The charred aftermath of the burnings hung like dead air, still and impossible to ignore on each individual in the town. All was in disarray, which would have usually created a sensory overload for his small mind. This time, however, it was as though the chaos was more predictable than the fluff of life before this apocalyptic nightmare. 

Realist or pessimist? Hard to tell sometimes.

The contained workings of this small town drew Louie in, and without doubt, he knew fate had turned these sour events just for him. It was punishment for his feeble attempts to live normally. Kicking a flyer off his shoe, he checked his watch for no reason at all. There was no reason for anything anymore, really. 

He walked toward the library, sweating, absorbing the scents of the smoky remains and the liquor-sharp tang, that stunk like a thousand bars from hell. Braxton Chambers, perhaps the only one who could move on with life after such an event, sat weeping on the steps to the library. 

Louie walked to the boy, sat next to him, and asked, "What did the alien say to the librarian?" 

"Take me to your reader."

He didn't laugh.

This was it. This was everything that Louie had dreaded, this was why he moved from the city to the miserable town, the reason he decided to work at a simple bowling alley instead of the family business, like his mom always wanted. Every aspect of Louie’s life needed to be planned. Calculated. Organized. Predictable.

From the very beginning of his day, down to the simple clothes he wore and the items he carried, each and every element was perfectly synchronized and uniform. The hustle and bustle of the city that he lived in before was too much. One day, there was street construction that altered his entire route to work, making him change his direction, therefore setting off his entire day. Even the most mundane irregularities of life, like uneven pavement or a creaky stair stimulated a haywire effect that went off through Louie’s whole body like a virus. Like a corruption. Like a takeover.

 What Louie’s neighbors didn’t know – never knew – was that within all of those moving boxes stacked high in his room, teetering dangerously, and obstructing almost all possibility of movement in the apartment, was that they contained journals, scribblings and diaries of each day of his life, all of his thoughts, all psychotic. The ramblings were irrational and paranoid, and they were his outlet for these electric thoughts. As he looked out his window, from room 1201, from the godforsaken Wilshire Tower, the record player spun, and from it sang…

      “This is the end,

Beautiful friend,

This is the end,

My only friend…

There’s danger on the edge of town,

Ride the King’s highway, baby

Weird scenes inside the goldmine

Ride the highway west, baby..”

 The rattlesnake tambourine and the hollow vocals drove Louie into explosion. The world was ending, as he predicted. His thin frame began to shake and rattle, it was all over now.

 “No safety or surprise…

the end…”

 The scene below surpassed what he expected, but he knew it was to come. Grabbing the only box that wasn’t packed with his journals, he threw the contents onto his bedspread, looking for.. searching for.. just what he needed. No more waffles, No more bowling alley. No more simple, happy life. Exactly what he predicted was upon him. He needed everyone to know that he was right, all along. All of the religion in this town was phony. It disgusted him. He needed to find those lost, stupid lemmings and give them his writings. It had taken him years to filter through his warped mind a coherent writing that he could share with others, and yes, yes, this box contained exactly one thousand printed copies of his predictions. He would scatter them everywhere. He would throw them from the heavens! Ha! The heavens! As if such a thing existed! The boy with the lemonade, the alcoholics, the floozy women, they would all burn! He knew it! He knew it all along! He gathered them in his arms, they littered the ground with their explosive truths. He pushed the old man in the stairwell, another lemming, he thrust upon him the truth. Stupid old man. Now he knew. They all would know.