Note: This story is a return to the series that was going on for weeks 1-5. From now on entries into this series will be marked with the title “Wayward Hallucinations.”
My shoes crunched on broken slivers of glass from old store fronts and remains of giant flat screen T.V.s. I stopped and wondered if this is what it must have felt like to walk in Times Square before it happened. It probably wasn’t The area was missing its old thrum of life, the bustling crowds of people. But maybe it’s better that they weren’t there; I was never too good with people. I was alone, only joined by a lifeless silence that seemed to follow me everywhere.
I sighed and started off again, just wandering with no clear destination in mind. Eventually, the cracked pavement changed, becoming overgrown with grass and weeds. I had wandered to the outskirts of the now wild Central Park. To one of the parts where the park was starting to encroach on the streets, with rogue grasses beginning to break through the sidewalk, as there wasn’t anyone to stop its growth. I forged on ahead, pushing past brambles and overgrown topiary. It wasn’t easy. I could feel thorns raking my face and tearing through my all ready too-worn clothing.
I don’t know why I didn’t walk around it and continue my hapless journey on the streets. At times, I felt like I didn’t know anything. I don’t know why this happened, if this was the work of some cruel god or just even crueler chance. I can’t figure out why I’ve been left alone, or why even now I can’t find anyone. Sometimes, I swear I can see movement at the peripherals of my vision. But every time I look there is nothing. My biggest question is why I dared to venture out in the first place, to abandon every comfort I relied on. Back then, I could still dream that out there—out here—someone was coming for me. Now, I know better. It’s one of the only things I’ve figured out, that this journey is not a storybook adventure. I am just lost, hopeless, starving and dying. It gets so bad that sometimes I feel that the gentler memories of my past, before all this happened, are just other hallucinations.
