Solitary

Theodore Livingston was an ordinary middle class citizen. Just like you or I, he had a job with a reasonable pay and lived in a two-bedroom apartment with his quirky roommate. Theodore was content with his life, though he still to this day didn’t particularly like his name and preferred to be called ‘Theo”. He had a fixed morning ritual. Get up, make bed, take a shower and the rest of the bathroom business. Then he’d have breakfast and get ready for work.

This particular morning though, things were slightly different. He got up, made his bed, took a shower and carried out the other bathroom rituals, things were normal up to there. He went into the kitchen for breakfast where he would find Alfie, his roommate, eating his daily dose of wheetos chocolate cereal, but he wasn’t there. Theo thought this rather unusual because Alfie would get up at 5 every morning to get to the paper first so he could crack the Su Do Ku puzzle. So he shimmered along to Alfie’s room. Alfie’s room was of fair size. He’d decorated it with gum wrappers that were unevenly pasted to the walls and origami birds hung oddly from the ceiling. His sheets were psychedelic and at the end of the room hung a poster of Frank Zappa, his all time favourite singer. To Theo’s surprise, he wasn’t there either. He was beginning to feel a bit worried. He was sure he heard him come in last night. He was probably outside talking to the birds or something, he thought, and got back to his business.

Outside on the streets, it was unusually quiet. Too quiet, he thought. He looked around, there was nobody there. It was as though the whole city was playing a practical joke on him. A very well organised and planned joke. Or else he was dreaming. He shook his head trying to think of a reasonable explanation for it, while his feet carried him towards his office building. He pushed open the glass door and turned to greet Arun, the security guard, with whom he had built quite a good relationship. Arun was missing in action too. Everybody was. Theo was sure he was dreaming now. It was as though he was stuck in some weird, parallel universe, bizarre-o-world ghost town or something. He was fairly brave, but he was feeling slightly uneasy now. He yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed his closest office mate, Jerry. He didn’t answer. He frantically called every number on his phone, none of these people answered. He even called overseas, no answer.

“Hello!” he shouted stupidly. They always did it in movies when they were all alone, he thought. He ran back to his house and urgently banged on his neighbour’s door. “Open the door!” he yelled, “Hello! You there?”

He sat slouched on the living room couch and thought, maybe he could use this peace and quiet. He was always surrounded by noise. He switched on the TV and sat watching a really old episode of Scrubs. He mulled it all over in his head, and being a practical guy, he came up with a practical solution. Maybe everyone just forgot it was Friday and thought it was Saturday and slept in and stayed at home. It could happen, right? Anything could happen. Night fell and he went to sleep pretty sure he’d wake up and things would be normal. This was all just a really bad dream.

Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t. The next day he got in his car and took a round of the entire city. He took food with him. He knew he’d need it. It took almost the whole day to do. That’s when it really sunk in. He now knew that he was on his own. Completely. He hated the feeling. He was a man who enjoyed company. Even if it was only one person.

The animals were still around so he did have some sort of interaction. Just like Alfie used to, Theo would converse for hours with birds, or bugs, sometimes the stray cat, which he had named Alfie, funnily enough. The electricity was still running, which was a blessing, because he could still watch his DVDs. The TV channels weren’t showing anything, as there was no one to broadcast shows. As days passed he craved human company. He was going slightly crazy. He had considered killing himself once or twice, but was strong enough to come through that and move on.

* * *

It was a pleasant Monday morning, he knew it was Monday because he kept track of the days on his calendar. He never liked not knowing what day it was. There was a wind blowing. It carried the leaves on the floor, making them dance, defying gravity. Something moved in the distance. His eyes fell upon that spot. He walked towards it, gradually picking up pace until he was running. Running on to find new beginnings. Running to see how long it would be until, finally, he’d have to stop.

- This was written about 3 years ago, in grade 9, when I was about 14 years old. I thought I’d share it, just for fun (: