I am sitting in my silence,

Waiting for a sign.

Waiting for a whisper,

Hoping for the divine.

I am thinking of my questions,

Wonders far and wide.

What of the world and reality,

What further from this divide?

I am standing in my sullenness,

Praying for amends,

Soaking in my temperance,

Of which I long for end.

I am breathing in new prospects,

Exhaling those that failed,

Remembering through it all,

That it was endurance that prevailed.

When I lost you,

I found a new companion.

He was there in your absence.

I'd never met him before, in your presence.

He was there, when you left,

Holding my hand, too firmly, but firm.

He hovers over my shoulder,

Whispers in my ear.

I didn't acknowledge him at first.

He was a stranger, someone who'd knocked on my door when I was still shocked, too shocked,

To do anything else but wander and watch and wait,

And wonder,

If you would ever come back,

Or if you'd just sent this stranger into my life,

To atone for the fact that you can no longer be the shadow at my side.

He wears a black tuxedo, sometimes a trench coat.

He doesn't smile, doesn't talk.

But his silence says more than you ever did.

I have conversations with him.

Him and his wordless speech,

And we talk for hours on end.

I haven't known him for long,

But somehow he knows my thoughts, my feelings, my secrets.

He knows how I cry--messy, pathetic sloppy tears that stain my face and run like broken, crooked violin strings.

He knows I never sleep, and that when I do, nightmares join me in bed.

He knows it's a struggle to wake up,

That I drag myself like a warden drags a prisoner or an executioner drags an accused to the guillotine.

He knows how I sit in front of a cold breakfast,

With dry eyes exhausted from inundated nights.

With red and swollen and empty eyes and a red and swollen and empty heart,

Shoulders bowed over a broken vessel,

Arms unmoving at my side,

Like dead, stranded things.

He is there when I have waited so long that the tears do come again,

One, two quietly down my cheeks,

Around the brim of my mouth,

Into my lips, where I can taste my grief.

It's salty and bitter and black,

But it's the only thing I taste,

The taste of your absence.

He is with me through the day and the night,

Never faltering, always in reach,

Always a breath or a choked sob away.

He has become the shadow at my side,

The confidante to secrets already known,

The reminder that you were once here,

But will never come back.

He has become both stranger and savior,

Both friend and foe.

The one thing constant with my thoughts.

He has become my grief.

Day 1

2:35 a.m.

I'm not sure why I've taken to writing. It's a historian's sport, something people do when they know someone else will read it. No one will read what I write. My words will die with me, just like the rest of humanity.

But still I write.

I never imagined this would be how the world would end. I wasn't a brutal skeptic before the apocalypse, nor was I one of the radical doom preparers either. It came slowly, at first. The disease tested the human population, tasted it, taking a few, a curious temptress. Then when it liked our flavor, it struck. Waves of people fell. We watched them on the news, near our homes, in public, as neighbors, within our own families.

It was a carnal thing. Their bodies decayed first. Of course death claimed them afterwards. Death would have been a blessed thing. Death would mean discontinuance, an end, salvation, mercy. But we weren't that fortunate.

You'd watch your love ones fester away. The compassionate ones sat at their bedsides and held their moldering hands. The cautious ones kept them in quarantine, or behind locked doors. The smart ones ended their lives when the infection began.

Everyone has their own sob story. Survivors could flood the earth with their teary recollections. Would a flood be better? It would wipe out all the brain hungry creatures. It would take the survivors as well, but sacrifices have to be made, don't they? Wouldn't it be better to die drowning than at the jaws of one of those inhuman beasts?

Zombies. That's what they call them. I never thought I would live in a world where zombies existed. But then again, I never thought I would be the one to bury my father, to shoot my mother, to hack apart my brother. I never thought I would torch my neighbors house, or loot a grocery store, or be forced to eat rotting flesh.

I was one of the ones to hide in the house. I boarded up the windows. I fitted the doors with locks. I sealed myself into my own coffin.

I stopped with the radio broadcasts, the graphic news segments, the army of blog posts. I kept myself in silence. I didn't want to hear anymore of it.

I found a bucket of bleach in my house. It would be so easy--pop the lid, take a sip, end it all. It would be painless. I wouldn't have to look into the bottomless eyes of one of those monsters. I wouldn't have to feel their teeth rip into me, their decaying hands on my skin.

I remember I reached for the bleach bucket. My hands came around the handle.

But something inside me said otherwise.

I dropped the bleach and picked up a gun. No more hiding. I would fight.

We are gathered round this table,

On a day of sweaters and homes warmed by roasting turkeys,

To sit with the people we love,

To eat without worrying about having enough.

Whether by passing the casserole,

Or passing a kind word.

Sharing stories as rich as homemade pie,

Details buttery and flaky with laughter.

Pouring gravy for a friend,

Pouring qualms into the kitchen sink for ruminating over,

When the dishes are washed,

And enjoyment is scrubbed clean from empty plates.

We settle down around those we love.

We remember why we celebrate,

What we have to be thankful for,

Knowing quite well this could be the last great meal that we have,

We still smile,

Because for the moment everything is alright.

We are gathered round this table,

On a day of sweaters and homes warmed by roasting turkeys,

To sit with the people we love,

To eat without worrying about having enough.

Whether by passing the casserole,

Or passing a kind word.

Sharing stories as rich as homemade pie,

Details buttery and flaky with laughter.

Pouring gravy for a friend,

Pouring qualms into the kitchen sink for ruminating over,

When the dishes are washed,

And enjoyment is scrubbed clean from empty plates.

We settle down around those we love.

We remember why we celebrate,

What we have to be thankful for,

Knowing quite well this could be the last great meal that we have,

We still smile,

Because for the moment everything is alright.

Monologue

I never meant to hurt you. But maybe my intentions are worthless at this point.

I don't think I'll ever understand why you still have faith in me, why you still smile when I walk past you, why you still hold me close and kiss the top of my head and whisper how much you love me.

And it doesn't make sense to see my backstabbing returned with an embrace as the knife slides deeper.

You call me your daughter, but I know I will never deserve the title. You still call me so, and with love in your voice, not hate. That's what hurts me the most.

I suppose it's a fitting punishment to see you so dedicated to someone so selfish and wicked. Every kiss and every laugh and every hug is a stab. I deserve the pain.

But you don't.

And the thing is that you know of my betrayal. You know what I've done, what I've hidden, what I've failed to do. You know I've been a liar and monster and a twisted excuse for a daughter.

And still, why can't you scream at me? Why can't you curse and slap and spit in my face? Why can't you hate me the way I deserve to be hated?

I want you to yell and scream and shout and throw every wretched insult you know at me. I want you to slam the door in my face and scream out how you hate me and how you want to forget my name and the way I hurt you over all those years.

But you don't.

You smile and you hold me close and you promise the two of us will make it through together. Even after my broken promises. Even after I've betrayed you again and again and again. You still come to my bedside at night and say you love me. You still hold my hand and whisper that it's all going to be okay.

I want you to hate me for all that I've done.

But you still love me.

They found the two bodies in the middle of the day. One at the foot of a building and another at the top. Discovery hadn't been at a romantic midnight hour. It hadn't been heralded with the mawkish cries of a weak-stomached passerby. Nor had it been accompanied by an anxious crowd of onlookers.

A man in a black coat had come to the scene. He looked upon both bodies without the expected shock of most people, taking in the graceless way their limbs had frozen in motion, the stillness of their petrified bodies, now cool like Icelandic waters and equally as rigid.

He pressed two fingers to the one woman's wrist, to a point just below a wheel shaped scar. He didn't have to touch the other woman to know she was dead.

The man slid both hands into his black pockets. He stood facing the nonexistent breeze with his gently receding hairline catching the brunt of the stagnant alleyway air.

He gave a slight nod, to no one in particular, and then removed his hands from his pockets and walked away. The bodies would be gone by tomorrow. The deed was complete and the memory of the two women would disappear with their bodies.