There’s not enough sunlight for the trees to grow as they once did. They’re short, stubby things now. They’re like children deficient of vitamins, their spines curved, life-expectancy reduced.

All the same, trees do grow again in this corpse of a city. They broke through the ancient concrete like fists battering layers of sheet-ice until it cracked.

I sit on a patch of weeds in front of a crackling fire. The day — or night — is grey and shadowed. The clouds are swirls of black and purple that won’t settle in my lifetime. I feel like I am in a box, or a coffin perhaps, and the lid has been shut on me.

I throw more wood onto the fire then cook a skewered rat over the blaze. The fire leaps excitedly at the food.

The city teems with rats and trees and fruit that rots before it ripens. It is life after death for the city, like poppies growing on a battlefield. But it will never be what it was. There was a time I’d spend my days searching the city, hoping to find something but not knowing what that something was. Now, I barely move. Only to catch food and to cook.

I throw a piece of well-browned meat onto the fire. Then I lean back and try to read my book in the firelight hoping it distracts me from the pain. There is no cover to the book and I can’t be sure of the author, but I think it’s a classic. A slice of American life when the American dream was whole but rippled — like a stick had poked a watery reflection, but the reflection was still just about visible.

“It’s kind of you,” says a voice. “But I’d appreciate my meat less well done.”

It’s the first voice I’ve heard in a decade.

I hold my trembling arms together at my chest as a woman approaches my fire. Sits calmly opposite me.

“Are you… are you real?” I ask, in a raw unpracticed voice.

It wouldn’t be my first hallucination.

Her features are silhouetted, the darting flames only lighting up to her neck.

“It’s impressive,” she says.

I shake my head. I’m at a loss. “What is?”

”That your faith is still with you after so long. After everything.”

“Who are you?”

”The person at the other end of the phone.” She smiles — I see her white teeth even in the semi-darkness. “I’ve been listening to your calls. Every night for almost forty years. You believe you’re the last, don’t you?”

”The last?”

”The last person.”

”Oh.” It’s a thought I’ve suffered many times — it’s the lid that closed my coffin. I haven’t seen anyone since leaving the sewer. Not a soul. And if I was the last, if I allowed myself to believe it, then what would be the point? Humanity would have already ended and I would be a scene playing after the credits. Why would I keep wandering if there was no hope, or future — if there’s nothing more than this?

”They’re doing well,” she says. “I’m looking after them.”

“Them?”

”Your prayer.”

I try to laugh. “Prayer? I don’t pray. It’s clear there’s no god or the world wouldn’t look like this. I wouldn’t be like this.“ I tap the stump of my right foot with my walking stick. A slight cut turned infectious turned self-amputation. Since then, my search for others has stopped. Now I wait in this city, hoping someone finds me instead.

“You pray for them not yourself,” she says. “That they’re happy. That they’re taken care of. Your parents. Your wife. Your children. You pray for this each time you eat. Are you really that torn that you can’t remember your prayer?”

”I don’t believe in god.”

She smiles again. “And yet you pray. Subconsciously, perhaps. Every single meal. Because deep down, below all the pain and hate, you do believe. You need to.“

”You’re not real,” I say. I‘ve known it since she sat down but now I’m firm in my belief.

“You pray for you dog, too. You hope animals end up in heaven. You hope you’ll see them all again.”

Tears cut trails through the dirt on my face.

“You’re not real,” I say, softer.

She stands now. Walks around the fire until she is sitting by my side.

”You hung on so long,” she says.

”I…”

”You hang on still.”

”…Why? Why do I?”

”Because to be human is to hope.”

She touches my leg. Moves a hand slowly down my calf to my stump.

“Your amputation wasn’t enough. Your blood is still poisoned.”

I don’t look down at it; instead I look at the velvet coffin-box sky. I’d hoped to live but I’m not going to.

“You’re here to take me, then?” I say. “You’re something people see in their own mind, to come to terms with their death.”

She tilts her head. “I’m here to thank you. For never giving up on me or yourself or on those you loved. On your faith. And I promise I’ll look after them for you.”

She presses her hand hard against my calf and I feel my body pulse, as if my blood is being drawn to her palm.

“What is…”

”Shhh,” she says. “Rest now. Tomorrow is a new day. You’re not the last. Keep your hope alive.”

I want to struggle, fight, I want to ask a hundred questions, but a tiredness floods my veins and I fall slowly back on the bed of weeds.

​

When I wake, she is gone. I am well rested. I feel like I have slept long and deep.

I look up at the sky. There seems to be a glimmer of light on the horizon, as if the coffin’s lid has been opened just a crack.

I imagine the trees growing a little taller next year.

After breakfast, I begin my search about the city. Perhaps today I will find something.