LIVE NOVEL

“Can You Tell Me a Little About Yourself?”

The Last Human in the Milky Way, Chapter 18

It was like a dark dream. Everyone was gone. He was the last to live 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 who in the afternoon came home to the neighborhood from work, from shopping or school. (From chapter 2)

18

He studied her in secret. He saw a little woman. Or a girl. A person without age. She seemed almost like as a stranger, an alien. Someone from a different country, from another reality. The face was finely cut, and the hair was half-length and reached almost down to the shoulders. When he saw the body and not the face, he could think that she was almost a teenager, a young girl. She was narrow over the shoulders and, in the blouse that she was wearing, she could apparently seem flat over the chest.

She turned to him and he felt that he was affected by her gaze. He was a little surprised at himself, at these feelings, at these secret thoughts. She was definitely someone he could come to like, maybe he could — yes, maybe it could turn into something, this unexpected meeting

He felt something inside him, something soft and tempting, a stupid promise of something good, something that was too good to be true, a feeling he had not known for a long time.

He said, “You, can you tell me a little about yourself? — Yes, just so that I — yes, so that I know a little.”

He stopped. Looked for a sign, a small reaction on her face.

“Yes, I will talk about myself too, of course. Later.”

He looked for a smile on her face. He was not sure. Was there a glimpse there? A glimpse of something, a small promise of something that could turn into something else?

They sat still while seconds ticked and time went on, but he did not think about it. It was such a moment that he wished would never end, it was such a moment that he had experienced only a few times earlier in life, a kind of moment that you always remember later.

The sun was high in the sky and it was getting hot.

He waited for her but she was still quiet and gave no sign that she should start talking.

“We are not going to drive that far now,” he said.

She nodded. He was pleased with what he saw. A reaction, even though she did not use words.

“And we’re just going over the ridge over there, a couple of kilometers. Up there we can look beyond. Get clarity in — yes, get to know what we need, maybe get answers to what we must do next.”

She nodded again. “Yes,” she said, “that’s good.”

She looked at him. Now she smiled.

“They came at night,” she said, “it was dark, it was scary, there was a lot of noise. A lot of noise.”

He was waiting for more, but there was no more. He waited for several minutes. Then he got up and started picking things up from the ground. She got up too and started doing the same as him. They worked together in silence. She went around and collected things, and he packed everything in the car.

After a while he walked around the car and checked that nothing was left. Then they got in the car.

He looked at her as he closed the door. She looked a little better now. A little more relaxed. He started the engine and looked again at her. He saw that she was smiling. Yes, he was certain. She had a smile on her face.

“Fantastic!” he thought, “she’s relaxing, she’s starting to thaw.”

As they approached the top the road flattened out, and they came upon a small plateau where there was a low ridge beyond where he parked the car. They stepped out and got a view that gave a fantastic overview of the landscape, many kilometers, yes, several miles away. But he became very worried when he saw what was down there. Cars! People! There were cars there, lots of cars, campers, cars with caravans, trucks, trailers. There had to be many hundreds of them standing still on the road. There was a full stop in both directions and no point in driving closer to this chaos. No point in driving on here.

What he saw through the binoculars confirmed his concerns and made him uneasy. There were a lot of military vehicles, there were soldiers walking, running and directing. He got a bad feeling inside him. Something was wrong, something was completely wrong. And he looked around. He looked back at the road they came from and saw that far down below them a row of cars came driving slowly uphill.

He said to her: “You, come on, we have to drive a little further, we have to drive a little further here, we have to get out of sight, it’s not sure it’s that safe here. We have to get a little further — and we have to come up with something.”

He stopped himself. Noticed that he was a little beside himself. He babbled, repeated himself.

He found a place a few hundred meters further out there, some distance away from the road so that the car could be left unseen.

He said: “Listen, you, we are going to find out, but I think it is safest that we put the car here, and then we take with us the tent and equipment, and as much food as we can carry. Yes, I think that’s the best. I think we have to try to find another way because it is difficult here.“

He struck out with his arm. He stopped, took a deep breath. Just had to get it out, get rid of it.

“This, it’s completely hopeless, it’s something that is not as it should be, it’s something that is wrong — completely hopeless.”

This is chapter 18 of the novel The Last Human in the Milky Way. The novel is written and published “live” chapter by chapter in ILLUMINATION Book Chapters.

To see all published chapters, go here.

Previous:

Chapter 17 She Took a Step Forward, and Suddenly She Gave Him a Hug

Next:

Chapter 19 Now She Was a Different Person