FICTION
It Was Like a Dark Dream
The Last Human in the Milky Way — Excerpt from new chapter 2
It was like a dark dream. Everyone was gone. He was one of the last ones still back in the Milky Way. His house was at the top of the road so he had barely noticed the changes. It had happened gradually, with fewer and fewer people coming home to the neighbourhood from work, shopping or school in the afternoon.
Up from the veranda he had had a perfect view, and he had long believed that everything — or at least most of it — was as it had been before everything had begun to change.
He thought back to what it had been like when they came here. They had been one of several couples who had chosen to move here to this neighbourhood which was a bit remote, miles away from the big cities where people lived much closer to each other. As the neighbourhood was far from an area with large population concentrations, house prices had been relatively moderate, and for their own part, that was one of the main reasons why they had bought the house.
He had discovered that he and Sara had thought the same as several other couples who had come here; this was a good place to settle down and build a new future. It had looked promising, but then something terrible had happened; the ground had begun to crumble away from under their feet. Sara and he had suddenly lost what they had built their lives on — each other. It came like lightning out of the blue, he had thought. They had raged against each other, had said things that should have been unsaid, characteristics and accusations that had only widened the gap between them.
Why had it become like this? Was it because after the move, after so many years together, they were now alone, as Derek and Tom had grown up and moved out? The two sons had their own lives now. They had both moved far away, to the west coast, and Sara and he had agreed that they should try this new thing, build a new life together out here on the plains, under this vast, boundless firmament.
He didn’t want to think about the details, what had happened. He was at a loss for words in his mind. It felt so devastating, so degrading. After she had left, he had built himself an inner wall, a fence to protect himself.
He sincerely hoped that the neighbours had not caught on to what had happened. He had mentally prepared himself, thought that if someone asked, he should just pretend nothing happened, and say as little as possible.
He had spoken to several of the neighbours while they had moved into the house with the few things they had brought with them in the moving load. In those days, Sara had been almost invisible. She had been busy and stayed in the house, and did not come out when she saw that he was talking to one of the neighbours.
The neighbours had exchanged information about where they were from, and some small talk about why they had chosen to move to this town. It seemed that almost everyone preferred to avoid talking about what they themselves had left. He was happy about that, because then he didn’t have to invent a story about himself and what he had gotten away with.
(…)
The author is currently reviewing, rewriting, and editing the manuscript for the novel The Last Human in the Milky Way. Excerpts from selected chapters will be published as previews on Medium.
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Read more < Excerpt from chapter 1