Watching The World Alone

By Zoé Daoust

The world wasn’t always this quiet. Once, there were the unending sounds of automobiles going to and fro with great haste. Their tires screeching, horns honking all around. The bird song was rarely clearly heard, and yet now, it’s one of the few noises in my city. The sounds of people chatting and laughing, screaming, crying, or shouting about their goods used to float up from below. It annoyed me at the time, but without it, the world seems empty and sad. 

Ever since people began dying by the thousands from some unknown disease, we hid ourselves away. I haven’t seen another human being since I was ten, almost six years ago now. I remember looking down from our apartment’s balcony and watching the little cars and ant-like people below, just people-watching to my heart’s content. Now I’m lucky if I see a stray cat, or a dog every once in a while. 

My family was infected when I was nine. 

I nearly was too, but my neighbor carried me away. Some days I wish he hadn’t. 

The unaffected were sent away to bunkers and spread across the globe by the government not long after. That was the last I saw of them. 

I miss my family, especially my little sister, she would have been fourteen today. June 14th, 2028. We would have had cake, double chocolate, her favourite, with little chocolate chips forming the number fourteen to signify her age. 

My family never liked having candles on our cakes. It seemed unsanitary. Looking back it seems funny we were so grossed out by it though. I mean, I’m lucky now if I get clean once a month, what’s a little spit on my food? 

After the cake, we would have had her sit on the floor of our living room and then passed her presents one by one. Mom and Papa would give theirs, then it’d be my turn, and I would pass her the gift, hoping desperately that she’d like it. Maybe I would have given her a locket, like the heart-shaped one I carry about my neck. It would have been filled with pictures of our family, and she could have added some of her friends. Or a significant other in later years. 

I got up and walked away from the balcony of the skyrise I was hiding out in, as the sun hid showed its final rays,  and headed towards my bedroom. 

Maybe one day I’ll see my family again, when I die. Or start my own, I thought with a bitter laugh, if I ever see another human. 

By Zoé Daoust