Wish

Wish

I was sleeping when the world went away. It all slipped away so quietly that I didn’t stir. The mothers with their children all wandered off through a dark doorway to another place. The mailmen, the office clerks, and the bums unanimously departed. Everyone dropped their problems, their messes, their ties to the world and faded into the foggy reaches of my memory. I stare at the wall wondering why they all left me here, alone. Was it too much to bring me along with them? The clock on the wall in front of me ticks away, greedily measuring every second so that all who value its organization can hear. There is a small pop, then the clock sways slowly to the left and leaps from its mounting and crashes to the floor. The vivacious sound echoes across the walls, bounces down the hallway, and bursts out the door where it is muted by the dull, silent world that I have inherited. The streets and buildings all stand as deserted husks, only an air of past functionality can be seen in them, though their existence is concrete. The wind whips through the lonely corridors of this empty city, blowing around the trash of a missing people. And there is a chilled, deafening stillness about the world that they have left behind. I look down at the broken clock face, the hands have frozen just a tick before noon. I was sleeping when the world went away. Maybe I’ll be awake when it comes back.