A Note From Someone Who’s Stuck

Hi. I’m stuck.

Where am I stuck?

I like to call it The End of Time.

But that’s just me being dramatic. It isn’t really the end of time. At least, I think it isn’t, since I’m still around. And the love of my life is, too, somewhere. We’re both stuck.

This is not a note of distress. I won’t ask anything of you. I won’t even ask that you read this. I just don’t know what else to do other than write it. In case you do read it, though, I’ll write to you like I’d write to a pen pal. That feels proper.

I’m sorry that you can’t write me back, but you can come find me if you want. I’m out there somewhere in the future because I can’t die. Neither can the love of my life. It’s how we got stuck in the first place. We’ll still be stuck when you find this.

* * *

Between you and me, friend, the two of us got stuck the day we were born.

Be grateful you can die. You were never stuck at all.

* * *

I write to you, as everything else has been written, from the farthest reach of time. Time has not gone any farther than it has now, as I write these words. By the time you read this, to everyone’s amazement, time will have dared to go even farther.

What a world we live in!

But you and I live in different worlds, right? Mine is my today and your yesterday. Yours is your today and my tomorrow. Do you wonder what it’s like where I am now? I always wonder what it’s like where you are, in the ever-running future.

Let me tell you about my today, your yesterday. Every morning, the sun comes up. Every night, it goes down. On some nights, the moon comes out. It looks different every time. And when it doesn’t come out, I can’t see shit.

The ocean is here, and so are the fish. I’ve seen some of them eat each other—chomp at the little guys with gory, jagged teeth. We call the big guys sharks. Do you have those still? I hope not. They scare me.

All the people I know are dead. Everywhere I go there isn’t anyone anymore. I don’t actually know how it happened. One day we woke up, took a look around, and it hit us. I remember the conversation well enough.

“Oh, shit,” the love of my life said. She was by the window of our scenic little house above the sea. Along the left side of our view, the cape stretched out into the city, where she was looking.

“What?” I asked her. I was doodling something in my notepad. A silly little face. I still like to draw them—they make me laugh. Sometimes they make her laugh, too.

She didn’t turn around. “When was the last time you talked to anyone?”

“I’m talking to you right now.”

“Someone other than me.”

“Um,” I lifted my pen to my mouth and gave this a good, honest think. I couldn’t remember. “I can’t remember,” I told her.

“Me neither.” She turned to face me. “Should we... check on them?” Them was how we’d refer to humanity, or at least the parts of it we could drive to. Don’t get me wrong, we all had plenty in common, it’s just that my love and I were so much older. We were human before they were, and that was a big enough difference to make them them, and us us. We still had friends from time to time, and we were never hateful. We were just different.

“Um, yeah, I guess we should,” I said. I stood up and grabbed the keys to our car.

Sure enough, we drove around the city, and no one was there.

“Shit,” I said.

“Shit,” she said.

I suggested, “Do you think it’s just here? Maybe there was... another plague... or something.”

“It could’ve been anything, honestly. I think this is another ‘World War, What?’ situation.”

And World War, What? referred to the first half of the twentieth century, when we were living in the arctic. That was a fun stint. It was cold outside and we were cozy inside. We saw nobody else. Then, in the ‘50’s we moved back to society, and we found out that we missed not one, but two world wars. They dropped two atom bombs at the very end—one for each war. All of them could’ve died, and we would’ve missed it.

The name we gave that mishap came from a dinner party. Someone was talking about World War II—it was the first we’d heard of it—and the love of my life interjected with the query, “World War, what?”

They actually died this time, and we missed it. We poked around far and wide. No one’s here anymore.

What happened? Beats me. We would’ve looked it up online, but the Internet was gone by the time we got curious. And no one printed anything on paper anymore, not even the news, so we couldn’t read about it at all.

* * *

A word of advice to you, the person and people of the future: make your Internet immortal, and print everything on paper. We and your children will be very grateful when you’re gone.

* * *

Life got pretty hard for us after we found out everyone died. The love of my life and I had spent plenty of time together and plenty of time alone, but during all of that there were people to keep us alive. Then the people were dead, or something of the sort, and we had to get busy without them.

