I have decided not to die.

Fourteen years of tumult. They burned in the streets, hanging from lampposts and spilling viscera through ragged wounds. Too many dead, too many maimed. Have you seen an angel appear before you? I watched it, saw it come down from heavens or something else above us. Above the rain, above the black clouds that never move away. It floats, like dandelions did when we had sun and wind, and days and nights. Have you seen an angel with its wings shimmering, and long fingers beckoning? I don’t know where it beckons, where else is left? I remember the taste of lemons and the smell of lavender, only faintly in the furthest reaches of my memory, before the war and the long winter, before I saw them butcher you.

There is no dawn nor birds to welcome it, only time and rain and endless night. I wake when I wake, among the ruins of it all I shut my eyes and hope that when I open them the skies will be blue and filled with birds, that maybe I’ve been sleeping for a while and this is like the dreams I used to have when I got sick. But I can still feel the rain, and I can hear the whine of eternity, so I open my eyes and begin again. I walk the shattered roads and and clamber over metal carcasses, split and rusting where they fell. Rust and blood smell terribly similar and there’s not much else of anything here, haven’t heard a voice in four years or so, my own included, things are bad enough without me going crazy talking to myself.

Have you ever had a twinkie? I don’t eat much else these days, there certainly isn’t any meat or vegetables in perpetual darkness, but there sure are a lot of these laying around, can’t say I’m too fond of them but its better than eating a wish, don’t get too many of them now neither. They released a new one just before it all went south, this one was semi futuristic, when you bit into it cream shot out filled your mouth but this time it had glitter, didn’t do much for the flavour, but everyone knew you’d had one. Have you ever seen someone eat glass? It’s not nice to see someone lose their mind, and starvation’s one of the worst ways to lose it. When it all broke out and we had to hide in the old city tunnels beneath the platform, well there wasn’t much left down there for us but a quiet place to die. Sometimes I think it would have been better to be vaporised up there like the rest of them, quicker by some distance and probably easier to stomach. Found him on the third week, huddled over on the ground groaning something terrible, spun round and stared at me when I put my hand on his shoulder and well its something difficult to even think about. He’d been forcing bits of car window into his mouth and shredding the flesh from his fingers in the process, his lips, his tongue, hanging thick and torn and bloody. Maybe he was lucky too, reckon I’ve seen a lot worse since then, the only comfort now is there’s no one left.

I’ve decided not to die though, I’ve been in conversation with a straight razor I found in the remnants of a Turkish barbershop, the debate has been ongoing and often ill tempered. I’ve kept my potential exit in my jacket pocket, until today. I will die when I die, no sooner than that, even in the ashes of history, starved and alone and cursed to remain that way, even waking in the dark with the sun never to rise, a life is a life and I am alive.