We Smile, Because This Is How We

We Eat And Sleep And Shuffle Through The Fog, Walking A Marathon With No Finish Line, No Medals, No Cheering.

Last Winter, When So Many Living Joined The Dead And Our Prey Became Scarce, I Watched Some Of My Friends Become Full-dead. The Transition Was Undramatic. They Just Slowed Down, Then Stopped, And After A While I Realised They Were Corpses. It Disquieted Me At First, But It’s Against Etiquette To Notice When One Of Us Dies. I Distracted Myself With Some Groaning.

What Happened To The World Was Gradual. I've Forgotten What It Actually Was, But I Have Faint, Fetal Memories Of What It Was Like. A Smoldering Dread That Never Really Caught Fire Till There Wasn't Much Left To Burn. Each Sequential Step Surprised Us. Then One Day We Woke Up, And Everything Was Gone.

But It Does Make Me Sad That We've Forgotten Our Names. Out Of Everything, This Seems To Me The Most Tragic. I Miss My Own And I Mourn For Everyone Else's, Because I'd Like To Love Them, But I Don't Know Who They Are.

Every Time I Go To Sleep, I Know I May Never Wake Up. How Could Anyone Expect To? You Drop Your Tiny, Helpless Mind Into A Bottomless Well, Crossing Your Fingers And Hoping When You Pull It Out On Its Flimsy Fishing Wire It Hasn't Been Gnawed To Bones By Nameless Beasts Below.