hear was more bad news. Just because bad things were happening all around us didn’t negate the fact that another day was upon us. Another waking nightmare to survive.

We’d been told for years what our actions or inactions were leading to. We were warned to change before it was too late. In reality, none of us had the ability to change anything. Afterall, we weren’t the ones calling the shots. The large sum of us were more concerned with things like eating, or at least making sure that our children did, or I should say the children that were left. Having a place to lay your head was considered a luxury not a necessity. No one had a home anymore. Staying in one place was no longer conducive to one’s survival. You had to be able to move and keep moving.

The elderly and the disabled were the first to go. As much as we may have wanted to preserve them, it just wasn’t possible. It was hard at first to look away, and continue forward, ignoring their pleas and outstretched hands reaching for you as you passed by. They were already gone. We all knew it. Life no longer permitted one to be driven by emotion or empathy. It had been reduced to the cold hard facts of survival.

We traveled in herds. If you couldn’t keep up, you were left behind. Plain and simple. Our bio rhythms were so eschewed by the challenges of surviving our climate that no one even considered the old ways of what it meant to be human. It was hard to tell the difference between male and female. We all looked the same. Barely human at all.

I can’t tell you why I didn’t give up like so many had. Hope was not the driving force behind my actions. There was nothing to hope for. Life, the very thing that makes us real, requires movement. It wakes you up when you’re asleep. Pushes you forward even if you don’t want to go. This is all I can attribute to my continued existence, life itself, not my own will.

Or maybe it was pure and simple cowardice. I admired those who gave up. The bravery it must have taken to finally stop. Not to give another breath to their own survival. Guess I’m not that brave.

No one really knew what it was or how it came to be. The Dream Reaper, as it came to be known. People would simply go to sleep and not wake up. Asphyxiation, but why? The science community had no way of explaining it. Autopsies were inconclusive. There were no bacterial strains or viruses to blame. No pathology at all really. For whatever reason, the autonomic nervous system simply stopped prompting the brain to give the order to breath without conscious effort.

Man, woman, child. White, black, none of it mattered. Even geography had nothing to do with it. It was happening everywhere to everyone. Strangely, it was those who suffered from insomnia, or those whose schedules did not allow for more than a brief nap as opposed to a full night of restful sleep that seemed to go untouched by the mysterious process. But even they eventually succumbed to the basic need for rest. I call it a process because again, the cause has never been identified. Plagues, epidemics, pandemics, all have a cause. An identifiable pathogen. The process does not.

In the beginning, we were all glued to various media outlets. Waiting for an explanation, a plan, a cure. None of which ever came. Soon the phones stopped working, the networks went down, and the politicians seemed to vanish into thin air. It didn’t take long before civilization itself shut down. The lights went out and never came back on.

At first, we hid away in our homes and apartments, hoping things would somehow eventually return to normal. Went it became abundantly clear that was not going to happen, I joined the exodus to leave the city. You grabbed whatever you could carry. There would be not motor vehicles to carry us. Just our own feet. The skies had been darkened long ago. Decisions made to block out the sun in hopes of cooling the planet came at a price. In doing so, solar technology had become obsolete. Without the power grid, which ran completely on wind and water, our vehicles were of little use. No more energy left to charge them.

No one really knows who pulled the plug on everything. We’d been abandoned. Abandoned and left to our own devices. Lack of sleep does funny things to the brain. Fear of sleep, doing all you can to keep your eyes from closing, renders the brain incapable of problem solving. Now we just walk like zombies. We may not be decomposing or feeding on the flesh of others, but we were all zombies, nonetheless.

All our dreams, wants, and prized possession mean nothing now. There is nothing that sets you apart from another. Every passing day, and the long nights in between make it abundantly clear that its just a small matter of time before my aimless journey will end and I will lay on the ground, fall asleep, and be left to decompose like all those who lay strewn along the way to nowhere.

