We’re the last people left alive. OH NO. NOT THAT.

I had originally password protected this because I was afraid people would read this and take away only the fact that I had at one point considered dumping a shit load of bodies in a ravine in South Philly. Then set them on fire. CONTEXT IS SO IMPORTANT. I’m making it public for two three reasons: 1) it’s fucking funny; 2) it’s like reading one of my normal blog entries ON SPEED – I can’t remember exactly why, though it may have been beer and or sleep deprivation; 3) there’s a 75% chance it will earn me a concerned phone call from my mother.

Why is this a common theme for horror movie scenarios? I guess it would be unnerving if you woke up and it was just you and no one else anywhere ever, and you were alone for the rest of your life until you died, the end. I guess. I mean, it doesn’t really horrify me personally, but I can kind of understand why it might be eerie.

I personally have amazing dreams where the city is completely abandoned, and it’s just me running around, exploring alleys and houses and little shops that look like someone just stepped out. I might see something out of the corner of my eye or hear something just behind me, but in those dreams, it’s kind of exciting, not terrifying or horrible. Everything’s in sepia tone, too. In those dreams.

It’s just puzzling why we think it’s so awful and bad to be the last people ever. Why? Is it like, “crap, I guess I have to face the fact that I’m stuck with you guys until I die, and I can’t rationally harbor a distant dream of one day settling down with brad pitt and/or angelina jolie.” Or is it like, “man, you guys really suck. I wish I had made better choices in life and hadn’t made friends based on superficial criteria, like appearance and income.”

Because if they’re good looking, reliable and amusing, you could do a hell of a lot worse in an end of the world scenario. I mean, most of the fun drugs are pretty easy to make yourself, and in a scenario like that you’d probably have more booze than you could ever possibly drink in your life. I mean, the resources would so grossly outweigh the demand, you could do ridiculous and frivolous things.

Realistically, the only thing that concerns me is that condoms do have an expiration date. I mean, provided you don’t die quickly, there’s going to be some babies at some point, unless it’s all dudes or all ladies, at which point, hey, party if you swing that way. Naturally, if it’s a mixed bag, you’re going to have that kind of awkward discussion where it’s not even just that the dude’s dick is cold and he wants to put it somewhere warm for a little bit until morning, it’s like, hey, you have a fucking duty to take some dick, because like, if you don’t, that’s it. No more people.

Like that’s such a bad thing. This all depends entirely on the type of people involved, of course, but if we’re talking about the standard douchey horror movie cast, I’d probably strip naked and shoot myself out of an airlock. Or whatever. Frozen space titties taunting you, sad douchey horror movie lead. Aww.

If it was just a normal earth and everyone had died or something, but i, a lone survivor, had an immunity or some shit, I’d absolutely plant a garden and maybe get a pet turtle. Or something. Fuck, you know what? I’d get a pet fucking elephant. We’d walk around the city together and get into quirky adventures, usually involving Bessie (I’d name her Bessie, or Alfred if it was a boy elephant), stepping on something fragile. Oh, Bessie.

I’d probably break into labs and aquariums and shit. I’d go find Dick Cheney’s bunker and I’d egg it. I’d just fuck with him. Leave shit outside his door and get squirrely. I’d get a generator from home depot. Screw going through life without resources. I’d hit up the library, get some books on how to do useful things. I’d loot. I’d loot the shit out of everything. I’d loot the most absurd and outrageous shit. I would be buffing my ass with imported fairy tears. My body would glow in the dark as a result of all the amazing magic I would do to it. I would laugh and roll some tobacco in a $100 bill and I would fucking smoke it. And then I would step on it, because it would probably taste horrifying. Unless you like that kind of thing.

I’d probably urinate publicly. I’m just being realistic here. I’d no longer have anyone to impress. No one to bother me, and there’d probably be some animals trying to reinhabit the city. I’d have none of it. I would piss all over the damn city frequently. Take that, cougars!

I’d no doubt get bored and a little crazy. I’d probably stop wearing clothing as anything besides protective gear. I’d either wear crazy shit, like a horrifying combination of spandex-lycra blended biking gear, or nearly nothing. I probably wouldn’t bathe much, because even though I’d have a generator, I probably wouldn’t have water. I’d miss that amenity, for sure, but I’d get used to it pretty quickly, I think. I think most people would. I’d probably get bored and crazy though, so I’d probably take field trips and fight bears.

Depending on what wiped out all the other people, I might do some standard body clean up, before they got too disgusting. I mean, if people just dropped dead all over the place, I’d see if I could get my hands on a truck or something. Or a snow plow. I’m just being real, here, it would be really morbid to go walking around looting and having to step over dead bodies, not to mention the smell. I can’t handle walking under the bridge near my place now. It smells like poop. I couldn’t handle a lot of corpses.

