If there was anything the Nomad wouldn’t wish upon his worst enemy, it would be this trek through hell that he had made over a week’s time. A week’s time, but nobody can say it’s actually been a week, or what day it was, or what time it was. Only the weather could tell those who listened what the seasons may bring.

But this was the path he had picked, as it was the one before him now, so he decided that he was not allowed to complain.

He took feeble steps, careful to not leave any evidence of his whereabouts. A heavy mist turned into puddles around his ankles. Even the weight of the air seemed to fill his lungs and drag him downward. A cold, light breeze nipped at his face and tugged his clothes. The journal held in the grip of his best hand fluttered at the breath of the world.

In that journal must have been the most valuable of things. The things that came before this desolate shell of man, of nature, of being. Before life, when there was soul. There were strange sheets of those with wide-open expressions, holding each other close, and handwriting so leisurely, you could assume one actually had time to write. Betwixt it all, there was him. His face seemed to stare out from the pages like a lost boy, looking for something beyond the torn pages and battered leather binding.

Now, he has found it. He may have been more satisfied with this answer than most others.

Because, believe it or not, it was the end of the world. But this wasn’t the end of the world everyone was anticipating; not the violent, sick, or sudden ways. It was a slow, creeping sensation. A calm hand on the backs of billions. A maternal whisper from the ends of the universe: “it’s time to go.”

He assumed that his end would become the same, if this path would ever end. But it was the evening, and he was alone. There were several old houses coming up over a small hill, with yellow plants somehow overbearing the land plot with life. The linoleum sides of them that were once white were now painted by dampened dust that once hung in the air. An old truck swallowed by rust was there, too, only more notable for its missing wheels.

Nobody could have inhabited the land for years now, and so he decided this was the place to visit.

He brushed through the over growth and felt the echoes of his pace beat against the surfaces beside him. He made no sound on the old, crooked planks of the porch. All the while, as if the strangest god was giving the most earnest signs, a gas lamp flickered from its hanging place beside the door.

He held his breathing to hear the still world. There was hope for any living sound.

So when he heard nothing, he knocked.

Then again, he waited, anticipating some small sound.

And then he knocked again.

He knocked once more.

And then a final time.

Each time, the hit of his fist became more commanding against the door. When he stopped, the silence fell as a pile of bricks. Something told him to wait right where he was. That hunch came to be in his favor. After some time had passed, a quite padding came from behind the door. It slowly croaked open— stopped only by a small chain lock— revealing the figure of a woman, barely covered by the darkness of the home. Her hair was long and stringy now, her eyes devoid of light, her face of life. She stared at him as if he were a brick wall.

He looked at her with such patience, knowing that neither of their time would truly be lost. She glanced in the direction of the other homes that lay dead beside them.

He nodded.

Something seemed to awaken her for a moment when she looked back to him, because she finally managed a small smile. She gave a nod in return, with a heavy and solemn look, before quickly shutting the door. He was startled by the loud noise. Something he hadn’t heard in ages. The small flame in the lamp next to the door quickly vanished.

He wasted no time abandoning the porch. For just one night, the Nomad would have a place to stay.

Maybe he would find meaning in the life that he so wished to leave, or perhaps him and the woman would be neighbors for the end of the world.