I try as I walk to remember who I am in all this. Dr. Jordan Green, forensics. I tell myself this constantly. Even made a rhythm to go along with my footsteps. I stare at the heart shape locket I hold in my hand. I know it was important to me. It’s all I have. The last little piece of something to prove I was here. The last little piece of something that proves we all were.

How did it come to be in my life. Sometimes, when I catch myself drifting, my mind dangerously swept away in a daydream, I think I see the face of man. My heart stirs as I struggle to remember his features. I’m filled with anguish. I can’t remember him. The color of his eyes. His touch. Yet, somehow I know he was important to me. He gave me the locket. I hold it tightly in my palm, allowing the v shape at the bottom to dig into my flesh. It reminds me to stay awake. It wakes me when I fall asleep. It seems to be the only thing keeping me going.

The sky is black now. My steps have become careful shuffles. I feel the uneven terrain beneath my feet and the occasional sickening feeling of something cracking under them. I’m grateful I can’t see what it is. I stop and close my eyes.

“Just a few minutes.”

I’m awaken by the swooning of my own legs threatening to buckle beneath me. Time to move on. No rest for the wicked. Is that what this is? Our we the wicked. The damned. Roaming the earth. I can only assume we have reaped the harvest from the seeds we have sown. Disconnected from each other. Exchanging relationships for handheld devices. In the end losing both.

My feet stumble. The pain surging through them helps me to move on. Stay awake. Oh how I want to lay my head down. Close my eyes. Rest. The sweet reprieve of sleep. My mind and body seduce me. I know to not give in. The end is sure if I allow myself to be subdued. I squeeze the heart shape locket hard in my fist. The pain sends little shock waves to my sleepy brain. I can’t let go. There is something just up ahead. Something that will make this all go away. There has to be. A destination where we can all go back to living again. Just keep going. It’s just up ahead.

The dim rays of a faded sun lays down gray hues of light over the pitch-black earth. My feet struggle, doing all they can to maintain balance while protesting the weight pushing down from above them. A fleeting thought turns into a familiar question. Who am I? I should be startled that I can’t remember. But I’m not. The rhythm in my step used to remember what I never imagined I could forget is lost to me now. I stop and look around me. Others shuffle by slowly with heads hung low. Eyes barely open, expressionless. Who are they? Why are they here? Where is here? Why am I here? This is a dream. This can’t be real.

I have no answers to the questions what is left of me asks. I don’t have the energy nor the will to answer them. I stare at the heart shape locket I notice that I hold in my hand. I rub my thumb over the soft, smooth, golden, metal. Its beauty pulls me away from the reality that surrounds me. I stare into it, noticing fractals of rainbow light emitting from it. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful. It beckons me, comforts me.

My legs fold beneath me without protest. I hardly notice and see no reason to care. A far-off thought brings with it reminiscence of vague fear. A warning I have no energy to indulge. I am encapsulated in euphoric relief while my limbs twitch and spasms, succumbing to a restful state. I lay my heavy head against the cold, dark, earth. A pillow never felt so invitingly soft. A intoxicating, tingling sensation fills my skull. Erasing what’s left of my identity. My eyelids fall closed. The muscles around them apathetically surrender, giving up the useless fight to keep them open. I strain against them with what strength I have left, succeeding in opening them just enough to stare at the locket.

A tinge of anxiety without reason. A pressing need to stand without any fortitude left to oblige. Awareness floats subtlety away. Thoughts no longer identifiable, waste away into meaninglessness. Comfort invades my body, leaving me paralyzed. Only vaguely coherent of the rise and fall of my chest.

All that I am now remains fixated on the tiny locket. I follow where it leads. Slip away into its golden light. Relax into its warm embrace. My heart is elated. My only thought gratitude. It absorbs me. No more fear. No more questions. Just light. Just love. Locked inside this locket, I am no more.

For those who lingered on. Finding their way far from the constructs of man. Healing came upon them. They slept and were awaken. The memories of society washed away. They started a new. Innocence, locked away in the hearts of men was again set free. Erased was their history along with any desire to repeat it.