I Hope You Remember Me.

"I hope you remember me?" He wrote!

Of course I remember that nice boy with his southern drawl who writes some interesting stuff and tries to survive through life. More than a year ago when I last heard from you. I think it was Christmas 2018. Jeez... time just shoots by. Me? I'm stuck at home, but it's not too bad. Quiet. Man, it's very quiet. I mean, I'm in the countryside, so it's always quiet, I didn't think it could get much more silent, but it has. There always used to be vapour trails as those planes crisscrossed the sky, now there's none. No planes, they're grounded, parked up on some closed down international airport. Things have certainly changed... and the future, who knows that? I feel like I'm in a film, people keeping apart, wearing masks, everything closed, hardly any traffic, rows of shops and restaurants, bars and cafes, all shuttered up, like they're waiting for a storm, but the storm's already here. It's destroying, people, life... The way of Life MUST Change, the sign reads, but will there be anyone left to read it?

A plastic figurine with a nodding mop of blond hair smiles at me from the dashboard... he keeps nodding. Used to be a plastic dog, or a Madonna hanging from the mirror with rosary beads. Now it's an effigy of the President... he keeps nodding, but like the Madonna and the dog, he's not gonna save us and if the car stops moving he'll stop nodding and stare back at me, saying: "We never anticipated this would happen!" And maybe he'll be fine, or else he'll get sick, who knows?

Somebody said humanity would be wiped out, like a plague, to cleanse the earth. The irony was that it started with Evangelical Christians, least that's how they say it got here and across the world to America. But, it was there before anyone knew, then it was too late. The streets are empty, a concrete reminder that people once lived here, went to work, lived their lives. The hope, there is hope, humanity adapts and clings to life, it will re-emerge, but those empty streets... I don't know if they will ever be like before.

I'm waiting, watching, like everyone. One thing is certain, you and I are here, distant, but close, as close as we always have been. And I'm happy you wrote to me and I'm happy you're alive and living and I want to know you're okay, because I care about you.

Look after yourselves, live long and prosper!