I’d push them to the edges of the city, but not into the river. I’d try to avoid that. Maybe I’d stick them all in south philly. I’d probably try and shoot for a valley or something, but I don’t really know where a good place would be to dump a shit load of bodies. That’s not something I really think about. I’d push them all out and I would stop and I would wipe the sweat off my brow. I realize I’d be operating a snow plow, so I might not really be sweating, but I’d do it anyway, because pushing corpses around with a snow plow is just the kind of thing you don’t figure you’d be doing in life. So I’d take a moment and pretend to do it, even if I wasn’t really sweating. And I’d say some words.

I’d probably say something like,

What the fuck happened? What is going on here? Why did you all die? This is really weird. I sure hope it isn’t aliens or zombies. But just to be sure, you understand what I have to do. I hope that if there’s an afterlife, you’re all resting there peacefully and will forgive me for what I’m about to do. My people are nordic, which is why I’m not very funny and don’t smile much. However, the bright side to this, is we know how to do a fucking awesome funeral. I apologize that I can’t give you the individual attention you deserve, but you’ll appreciate that these are not normal circumstances. We’ve had a good run, humanity. I should probably try to harvest your dna, but I don’t care that much. Instead, I am going to send you blazing into the night.”

And then I’d burn them with fire and gasoline. I’d make sure to contain the area first, ensuring the fire wouldn’t spread. I’d probably have to make several trips, do a number of controlled burns, and I’d probably just sit down and cry at some point, not because of the fact that it’s very upsetting to have everyone die and then be stuck cleaning up after every person on earth who was rude enough to drop dead without telling you, though that is very upsetting, but because of how damn daunting that is.

I’d ultimately probably give up for a few days and go to the library and try to see how easy it would be to move into the wilderness and survive there. I’d probably think about it, and then think of how fun it would be to explore the penthouses in the city. I’d probably break into one of the fancier buildings and go up to the penthouse. It would be deserted and smell bad, because the people in those buildings would probably still be there (I doubt that I’d be that thorough as to clear out all the buildings too), and I’d go up the stairs, all the way to the top. I’d get off and I’d go into the penthouse and I’d look at the view, and see all the beautiful things there. And I’d probably find a body or something would fall and scare the shit out of me.

I’d probably bolt and run down all those stairs and get to the bottom and realize it was probably a cat or something, or maybe I’m just entirely alone and everyone has died and this is some kind of hell, but I never died. And I’d walk back to the library and I’d start looking up what the easiest and least painful way to die would be, and I’d try and see if I could find heroine or something, and overdose on it.

I’d probably faint and wake up later, having failed to actually inject myself with much of anything, but probably just enough to realize that hey, I kind of like this drug thing, and I want more of it. So now I’ll be the lone survivor of an apocalypse and develop a totally inconvenient drug addiction, except, like Charlie on Lost, I’d probably come across a huge stash of shit somewhere along the line. And then I would be faced with a dilemma that would test my moral fortitude.

And philosophically, we’d have to ask, that if there is no society, no humanity, just one individual, what are morals? What governs the individual without the society? It would get kind of weird and preachy for a while as I tried to figure out some rules to understand and govern my universe, but then I’d probably wind up in a bar somewhere and hallucinate ghost bartenders, like in The Shining, and I’d get piss drunk and start laughing about how crap everything is. And the bartender would probably be hot and scottish and would pour me another and another and give me a shot of something i’d never tried before.

I’d wake up the next morning half convinced it wasn’t a dream or a desperate delusion and hunt all over the city looking for that bartender, who really, probably never did exist, and was probably actually a half-remembered memory of my 21st birthday. And then I would puke in the sink (there would be a sink for some reason) and cry hot snotty tears of sadness.

I guess that’s horrifying. It’s mostly just depressing and boring. Then I’d probably try to write. I’d write a great novel, oddly content with the knowledge that it would probably never be read by anyone, even though it might be the best, most defining and poignant piece of literature ever crafted by anyone.

See, if they made movies like that, I would absolutely go and see them. But instead, they churn out crap like pandorum and act like I want to see it. No thanks, hollywood!

3 Comments »

Oh dear, you’ve had the “Fuck yeah, I’m the last person alive” fantasy that I have on an almost weekly basis.

I could imagine you setting up mannequins throughout the city, like Will Smith did in I Am Legend. And you would make the effort to name and memorize each one of them.

Comment by Samir — March 8, 2010 @ 1:10 am

I kind of understand where you’re coming from. But, I would not want to be the last person left alive. For me, it would be ideal if it was just me, my hubby, my friends, and some of my family. I make plans for some kind of Apocalypse all the time, in my head.

We’d probably go out to my parents’ house, because there’s more room, and it’s a bit more isolated. And they have a propane generator. And Dad has hunting rifles. And they could plant a veggie garden, Dad used to have one years ago. And they have a big, dry basement. And loads of books. And their tap water comes from a well. So, yeah. I guess that would be ideal.

Unless they wanted to travel to somewhere warmer in the RV. (Nova Scotian winters are long and cold, yo.) That’s another option. But more dangerous, I think.

Yes, I think about this stuff, too.

Comment by Karen — March 11, 2010 @ 4:20 pm

This is the most epic thing I’ve read in a long time.
Kudos. (:

Comment by Bridget — March 13, 2010 @ 5:06 am

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