No ropes

let's be lovers, let's be teachers, let's be doctors and civil servants. let's be historians, documentarians, artists and storytellers. let's be as good to one another as we can and let our kind slowly die out. we've been around long enough. The dinosaurs weren't wiped out by some comet; they got bored at the top of the food chain and figured it wasn't worth perpetuating anymore. We're reaching that point. Let's lower the population over time, make things more even by thinning things out. Less supply, less demand.

*****

A white car pulls up a driveway, gravel churns beneath its tires, rolling bead on bead several square inches. It's a big car, Cadillac; its renowned comfort was selected for specific purpose. Its leather cushions a rather important set of buttocks, but the gravel doesn't know this, it's just reacting. Reacting is what determines existence, for something cannot truly be said to be living unless it can do more than this.

Bobby Rogers lived in this house for almost twenty years when the Caddy tore a path through his gravel drive he spent one day of every month raking into a fine picture of a solid sea. He did this because he so seldom had visitors. It was something to do. Bobby, after all, was a living being.

Bobby moved to this house when it came into his possession twenty-five years into his time on this planet. It had been built and occupied by the man who had created Bobby's father. That man didn't have a name when he died, he didn't have much at all. Most of what he had was inside his body, and what wasn't would be at one point. Except for the bed, of course. Bobby's grandfather had been hermetic most of his life, but only got the chance to live out his desires later in his life. His disappearance is still talked about by many. Some believe he was taken away by beings more advanced than humans.

Don't believe it. He just didn't like people.

Bobby's nostrils were filled with ash when he noticed the Caddy. He blew air through his nose, spraying mucus and chunks of dust into his shirt. He picked a piece of dust from his nostril and stood from his chair, craning to look through what was too dark to. Every glass surface was tinted to jet black. The heat inside would be unbearable, Bobby thought. That was about all Bobby did, and that suited him just fine.

The land surrounding Bobby's home showed evidence of his productivity. The broken frame of a car, full of fresh dents and burn marks in the metal, a small plowed field with various edibles forming beneath its surface, a path leading deep into the woods, a path cleared and maintained by the same set of boots.

Recently, two spikes had stabbed down the path, poking small, cigarette-sized holes in the soft earth. They never went back from whence they came.

Those spikes didn't know it, but they had brought a very important set of buttocks all the way to this mountain retreat, where a simple hermit of forty years was just trying to die in peace.