April 4th

I don’t know what signals the end of the world: the fact that my blender will never work again or the fact that I’ve decided to start writing in a journal. My Mom says it will help relieve myself of all the stress, but so do computer games, and I don’t hear anyone telling me to do that... Maybe that’s because my computer stopped working two days ago.

If I really need to spell it out for whoever decided to pick up some dumb high schooler’s journal, I will. On April 1st I was kicking back on my gamer chair in north Chicago when my lightbulb burst to pieces. Boom. I put down my golf magazine and flushed the toilet before staring out the window and realizing that all of Chicago had turned off at the same time.

It was a nice change of pace for a while, but nothing turned back on. It was like all the electricity everywhere had just... stopped working. Cars stood like statues in the streets. I moved to the pantry and fished out one of our flashlights, flipping the switch on and off. Nothing.

My Mum and I managed to leave our apartment before everything fell into chaos. You’d think that the loss of electricity would bring the world closer together, but man, at this point I’d say it was the only thing keeping us from falling apart. Literally two days later a local gang got their hands on some real shady stuff in the resulting power vacuum.

May 15th

Yeah I’m back. Kind of. I mean, it’s pretty impressive that I even came back to this journal at all. Everything has kind of gone to pot. Me and my Mum managed to leave the Hellscape of Chicago, but it turns out that people are kind of savage without electricity. Who knew? Heh.

Mum says it’ll get better. God is in the details of our lives yeah? I’m just grateful we found access to a spring before anybody else took it over. Fights over clean water have gotten pretty bad. Who knew it would happen so soon? I’m just here asking a whole bunch of questions that I don’t know the answers to, but I’ll come across the answer soon.

May 18th

It's raining and everything is the worst.

May 21st

She made the beans again today. Again. Part of me wants to tell her that I’ve always hated them, but when I see the look on her face it just puts me in my place, ya know?

June 3rd

We've taken refuge inside a treehouse. I always said I wanted one as a little kid, but my Mum said it was too dangerous. Who's laughing now?! Well. No one is really. It's hard, watching people I once knew walk down these rough roads with dirt-lined faces. It's like everyone aged twenty years in two months.

But every once in a while, I'll see them crack a smile and let out a laugh. It makes you look up at the blue sky and feel the breeze on your face. You begin to remember how amazing life really is.

July 24th

I can list about a thousand things that I lost when the world ended. My A/C, gaming console, sweet computer setup, and one really ninja blender. But along with a newfound poetic mind (it makes me cringe at times), I've gained about a billion treasures that matter more to me now. I can see them every time I lay down at night - useless blender next to me - and stare through that darn hole in our treehouse roof. Stars. I never truly knew what they looked like. I aso finally realized one of the brightest of their kind always gives me her extra blanket.

The world is dangerous still, but maybe it's a world I can live in with a vision unclouded.

I'm alone; with only thoughts and memories. I watched as the world grew dim, until the last of its light flickered out and plunged it into complete darkness. Silence, the beat of my heart pounded in my ears as I waited, with breath abated for a sign, but days, weeks went by, months, before I gave up hope. Life in the most barest sense still seems to continue on even without the sign of artifical light; the sun still rises and sets but what goes on down there I can't ever know.

I talk to myself a lot these days; I can't tell if its to soothe or to torment myself. Since losing contact with Earth I've lost the only contact I have with the world. Alone. I wait. Is this madness or loneliness? Sometimes I want to throw myself against a wall just to feel something other than despair. Why am I here, wasting away while everyone I ever loved will fade to dust. To never hug them, touch them, inhale them, hear them. To know that there are people, so close yet so far far away is the most painful thing of all.

I know it's not my fault and there's nothing I can do but I hate myself for not being able to do anything but just watch; helplessly. I watch every day, in hopes for a sign, a light.

I need to go home. I need to know what happened.

There you go again

Teasing me with those eyes

Always trying to find a reason

Babe, don't let yourself lie

You can't run away

Don't leave me in the dust

Eventually I'll catch up to you

To have you is a must

You'll never know how much I love you

But until you do

Let the music guide me

I'll just follow the signs to you

You've put me on this journey

I'm on a one way ride to you

It's about the ride

Not knowing where it leads

I'm hoping you'll be waiting for me

Until then Ill just drive

You make it so hard

But worth every moment

And for every sin and atonement

You're the guide to my heart

You'll never know how much I love you

But until you do

Let the music guide me

I'll just follow the signs to you

You've put me on this journey

I'm on a one way ride to you

There once was a lady named Pat

Whose hat was made from a cat?

The dogs in the area

Saw nothing as scarier

As Pat with her cat as a hat

If you want to get ahead, get a hat!

©Julian Race 11/07/2021

42 likes, 25 re posts and read 325 times and did not win the challenge! The winner had 8 likes!

Yes. You are right. I am a killer. And I, like my victims, deserve to die... at least in my opinion.But my view isn't objective and neither is yours or anyone else's. It's a view, and there are different views, thousands, sometimes. However, there are times when only one point of view is relevant.

