Vacant Garden

Looking below, I saw nothing but shadow when their forms emerged from within it, spinning and spiraling around each other as they slowly plunged into the void below, flashes of light illuminating the mist, their black cloaks billowing and gleaming as they descended further and further downward towards the earth as if children descending a tower. Layers of stars spun in dance around them like gears of a clock. The cry had been heard. The Cities rejoiced and danced.

I gave up my breath.

---

I can’t tell you the day or the month, because time doesn’t matter anymore. The snow has finally melted though. It must be early spring. The sound of the birds reminds me of Summers spent at the house in Westerly. I’m not certain of the year, maybe 2036, 37.

Like I said, I guess time doesn’t matter.

Besides the birds, I haven’t seen any wildlife in over a week, it’s not a good sign. The last time I saw her, or anyone, was probably two years ago. I still wear the heart locket over my heart, my fingers trace and retrace its shape when I need to stop thinking. When I try to remember the Summers.

I ran out of clean water yesterday, and I don’t know if I can get myself all the way down to the river. There’s only a few more weeks left of the cans of food, I feel the fire in my guts. There was blood in my cough. It probably won’t be long. There’s no more running for me.

If this is ever found, this is so you’ll know what has happened. How far we had fallen.

I assume I’m not the only one, but I can’t think about it too much.

---

None of it should have been a surprise.

Our world grinded to a halt for the first time decades ago, in September as the towers fell. I was in history class, but our teacher wouldn’t let us watch the television in the room until we all adamantly protested.

It didn’t matter who our enemies were, crises are not things to waste, and our leaders would not waste them. They said they needed to do whatever they wanted. We gratefully agreed, and solemnly carried on.

Black hoods, black vans, black helicopters, black rooms, black sites. Countless tortured. Drones killing fifty men, women, and children at a wedding to take out one target. Black budgets to view us through glass houses. They dismantled the safeguards.

Those who could see where it leads; tried to warn us. As always; they were seen as crazy. Looking back, it was always textbook.

It all came home.

We danced on our screens, upon a fragile utopia. The triumphant symphony of bliss and euphoria before the cold night. Time was ticking. The glass would finally shatter.

---

We grinded to a halt again as the pandemic arrived out of nowhere.

I met her to warn her that it was coming here. We feasted and drank at the bustling restaurant while she shook her head in disbelief. “This sounds like a movie.” Three days later, all the sports ended their seasons suddenly, the dominoes began falling again.

We all held our breath, suspended in disbelief for a year. Time frozen. Left with only ourselves. The first taste of a new world we’d never known.

In forced reflection, we began to see behind the curtain of the world we had always known. Open executions on the pavement. Breath stolen. We exploded into the streets in pursuit. We would not stop until the end.

The Summers returned tho. Despite new shadows in our hearts and in our heads, we solemnly continued. We began to rejoice again. We began to dance.

---

I managed to drag myself down to the side of the river, and rest on the bank with my feet in the cool water. I was able to bring a few days of food, but that was all I could manage to carry. I don’t know if I’ll be able to return back up to the house. The bleeding has gotten worse. I always knew it would come to this, I’ve been prepared for this.

She came to me in my dream last night.

She said the plan had worked. She said I could finally find peace. I could finally let go.

---

The bankrupting Empire stretched across the globe in wars with no end, the indefinite vengeance, indefinite purges. We paid for it, but struggled to pay for roofs above our heads, and food on our tables. Every evening we came up for air and escaped into bliss, dreaming of another world.

They quietly overtook us. When legislation was put in place allowing any of us to be taken, it was barely reported. It was the roaring golden age of social entertainment, it made content easy to hide.

When the juggling act of the teetering Economy could no longer be disguised behind flashes of bread and circus, it finally collapsed. The State came down on our heads along with it. The currency fell 70 percent in one day. Riots in the streets. Troops in the streets.

Everyone saw it now. We were on the verge of a global revolution. The system could be, must be overturned. Reborn. Our Utopia reclaimed, granted, grounded.

It was biblical. Fire, storms, earthquakes, war, terror, famine, disease, our own custom made climate emergency. Violence in the streets, financial catastrophe, technology we had birthed that swallowed us whole in ways completely unforeseen.

Still we longed for heaven on earth. We threw ourselves onto our knees on the pavement to see it touch down.

Desperate to cling to control, the final opponent was revealed. Us.

They demonized the leaders of the protests as they always do, they tried to set them up and frame them. The numbers in the streets grew into multitudes. They worked like wind to snuff out the resistance, it only fanned it like wildfire. The Civil Wars.

Everywhere.

---

With the safeguards removed, there was nothing holding them back. Perhaps they couldn’t help themselves. We were all now enemies of the State. When the roundups started, they tried to keep it quiet. Rumors of the camps spread even faster.

The currency collapse brought the whole world down with it. Global authorities declared their solution. Global currency, and the global union. The final stability was promised and assured.

War.

The Middle East went up like tinder. Everyone soon followed.

The unthinkable.

A weapon made it through.

Not underground, from space we were told.

New York City.

New York City was the first.

After that everything might as well have gone dark.

There’s not many records. My hand shakes even now writing this. Our unraveling would be complete.

The pandemonium set in fast.

Faster to the rulers. Their final Darwinian delusion.

They made us their prey. Survival of the fittest, they would destroy us the weaker, and graduate to the solar system, ascend to the stars. Our world a flower plucked and discarded. We finally realized they had never stopped thinking themselves gods. Caesar changed costumes. All the world a stage. They pulled back the curtain themselves. It quietly began, and it came at us from all directions, radiation, plague, food, water, air. How was it a surprise.

Instead, they only brought down everything with them.

---

I lay my head back on the bank of the river and look at the stars. Maybe for the last time. I don’t know what tomorrow will hold. I don’t know if tomorrow will come. I know that no matter what they say, yesterday can be redeemed, and today can never be taken away. It lives forever. I’ve always believed in a Future that can swallow any past whole. I surrender.

---

The winds must have changed.

This is it.

None of this had to happen.

None of this has to happen.

---

I am this future.

I am the nightmare.

I am the extinguishing.

I am the dying of the light.

The collapse of dream into nightmare.

Summers turned to dust.

You must choose otherwise.

She and I came back here to warn you.

Choose life, choose love.

Call the Guardians.

You are the guardians.

Put. Me. Down.

Rejoice and dance.