Private Man's Paradise, The Last Person on Earth Options

[xXYouMeBedNowXx]

The early hours of the morning were very interesting indeed. I woke up at 5:30 AM, for Saturday Cross Country practice. Very routinely, got out bed, took a shower, and went off to get ready: very routine. I was planned to leave the house, walk to a friend's and get a ride to the local park from there. I tried to call before I left the house, and I tried to wait for an answer -- for ten minutes. Not one reply. I tried to call another friend, to try and make sure that the other would pick up (I had said that I would call in the morning to wake him up for practice). I called twice: and again, no answer. Humanly, I finally gave up, and left the residence, hoping for the best of things to fall into place. Then the peculiars began to arise. I was on the way to my friend's, and I noticed that there wasn't a single person out except me. Logically, that made sense: it was six in the morning on a residential street. But for the entire walk, there wasn't a single soul in sight. I recalled the morning phone calls: What were the odds that someone wouldn't answer after ten minutes of ringing? I came to the feeling like I was the last person on Earth, going for a friendly walk to an assembly of people that may no longer exist. Everyone must of suddenly disappeared overnight. It didn't matter to me how, or why. Just the plain fact that it was: it didn't shock me. It didn't overwhelm me. I knew I wouldn't be bored. There was a lot I could do without people. I could go, from street to street, house to house. Searching for things to do, things to eat. I could break into the mall somehow and find my way into the bookstore. I could read every volume, every dictionary there was, and sleep in a bed, but probably never in the same place. No need to worry about laundry: there were clothes every where. Dishes? Every house has a kitchen, right? I could use my parents' car, I knew where the key was. Learning should be a piece of cake, who was there to crash into anyways? I could live in prosperity, getting lost in my own little world, until somehow I accidently die of starvation or die trying to learn how to pilot an airline jet. In a few years, every house would turn into grasslands higher than my head, complete with an oasis of civilization stuck in the middle of time: quaintly organized into blocks in streets and roads in cities. The spoiling food would go to waste quickly, but eventually the canned goods could sustain. The labels would wear away, and I could play the guessing game with my gambling taste: all at the time putting my life on the betting table set up for a win-win game. Television wouldn't be much use for long, as it may only play reruns for a while. Unless I get cable. I could search the entire internet until I read every word on the web itself. I could listen to every musician and band there was in recorded technological time, of course, the radio would be of no use. How could I get bored? I was in a private man's paradise. Nothing could stop me: the possibilities were endless. It would be great without everyone!

Then there was clapping.

An elderly woman, coming straight at me on the same walk, was clapping her hands. I didn't stop walking. I kept going. What a bizzare sight, I thought. It seemed bizzare enough to me that it didn't seem real. That the my idea seemed more intact with reality than this elderly woman clapping her hands while she walked toward me, and me to her, compelled by the sheer nothingness of the shock of thought. I didn't want to believe that she was there. With every clap and with every step she took, the ideas flushed away. The empty houses suddenly filled with it's sleeping owners. The barred gates suddenly occupied the houndering dogs they held back. With every clap, my options began to shrink to near nothingness. She came closer. We were approaching another. Then we crossed by. She waved a good morning to me.

I smiled back a welcome home to the world.