Vantage point [A fiction]

He had often wondered how long the planet would take to recover once humankind ceased to exist; It wasn't an obsession, but imagining a planet devoid of the human-blight seemed attractive. Of course, he never expected it to occur, but then the virus struck and people fell.

He was lucky, one of the rare few who was immune.

Lucky. Was it luck that left him as witness to the destruction, the decline of humans and humanity. It was ugly.

Initially denial, then disbelief, desperation, desire for life, despicable acts, then death; Wholesale death and destruction. He fled at that point, it was too dangerous to stay, and too depressing.

It had been two years since it began; One year yesterday since he had seen another human being that wasn't a decayed corpse, bones jutting out of shrivelled flesh. He may be the last, he often mused as he went about the daily struggle to survive.

Standing at the top of the hill he smiled in appreciation at the vista, barren but springing to life. Days were becoming cooler and it rained now and then, just sprinkles, but it would increase. New life would sprout, as it is already, and the brown landscape would become green and lush. A new beginning for the land, which, he supposed, it had already been given when humanity left the world.

He had often wondered how long it would take the world to recover once humankind ceased to exist.

He knew the answer now; Not long...And a long time.

Time would not allow him to see the recovery, not in full, but on his rare trips into the city for supplies he could see the world was slowly erasing the scars left by humanity; Plants pushed up through roads and paths, parks and gardens were overgrown and native species began to dominate over the imported varieties human's planted for their aesthetic appeal. Buildings would crumble and fall, metal rust and return to the earth but not yet, not in his lifetime.

It would all revert and for the first time in thousands of years the earth would be able to take a deep breath free from the poking and prodding, the pressure of humankind.

Silence. That's what he loved the most, together with the freshest air he had ever breathed of course. He loved the silence, but there seemed something missing also. He loved the serenity, but a growing emptiness had sprung from within.

Companionship? Connection? Communication? He wasn't quite sure. All he knew was that he sometimes felt lonely and isolated; He didn't think about it all the time, he was too busy surviving, but at times he would discuss how he felt, with himself. He was probably going mad he presumed, and he discussed that with himself too, denying madness, but spiralling towards it with each new discussion.

He moved away; There was work to do and only him to do it. Booted feet crunched in the gravel as he picked his way down from his vantage point at the top of the hill.

If he had stayed in place for only a few more seconds he would have seen the rising dust and heard the creak of pull-cart wheels, th crinch of gravel as they turned only a few hundred yards away. Had he stayed a moment longer he would have seen the woman and young boy crest the hill ahead, struggling with the cart, heads down with the exertion. He would have seen her hair flying in the breeze...

But he was gone...

[A fictional piece]