Our story picks up on a snowy, starlight afternoon. A young man is sitting on his porch, lost in thought. The snow was collecting on his shoulders bleaching his shirt a toxic orange color. He didn’t notice…
There were no kids rolling in the disgusting slush, shaping it into men, as I had seen in the movies once or twice. ( A starry afternoon you might be wondering? Hah! Few men approaching fifty had ever seen the actual light of the sun. The stars were to be admired at all hours of the morning or evening.) The end of the world was near and everyone was quite aware.
This young man, of eighteen or so, (I knew as well as anyone his age as no one really took to counting the years you survived.) was sitting, as I had said, lost in the world of his own thought. He wasn’t sure anymore. No one was sure anymore. He didn’t want this anymore. No one wanted this anymore.
He suddenly tripped back from his subconscious. A drop of the noxious powder had fallen on his eyelash and melted into his eye. He rubbed it vigorously for a few moments and realized once again where he was. He momentarily forgot about his eye and concentrated on the single streetlight, situated across the cracked pavement from his house. It flickered. And again, and went out
How unbelievably curious, it was, for him to see this light burn out. When was the little world situated under it going to end

(The darkness around him enhanced tenfold, only driving him deeper into thought.)

Year after year, day after day, the temperature had fallen, and with it the government, and all the leaves on the trees. They had left first. She really had a knack for assuming the inevitable.
The air was thick, and moist with hanging pollution. This was the very same contamination responsible for turning a beautifully gentle thing, into an acidic monster.
He shivered a bit; he had left his jacket inside, but still, no conscious thought about it. But the young man became aware of the sudden cold. The sun must have had set… What was left of her, at least. (It became a tool to tell us day and night. Nowhere was a clock that kept the time anymore.) But did it matter? Do minutes and seconds really matter?
The young man had once again slipped into near ever-present pool of thought, but for good this time.
It could have been months, or mere seconds between then, and what happened next, but, as I had explained, time had little essence or meaning.
He suddenly felt a chill. A chill he had only ever felt once before, the night his mother and father had passed.
He understood. His shoulders heaved high in that final rising and falling. A heavy sigh, full of relief. What was to come, he didn’t know. No one knew

But she was gone.

Our mother had passed.

She had breathed her last breath, in sync with his.

And he slept

The earth slept.

Our mother, finally…

Slept…


When everything is over and our mother finally leaves.
What will we make of the cold, lonely breeze?

No one to bring the spring, winter or fall,
no one to left to bring us anything at all.

Will there be snow to fall, or anyone to watch it?
Will the last light stay or will the darkness fight it?

There’s that one last fight that she just won’t win.
She’ll be smothered to death by her own “loving” kin.

She gave birth, she gave life, and she gave all of her own.
To be repaid, in fools gold. We’ve broke her last bone.

In darkness we’ll have forever to think,
Of the unspeakable act, in which we served the link,

To past, present, future, our existence; a joke?
Isn’t it clever, we’ve held till’ she choked.

With one final aphor', I’ll leave you to ponder.
How we’re as far as we’ve got, it’s simply a wonder.