Not the “repopulate” kind of busy. We couldn’t do that for a number of reasons—both ethical and biological. No, we just had to try not to get bored while evolution cooked up a new batch of humans. It was hard to do that since we’d already been around for forever. We’d made so much art, played so many games, taken so many trips, but all of that was with the crutch of people against us. If anything ever felt lame, if we were ever scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to do, we could pack up our stuff and see what was going on with humanity. With them, there was always something new.

That said, a lack of people drove us both a little crazy, in our own ways.

We’re spending some time apart.

Now I’m here. I’m stuck. Time has ended. Nothing matters because nothing is happening. Or at least, that’s how I’ve felt. I wouldn’t say I’m right with any certainty. I wouldn’t say I’m right about anything, really. Oldness never brought me much wiseness. I’m not sure why anybody believed it would. None of the old people I ever knew could tell wisdom from bullshit, and neither could I.

Age led us to so much, and none of it made us wiser.

* * *

Remember that, friend.

Age does not lead to wisdom.

No one knows what does.

* * *

I was depressed today. It isn’t the first time it’s happened since the death of people, and it isn’t the first time it’s happened since before then. I’m only human. But in spite of my poor state of mind, my day took a turn, and I had to start writing, to vent.

I realized something while I was gardening. Even though I don’t have to eat, I do like to keep a garden. It’s fun to eat sometimes, and I’d prefer to eat plants. As far as I can tell, they don’t have thoughts to think, and I try not to eat things that think. Plants and I work well together for that reason.

So there I was, kneeling in the dirt. I had a little spade in my hand. I don’t remember what crop I was tending to, even though it was just today. I can’t even remember my own name. Memories are wishy-washy like that when you’re as old as me.

But what I do remember is that I had this crop in my hand, and I was thinking about how I was going to cook it later. I was looking forward to that. My mouth was watering. Then I thought about how, if I found out the crop could think—if it were in some way a person—I would feel guilty. I would feel so guilty that I’d entirely flip my plans for it. I’d pull her and all her friends out of the ground and get them inside. I’d talk to them.

“You’re alive!” I’d scream. Guilt would become joy. This was a gift I couldn’t waste. “What do you want from all this?!”

“Huh, mister?” they’d say in squeaky little voices. “We’re... alive?”

“Yes! And now you can work towards anything! Anywhere you want to go! Anyone you want to be! Anything you want to feel! Isn’t that exciting!?”

Then they’d nod shyly and smile. “I guess so, yeah... W-w-what should we do?”

“Well... I’m not sure,” I’d tell them. “There’s so much we can start with.” Then I’d look out my window, see the city on the left, the sea on the right. “I could take you to the ocean?”

“The ocean?”

“Yeah, the ocean! It’s huge—even more huge than the land. It’s a deep, deep blue, and its waves sound like mother nature whispering a lullaby.” I’d double check the window, see the sun about to go down. “If we hurry, we’ll see the sun set. It makes the clouds look like they’re exploding in purples and pinks and oranges!”

“Yeah!” the crops would shriek. “Let’s do it! Let’s go live the ocean and the sun!”

I cried a little bit after my daydream. I realized how much I wanted my damn crops to come alive. I realized that, if they did start thinking, they would have mattered. They would have mattered to me. I realized that all those people mattered to me, and even if I wasn’t here for them to matter to, they would have mattered all on their own. I realized that my life is nothing without people, and that even here, alone, bored, dried up of any damn thing to do, I’d be doing nothing with my life if I wasn’t trying to do it with people.

* * *

So I feel sad today, but also resolved. I’m writing this note to you, friend, my pen-pal of the future, because I needed someone to listen to the story of my day, among other things. Thank you for that. I won’t be writing again.

I’m leaving now to find the love of my life. I’m done with the break. I’m going to tell her how I feel, and I’m going to see how she feels. She’s the only person I have left, the only person I’ve ever really had, and more than anything else, I want to show her the ocean again.

Please believe me when I tell you that people are everything, and please don’t forget to keep hard copies of important documents.

Bye.