Fade to Black

Today I grasped that I am truly alone. 

Where is the father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, or friend?  Why have they all disappeared? I look left and right and there is no evidence of anyone left. Only the memories of what once was. 

This did not happen overnight.  Was I so consumed with myself that I could not recognize the disintegration before my very eyes? Did I not hear the structures crumbling around me into a vacant dust? Why has this happened now?  All this time I believed my sphere of bonds to be stronger but reality has taken front stage.  I am truly alone.  

Millions of eyes look past me and don’t notice my anguish. Maybe they are caught in their own collapsing foundations, dodging falling bricks and beams like an obstacle course. Maybe it’s every man for himself and the time to aid a neighbor has come to a halt. Or can this be my fate to pace the rest of this path with no hand to clasp, no one to stand behind or lean on.

 I am troubled of what the future has in store. Is this what despair feels like when it touches the heart? My desire to learn and improve the next exchange becomes elevated in my catalog of duties. I take the next rung and begin fading into the black. With my courage as my only cause, I leave behind nothing but the black.