text: I let out a shaky breath, not quite willing to accept that I had gotten through this shopping trip without seeing another person. As I walk up to the cashier, my cart full of essentials, I make sure to keep my head down, silently putting my items on the conveyor belt. I heard the total distantly and carefully counted out the correct amount of change. Handing it over, I make sure to keep my eyes averted, but her sleeve rose up at the last second and I flinch as I catch a glimpse of her hand. Thoughts of age and fragility immediately speed through my head until at last, I feel my own heart quicken. And then, I feel nothing. I wince at the sudden nothingness and hurry out of the store. Throwing my groceries in the front seat, I sit for a few minutes, bracing myself for the drive home. I hate the task of driving, for it is near impossible to make an entire road trip without setting eyes on a single living thing. I pull out of the parking lot and start on the road, moving my eyes from landmark to landmark. I was approaching an intersection when an insistent honk of a horn caused me to fully look at what was going on - a mad man swerving his car through the intersection. The second I see him, an image flashes across my mind: engulfing fire... burning metal... the smell of gasoline... and then, just pain. I turn into a side alley as soon as it’s safe and park my car. I spend at least fifteen minutes just weeping, before building up enough strength to continue on. About an hour later, I am finally safe in my own home. My favorite place is my house. Residence of one, with no windows, and shelves stocked with non perishable foods - it was my safe place. It is the only place I can relax, or at least come close to relaxing. Although, ironically, my safe place was also my prison. Every day spent here, I feel more and more trapped. No companionship, no pets - there wasn’t even any plants. Not a living thing that could share a happy moment with me. Yet, even as I hate it, I knew that this was still better than what was outside the doors. One of my only constant human interactions was with the mailman. I open the door at 3:59, startling the mailman as he is still unused to me awaiting his presence. I force myself to meet his eyes and watch the scene play - the same scene I had seen yesterday, and the day before, and even the day before. I had seen it so often that I could recite it from memory. His climbing the stairs of the tallest building in town; his body falling story after story before he finally hit the ground and then, darkness. I am still unable to hide my flinch as I grab the paper from him. I’m sure that he joins the rest of this neighborhood in thinking that I’m mad, and who knows. Maybe I am. I just don’t understand. He seems so happy every time I see him. He greets me with the same smile and “How are you?”. Why does he do it? I’ve spent many an afternoon pondering over him and it may very well be the thing that kills me once and for all. I’ve cried over his death, knowing that I cannot fix his fate without ruining myself. The countless times I’ve tried to save people before him have proven that fact to me time after time, and maybe this time, I would finally learn my lesson and just let him die. I was still standing in the doorway, staring out at the empty street, letting myself slip into the familiar feelings of loneliness, when all too suddenly, a woman opens her curtain in her room and I catch a glimpse of her face. I immediately collapse against my door, the searing pain and blinding lights of a car crash flashing through my body. I manage to crawl back to my rocking chair, engulfing myself back into the solitude of my house. I wish I was dead. Yet, even as I try with all my might, I cannot see my own death; I cannot cause it, and I cannot fulfill my greatest wish. I can see death in everything around me: the mailman’s eyes, the neighbor’s cat, and even the trees hold glimpses of death. Yet in the one place I wish it to be, I only find its absence. And so, I spend my days sitting in this chair, trying to escape the world but becoming all the more trapped. I must remain optimistic, even though my hope is all but lost. I must stay here in this city of bustling people, in this neighborhood of happy lives, in this house of solitude with the knowledge that no man should bear. Knowing that every time I hear a knock at the door, although a breathing human stands on the other side, I am the last person on earth who is alive. Or rather, the last person who has not yet died.