And All of the Evils of this Town (a short story)

[based on a verse from The Velvet Underground song "Heroin"]

    His lungs burned as he hacked the ash out of his throat. Some of it came up, but not all. What did made a yellow-grey splat on the cracked concrete at his feet. He looked back up to the dead landscape in front of him. Dead fields pocked with large holes, as if the land had some disease. Some of the holes farther away held towering orange fires. He put the mask back over his mouth. He would need a new one. For now he would just have to breathe less. For now? No- he knew his lungs wouldn't be getting enough oxygen for quite some time. How much time? Well, however long he lived.

    Did you know the fundamental element of a human being- of any being, is carbon? Of course you know that. You're talking to yourself.

    That's what ash is. It's carbon. It doesn't matter what organic material you're burning. You could set fire to a pile of wood. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen wood, let alone a tree.

    You could set fire to a pile of wood. You could set fire to a pile of leaves. Or as the case was now, you could set fire to a pile of human bodies.

    It all reduced to carbon.

    You could even set fire to a pile of bacteria. He laughed. Well, he didn't exactly laugh. It was one of those laughs that you only did in your head- your mind. Was it because you physically could not laugh anymore? Was it because you would feel like a horrible human being if you laughed out loud? Or was it because if you laughed out loud you would question your own sanity?

    Did you know that three percent of the human body is made up of bacteria? Yes- we've been over this. In fact, there are ten times more bacteria cells than human cells. So 3% of what was burning in those piles was bacteria- slowly crackling away with its sickly smell. To be fair to the bacteria more of that smell was probably the human flesh and skin.

    Fire killed bacteria too. That was the reason the corpses were currently burning. The fact that people were dying faster than crematoriums could keep up with was beside the point. A lot of things were beside the point. For fuck sake there were piles of dead human bodies burning.

    He watched as the fires flickered back and forth off in the distance. They gave a peculiar orange glow to the dark night sky- a living glow. They were clustered together on the outskirts of the city. Their smoke joined to form a thick brown haze that billowed off, only slightly indistinguishable from the brown tainted black sky. There were no stars, at least none that were visible, because of the brown- the pollution.

    Did you know that diamond is made of carbon too? And diamond doesn't even burn in fire.

    Looking out at the ominous landscape with its burning mounds and dead sky, he stood and turned. And now the city faced him. He examined its small skyline with its towering skyscrapers. Most were no longer alive with light. They were dark and empty- monolithic remnants of the past. There were some whose lights still shone. Someone still had to make money, right? He continued to scan the city with his eyes. Spanning out from the godly towers were the buildings of peasants- stores, houses, apartment buildings. Like the skyscrapers, most were dark and lifeless. There were spots of light here and there though. With most of the city dark and gone their lights shone brighter than ever before, as if to prove that they still existed- that they had survived.

    He glanced back at the barren landscape behind him. He saw the bodies that were thrown together and burning. He saw the sky without stars- drowned out by smoke. He looked down to his feet now. The yellow-grey splat still marked the concrete. He looked back to the city.

    No- no one truly survived. We may still exist, but we are not alive. In the end we all reduced to carbon, and not even the good kind.