Just Hanging On

Just Hanging On

To those that follow

Today is April 31st of .. whatever year it is and we are just hanging on.

No one knew how it happened. It just happened all of sudden.

The Great Falling.

Millions and millions of people suddenly collapsed for no apparent reason. Several doctors were on the various sites and they were just as baffled. One of them even said that all of the people who died should still be alive, even now.

No cause

No reason

Just A Great Falling.

Those that were left…..well some of them turned to religion because science had no answers. Those who were scientists continued to look for answers with the meager resources… at least so I heard anyway.

For myself, my family was among the fallen and for some unknown reason, I alone survived .

I was in the kitchen at the time. I was preparing a meal for my wife and my child. It was nothing special. Breakfast for dinner which was a family favorite. I finished the bacon, the eggs and the toast and loaded them all onto a serving plate and placed it in the center of the table. I had already placed the plates and silverware there and a pitcher of cold orange juice.

I didn’t notice anything at first.

I called my son to dinner and expected to hear his feet bounding down the stairs in anticipation. I also thought that would be enough to get my wife into the dining room; however there was nothing but an eerie silence. I frowned for a moment and I went to the bedroom first.

She was still under the covers as if she were asleep. When I tried to wake her, there was no movement at all. No response, no breath

Nothing..

I tried using what I knew about CPR.

Nothing worked.

I called 911 but I was on hold

I rushed upstairs and found my son also motionless and dead.

I stepped back from the room and collapsed in the hallway and leaned with my back against the wall and just collapsed. Part of me asked “why?” Part of me wanted to hit something.

If my wife had still been alive, we would have collapsed again into her waiting arms and we would have grieved together. I wanted that. I needed that. But both of them were just gone and the 911 operator was still unavailable.

I didn’t know how long I was up there and I just didn’t care. I heard myself say “The food is getting cold”. I may have said it more than once. As if that would do any good.

No life

No help

“Hello?”

My eyes opened in shock. I checked my phone, but I was still on hold. Then I realized that I was hearing someone through the doorbell cam. I made my way downstairs and opened the door

A pair of EMTs were there at my doorstep looking like zombies going through the motions of life. I was relieved at first but then t I saw multiple EMTs on the block all of them walking in with stretchers and some speaking to uniformed officers

These two came in without a word and walked through the house silently more like funeral attendants than EMTs.

“ Hey!”

They didn’t respond to me at all. I walked towards the dining room where one of them had gone and I happened to glance down at the table and what I saw filled me with horror. The toast looked stale, the scrambled eggs looked like rubber and bacon was totally cold.

“Mr.Jenkins?”

I turned and found a police officer at my door; his hat in hand.

“ Yes? What’s happening?”

“Mr. Jenkins, you are the first person we found alive. Could you come with me please?”

“Come with you? No.. my family… we’re about to have dinner”

He stared at me with those somber eyes that knew with absolute certainty.

He didn’t move and he didn’t blink

He stood there as if he were an executioner who had said :”It’s time”

“But…I made their favorite….breakfast for dinner…”

He bowed his head as I kept on babbling. Two other officers took me gently down the steps to a waiting vehicle and placed me in the back..

As we drove away from the neighborhood, I watched as the red light of the evening sun hit the sidewalks and I saw… the bodies.

Scattered upon the roads,

Sidewalks,

Patios

Tree houses and tire swings.

All lifeless.

Neighbors I had talked to only a few days ago

The friends I had made at the barbeque last month

The children who had always liked running through the sprinklers on a long summer day

All gone

“But…. I heard… nothing….nothing at all..”

I leaned forward and tapped on the glass in front of me. The officers in front ignored me until we arrived at the local high school where I saw a woman in tears looking at her right hand. As the officer opened the door for me, I could hear her

“We were just out for an evenin’ walk when…..” she trailed off not wanting to speak the words that would make it all real.

Another man was sitting on the steps to the gym with his head in his hands sobbing. “Don’t go!! Dammit, don’t go!!!!”

“Howard Jenkins?”

I turned and saw a bespectacled woman with brown hair, wearing a labcoat looking at me while holding a clipboard.

“Yes.” I murmured.

She looked me over, briefly. “Are you having any body aches, fever?”

I shook my head

“Any family?”

I stood there with my mouth hanging open.

The breakfast sitting on the empty table uneaten

The orange juice in a pitcher

Everything neatly arranged for an evening meal for my family

Just as it should be

Should be…

The woman looked down at her clip board and wrote something down on her clip board and said “next”

I was led into the gym lined with military cots, curtained partitions, lab techs and nurses taking pulses. I sat down on a cot and just watched everything around me.

I imagined what this place was like back in the day.

Filled with young people, playing basketball

Dreams of playing in the NBA to cheering crowds

Now it housed us. Those who were broken by the Great Falling

About a week later, all the bodies turned to dust.

Every single one

All at once

LIke the deaths, there was no explanation

No reason

Any answer we could have gotten was blown to the four winds.

So this is April 31 of whatever year this is and we’re all just…hanging on