Apocalypse: a love story

 

I spend my days in mindless chain-of-thoughts in the hope of brewing some compelling story. But sadly – most of the time, I end up fixing my reality instead. I try to change the endings of each encounter I ever had or will have with people I have either lost or am afraid to lose. Thank god, my dreams give me hope that my subconscious is still good at sewing fiction.

So, today I bring to you excerpts from a dream – I woke up in the middle of exactly when the clock was about to strike two in the dead of night.

I have a strong urge to note this dream down in my dream journal before I lose it to mindless mundane days or fuzzy sleepless nights. (Yes, I have a dream journal.)

Here goes…

It was the end of the world; at least it felt like that to me. Or maybe it was one of those abandoned sets of a sci-fi movie where destruction had taken over, and the plot was waiting for some miraculous recovery twist.

Vaguely eying one ruin after the other, I knew I was maneuvering myself in a lifeless world. All that surrounded me was – barren land, burnt trees, rust-clad cars, smoke covered sky. You got the picture, right?

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention the scorching heat piercing the smoke brutally.  Of all this nothingness surrounding me, I knew one thing – I had come to the future – a time nearing its end. I was desperately looking for a single sign of life – be it a mouse or a human, I had no preference.

After wandering, I reached a place that would have been a dynamic bus stop in its glory. But now, it was a junkyard. What could I possibly find here, I thought to myself?

To my amazement, I saw a moss-covered minibus. Life – there it was gleaming in its beauty.

I ran as fast as I could to step onto the bus. Touching the handle entangled in moss felt like holding a lost friend’s hand. I was happy beyond measure.

I hopped in to see a... h-u-m-a-n ... An actual guy sleeping!

He looked so peacefully pleasant. I had never seen any human as beautiful as him. Was he some angel guarding this place?

His hair, his beard, his long-curled lashes were gleaming in a perfect shade of ombre.

I had stoped against the running time, with my head tilt, eyes wide, and jaw dropped. I was staring at him like a five-year-old eyeing a box of candy.

‘I don’t stare at guys.’ I hit my head to bring myself to my senses. In my heart, I knew he was literally the last man on earth. What would be the odds that he is the one for me?

I laughed, knowing that even if he is not the one for me, this will mark the end of my quest of waiting for the one.

I didn’t stay. I knew I must leave, and I did that gracefully.

Walking away from the last sign of life without letting him know that I too exist in this post-apocalyptic world felt wrong.

I searched for some fancy leaf or petal on this mother-nature-blessed bus. And, luckily, I found lavenders.

I plucked a few sticks and went back inside, and kept them on his nightstand. I bid him farewell with the hope he would find me.

I must have walked a few kilometers away when my phone beeped.

Strange… even a catastrophe didn’t disrupt the cellular network.

It was an Instagram request. I opened the notification.

“The-last-man-on-earth has sent you a follow request,” it read with a display picture of a few lavender sticks laying on a nightstand and a hand holding a red rose.

By the way, in this post-apocalyptic world, Instagram had quite some upgrades. You could drag profile out of the screen into a three-dimensional world. One-click on any picture, and you could teleport yourself there.

Yes, I was back on the bus.

There he was, standing with a rose in his hand and wearing a heart-melting smile.

Instagram could also show me the future in its reels. I knew I would be laughing and talking to this guy to my heart’s content.

“You are so charming.”, I said.

And on that note, I woke up.

Yeah, it’s still me – the same hopeless romantic who just realized that even after meeting the last man on earth,  could not figure out if he is the one.

Maybe he wasn’t the one either. If he had, I would have slept for a while again.

Yeah, that’s an incomplete dream for you.

Sadly, accepting an unfinished end in the middle sometimes is the best we can do.

PS: After reading this write-up before I published it, I now know this guy was Chris McCandless sleeping peacefully in his magic bus (number 142).

There there, he left this world just when I came into being. Guess I have lost my chance of finding one true love.

I read the other day – sorry, I didn’t read; I saw a meme that read…

“I think my soulmate has died.”

I feel mine did in that magic bus.

Shuja Tasleem

Image source: Google and Unsplash