VACUUM

It’s very early, and he walks out of his hut. He doesn’t know the time; no one knows the time anymore. He has to thread his way through the dead bodies in the compound again this morning. The smell is foul, but in the world that he lives in it has almost become an aroma. He will clear the bodies in the morning with what’s left of his friends. He has had so many groups of friends in his lifetime. He always has to change his clique because his friends all die out; they can’t survive the harshness of the world. He looks down at his friend, John. He regrets that John has to die but he does not shed a single tear. John is one of the thousands he has had to bury. He is the oldest in his district and he is seven years old.

She crawls out from under the rock that has been her home for five years now. She sees the dead bodies and she pauses a moment to pray. To what she is praying she knows not, but she is hopeful and that is what keeps her alive. The world is bleak and always dark. There is a constant fog and it does not help that everyday these foul bodies pollute the air with the perfume of their death. Stories have been passed down from the elders. They said the world was once bright, and something called the Sun shone bright in the sky by day. Now there is only darkness. There used to be beautiful buildings and lovely, smiling people who populated the earth. Now almost all the buildings have fallen and the population of the world has grown thin. There used to be farmers and food in plenty; now they had to eat the dead bodies that were sure to turn up day by day. In her lifetime, she had eaten nothing but human flesh. One of the elders who knew how to count estimated the world’s population at ten thousand. He has given them three years to live. She knew he was right. The rate at which they were dying out had been increasing by the day for the last two months. The whole world lives on one tiny island in the middle of nowhere.

The elders said that at the beginning of this dark era, something left the world. They can’t name it but it took the hope, happiness, and life out of the people. There is no hope in the world anymore and that is why people keep dying. They cannot see the reason for their existence and there is chronic sadness in the world. No one kills or steals, or cheats because there is nothing that they hope to gain. Nobody inspires, helps, or does any good anymore; they don’t know what they are doing it for. All the knowledge is fast deteriorating from the world. The people don’t know anything anymore. They don’t know the time, the year, or the name and nature of what they breathe. There is no point, you see. They only know things like fire, and water and trees; things that help them survive. When the world thins out to the younglings, this knowledge will also fade away and they will die faster than ever before.

No one can explain the deaths. He has seen so many die but he can only tell you how; he cannot tell you why. Some just sit staring into space and drop to their sides with a dull thud. Many sleep and never wake. Some have killed themselves. All he knows is the look on their faces; all of them, the sleeping-dead, the suicidal and the drop-dead all have the same look on their face. A look of agony; a look of despair. When she looks in their faces she sees pain that is not of this world and this is what gives her hope and life; that perhaps there is another world that she can go to. Anywhere but here. There is no purpose for living. There is no need to invent, no need to make money, and no basis for love. This is why the new world does not have these things. There is something missing. That thing that inspires them to do all these things; that thing that inspires them to live. It has left the world and everyone is waiting patiently and drearily for certain death.

This is the world without music.