hey! me again.

Dear World,
Long time no speak, eh? Guess we both got a bit busy.
But I'm here now, with a little something. A little blend of boredom, homesickness, humour and itchy fingers. So enjoy, and say hi to the family for me.
Love,
S

Not A Bang. Not A Whimper. Just Cliche.

It feels like the apocalypse, but she knows better. It's the train that gives it away: civilization. The dead and the undead don't travel. Still, it is desolate here, at the edge of everything. She can't silence the voice in her brain that says THERE IS BEAUTY HERE, but she can ignore it. In her heart today there is room for the lonely and the sad. She has no time for the beautiful.
So this is how the world really ends, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a resounding cliché. Really? she thinks. A half-empty motel on the outskirts of town, its entrance sign hanging by a hinge, its street ending in a highway and a stretching marsh. Only Norman Bates is missing, and she hasn't looked above the office yet.
And when the train passes it sounds close, too close. She can't see its passage in the dark, but she can picture it ripping through the wall in a terrible, fatal parody of Strawberry Subway Jam.
And when the heating clinks on it sounds like something is tapping from inside the vent, seeking escape. Who needs to sleep anyway.
And when she looks out the window it starts to rain. Cold, heavy, like now the sky sees the irony in pathetic fallacy.
There's an animal hospital, across the street. She watches: cars come alone, never lingering long, suggesting that there is something back-alley about this place. She wonders what kind of animals these people are bringing. Suspecting the mood of the universe, she guesses rag and bone dogs, like the ones that roam the dust in Pompeii. Quiet and sad and waiting. And a cat, at least one, that screams with a voice far too close to human when it gets inside.
See? This is why the universe shouldn't encourage storytellers with reality that begs to be fictitious.
We pay too much attention.

Some more...