Finis Epoch

        I was driving home in my little green compact car from one hell of a beach party, still weary and sleep deprived from the night before my eye lids hung low hidden behind sunglasses from the blaring July sun. The roads were clear, all traffic nonexistent, and I thought to myself how weird it seemed. I could see a large bridge spanning a wide river and still no sign of life as I approached the outskirts of a city.

While cresting the bridge I pulled on to the shoulder to take a picture of the skyline. Sitting in the car with my mind racing as it did most often an unexplainable sinking feeling hit my gut. Where the hell could everyone be? What ever the reason it could not have been good. I got out of my car and started slowly crossing the bridge.

        I looked up before jumping over the medium and realized there were no planes in the sky, or even a vapor trail and I couldn't help but notice again that it was a beautiful afternoon with the sun shining and a few large fluffy white clouds scattered across the sky. What the F*ck is going on I thought. Looking both ways before crossing the other side of the bridge I was hoping to see a car or two but there were none. I found myself standing at the edge of the bridge looking over a city with moderately sized sky scrapers and roads that wove between them in every direction. To my horror the city is somber and still. No movement no car horns, nothing. I leaned against the guard rail and strained my eyes to search for any sign of life.

        Then I saw him. From so far away I could just make out what I thought was a man standing in the center of a car lined street. He seemed to be watching me, so I waved and yelled. His response was an echoed guttural roar. The noise he made sent chills down my spine and the next thing I know the streets came alive with thousands of people running and weaving. They all came together and the edge of the city like an ocean of people. Then they charged the bridge splitting down the center and covering the exits on each side. I stepped back and looked frantically from side to side and as the first of them became visible. They moved ungodly fast.

        I was frozen with fear as an unending wave of bodies barreled toward me. I turned to the city watching as the golden sun started to fall behind the glass lines sky scrappers and snapped the photo I was looking for.

There was then a blinding flash that caused me turn away and cover my eyes. Peeking through my fingers I could see a wall of rubble a dust roaring toward me. The zombies were only 20 yard from each side of me as a wall of fiery death and destruction closed the gap. I felt a small pressure wave hit me, knocking me to the ground. The zombies staggered and stumbled over one and another, as I picked myself up. The unearthly explosion hurled cars and debris by me. There was nothing I could do but accept it my fate. The blast hit me and the zombies who were only a few feet away throwing us across the bridge as blinding light and burning heat engulfed us.

        I was sent tumbling threw the air as bodies and large chunks of cement went whipping by. Head over heel I flew threw the air smashing in to buildings like a cannon ball hurled threw the hall of a ship. Then everything went black.

        I awoke pinned under a large heap of smoldering rubble, nothing but a small light bleeding through the cracks and I knew I had to get myself free. I moved the rubble without much effort, almost as though I had super human strength. The light became stronger as I clawed tooth and nail to the top. I pushed the last bit of concrete carnage away and broke though to the surface. Everything was smoking and the bridge on which I stood had been scattered over miles in front of me. The city was razed, only a few building were left half standing. The sky was strange orange and purple colors, and a mighty mushroom cloud looking like the skeleton face of Death loomed over the destruction.

        Standing under a torched sky, every fiber of cloth burned from my smoldering chard body. I felt to pain and no fear as a radioactive dust blew past my feet. I began to weep for the lose of the world.

In that place I stayed for 3 days with no where to go and no one to find in a wasteland as far as my eyes could see.

        For 3 days I asked why.

        For 3 days I asked how.

        For 3 days I asked God.

        On the fourth day after no one answered I began to walk, bare as the day I bust screaming from my mothers whom. The ground was hot and the sky darkened with heavy gray clouds which churned like a hot spring. Lightning bolted from cloud to cloud colliding and crashing to the ground in great arcs of fire. Where houses once stood there were merely melted skeletons of plumbing, the only remnants of what had been. Burnt into the concrete streets were the shadows of men, women and children who were no more than dust in the irradiated winds of change.

        After 4 more days walk, my mind gave way to sorrow and disbelief. True loneliness fell upon my heart and mind after 7 days of not so much as a fly to keep me company. I sat right where I stood and began to wail for the loss of the world, as memory’s of family, friends, and past love tormented me. My sorrow did not last long as I looked toward the sky saw a break in the clouds. For 7 days I had not seen direct sun and my body did crave it's warming embrace.

        Sitting up I could see a bright beam of sunlight illuminating a small hill top upon which stood a tree. No tree I had ever seen looked so beautiful as this tree, it's bark was smooth and white, it's branches reached outward, not firm like other trees but fluent and soft as they danced with the wind. If a tree was to be my only friend than so be it. I did not race to the tree but kept my pace to a poignant walk. My eyes transfixed at this glorious vision of which I was sure was a hallucination, like a moth to a flame was I drawn.

        Stepping into the light my body became covered in goose bumps, every hair standing on end. I was covered in soot and ash so thorough that not an inch of my flesh was visible, yet I felt as though the sun was washing over my bare skin. I continued to walk looking up at the branches over head sparkling like crystal wands carefully dance amongst one and another. The wind whispered an angelic tone threw its branches and my heart did leap at it sound. My eyes were unwavering not even a blink could coerce them to break sight from it's majesty. The wind passing threw the trees branches began to whisper to me.

        “Look before you.” The wind called.

        My eyes slowly closed as my gaze dropped. The wet wash of my eyelids over the dry parched eyes felt nice but was nothing compared to the joy I felt as they opened.

       She was my exact height covered in soot from head to toe and the most beautiful women I have ever seen. I was drawn to her as a magnet is drawn to it's opposite and she to me. Neither of us said a word as we clung on to one and another with no thought to our nakedness. She laid her hear on my shoulder and wept glistening tears as I held her with strong arms. Rain drops fell on the mighty trees branches exploding with chiming notes like that of a harp being rained upon by tiny metal pellets.

        I looked past the light of the tree and could see the world around me being torched by fiery rain, each drop an exploitation of violent lava like fire. This sight did not scare me, so long as I stay in the light I would not perish. I looked into her eyes which were tinted red from her tears but still blue as a sapphires. The rain was now a hellish wind storm of fire consuming the land and the light from the tree grew so strong to protect us so that nothing could be seen but pure whiteness and each other.

        The tree's purity cleansed our bodies of not only of the ashy soot and dirt that covered the entirety of our bodies but also physical imperfections like scars and birth marks. We were as beautiful as man or women can be. She lay with her head on my chest, neither of us mournful or self conscious. Her eyes locked with mine as she looked up at me, so soft and lovingly inviting she need not say a word. Our bodies locked together as we writhed in euphoric pleasure. For how long we stayed there I could not say, as we feel into a deep trance, our bodies still entwined.

        We awoke to find ourselves under the same tree we had been before, but it's branches were no longer bare and sparse but full and vibrant, with silver leaves that chattered in the wind, and the ground beneath it was full of thick green grass. The world around us was full of color and vegetation as far as could be seen, and all assortment of animals ran about the land and birds did fly over head.

        She smiled to me a sweet and soft smile, and in utopia we did stay.