We all have an addiction. For some, it's coffee and for others, it's alcohol. Some can handle their addiction, some don't even know their addiction and others are surrounded by their addictions on a daily basis, which makes it hard to resist. Imagine it being like sugar. If you were addicted to sugar, could you stop? Sugar is almost in every product you consume. And now imagine that you can smell that sugar wherever you go. It would drive you crazy, wouldn't it? And now imagine the sugar saying stupid things that don't even make sense, and all you can think is "shut up."At least that's what I think about right now.

The guy standing in front of me had no idea what he was talking about. And when I look around, I see that everyone else knows. But he is the boss's son and, apparently, that gives him the right to waste our time. Well, maybe after tonight, he will think twice about the time he is wasting. If he had the ability to waste anyone's time after tonight...Or if he could think. I wish I could kill him right now. My hands began to shake, and it took all of my energy and focus not to kill him right now. Not to cut his throat.

When I looked away, I saw her. She was beautiful, but that wasn't why I admired her. You can see the brilliance in her eyes. And all my senses were calmed when I smelled her perfume in the air. For a moment, I forgot my wish to kill the people in this room and I focused only on her. Nobody had ever done anything like what she had done for me. It was simple, but beautiful. A small gesture that meant everything to me.

For a moment, I wish we could be two people who are driving around at midnight, going out for a snack or driving into the woods on the weekends. But that will never happen. She would never want to be with me.

A close friend, Michael is his name, died from ingesting too many pills at one time in 1991.

I was asked by his family, as his closest friend to say a few words. As he was Catholic, the priest wouldn't, as in his eyes and the eyes of the church, taking one's own life was considered a sin. This is roughly what I said.

It's good to see so many of you here. I'm sure Mike would have been not only pleased, but surprised to see so many people here to pay their respects.

We all know Mike was far from the perfect person. He tried, but he did do one thing right, and that was raise three daughters to be independant, and to never back down when right. Stand your ground, he would often say.

I've know Mike the better part of twenty years and never once did I not see him try to help someone if they needed help. The old give the shirt off his back, Mike. He would give money when he could to those in need and never look for that to come back to him.

We also know how much Mike liked his weed. I stopped by a friend's house one day and Mike was sitting in the middle of the living room, toking away and he had that glazed, kicked back happy look in his eyes. He had smoked at least half a dozen joints while I was there and to be honest, I thought I was getting a contact high.

I looked at him and said, You know something, Mike, you could own a marijuana field, acres and acres of the stuff and smoke all of it and then later say, wow! I could have been rich!

You know what he said?

He said, Yeah, but where I end up going one day I can't take it with me, so might as well enjoy it while I can.

And that's about the best takeaway I can give all of you. Enjoy what you have now. Mike did.

I won't swear to this, but if he's looking down at us, or, looking up, he's in a place he feels comfortable, and probably smoking his ass off right now.

But he left a piece of himself with all of us. He touched so many lives, never once asking for anythiung in return. If it came back to him, so be it. If it didn't, then it didn't.

Mike, the father, Mike, the friend, and Mike, if you are listening, damn you for leaving us the way you did, but you did so on your terms and for that I can't fault you.

But buddy, you will be missed.

** Photo is 35 years old

I regret not walking you home that night. I regret our fight, your tears, and the phone I left on silent. If only I had cared enough to shut out my own emotions for yours. If only I had taken the bottle out of your hands sooner. I don't regret meeting you. Or falling in love with you. They were the best years of my life. I simply regret myself. And having to make you burden my pain. I wish you were still here, even if it isn't with me. And most of all, I wish I could fix my regrets.

I remember once upon a winter night, you and I. We snuck away from home, escaping to the sea. You always loved the sea.

You told me, that night, that the sea was your freedom. Your liberty, your escape. I asked you what you meant, but you only smiled into your bottle of lemonade. I let it be. I should have demanded an answer. I could have helped you.

Why didn’t you tell me then?

The sea was- no, is still your favourite. I wonder if you would have said the same in a few years as we grew up.

You were running along the shore, barefoot, with pants rolled up and light laughter fading into the night as you sprinted further away.

I ran after you. I tried to catch up, but I was always one step behind, watching your footprints be wiped away by the rising tide, the water lapping at your heels.

You kept running. Eventually, I ran out of energy. I forfeited the chase, but you kept going like you would die if you ever stopped. I asked you to stop and when you turned around for a brief moment, I saw the faint tear lines reflect in the moonlight and the look of pure terror on your face.

I shut up. I let you go.

What were you running from, Alec? Was it me? Was it stress? Work? Love, or life itself? Were you sad? Were you afraid? Why did you keep running?

Since you’ve been gone, people act odd around me. They look at me as if I was going to implode. They treat me like a fragile porcelain doll, whereas they used to give me hell for loving you the way I did. And now you’re gone, now you’ve traded in your life for this awkward, thick silence I condemn the world for.

You may have found your peace, but I will never know what you were running from that night.