Nothing. Just miles of rolling ocean. I stood there looking eastwards; Exhausted yet relieved I had made it. I thought of her, a mistake of course, as I began to cry...She should be here with me. She'd be proud of my achievement though, if not what I had to do to get here.
I glanced down the cliff in front of me; It was a long way down to the rocks below, all worn smooth by the ocean over millions of years. Funny, I thought to myself, not so long ago I would have been happy, willing, to plummet to those rocks below, my life coming to an abrupt end after a joyous free-fall. But that was then, during what I called the bad-times...Now...I'd reached my goal and life could start again.
It was hours before I moved again. I just sat there looking east, at first thinking about my journey and then wondering what was out there...Who was out there, if anyone.
If I could see far enough I knew, across the South Pacific Ocean in front of me, I'd see Chile and I wondered if there was someone siting on the edge of a cliff looking back west wondering the same thing. Am I alone?
I needed to find shelter; It wasn't cold but I expected rain. It was strange how I'd picked up a greater sense of the world around me since the world as I knew it had ended. I seemed to read it better, to understand it's moods. Tonight it was going to cry, like I often did, and I'd need shelter.
I stayed away from built up areas usually. I'd learned that people often gathered there, tiny groups of survivors, and these days people and problems were synonymous; I guess it's always been that way, but nowadays, in the post-apocalyptic world...Even more so.
Apocalypse. Was that what happened? I thought it would look different to be honest. In truth it sort of looks the same as before, only...Less ordered, not as clean and neat. I sort of liked it.
The earth had started to reclaim what was rightfully hers and the triumphs of humankind had begun to breakdown and tumble, like humans themselves had only two years ago. In their place was abundant nature, fresh air, peace and quiet.
I found a culvert large enough for me and my large four-wheeled pull-cart and set to getting my camp set up.
I awoke in a start...What was that noise?
I sat up bolt upright, head cocked to one side as if that would help me hear better - My hand held a gun, it always seemed to these days - Habit...
What was that?
Ba-boom ba-boom Ba-boom ba-boom...
It took me a few seconds to realise it was my own heartbeat, accelerated because of the nightmare I was having. Again.
She laid on the bed, head turned slightly to one side, an arm outstretched to me, hand in mine. She smiled, even as a tear leaked from the corner of her eye...She couldn't talk but I knew what she would say if she could. She'd say "go, and don't look back."
Hours later I still hadn't moved. Her eyes didn't see me any longer though. I'd closed them after she'd left.
Nightmare. It was reality back then though, not a simple recurring nightmare. Now, two years later...It still felt real, even as a nightmare.
I laid back on my sleeping mat but sleep didn't come again that night, and my mind didn't find peace.
The virus took so many people and the resulting chaos took most of the rest.
That day I'd lost my wife was the worst of all. The streets were chaos...Those with strength and power (firepower usually) preying on the weak and unprepared, like dogs fighting over scraps.
I should have left earlier but I could tear myself away from my wife knowing she would not receive a decent burial, and I was afraid that if I left I wouldn't remember what she looked like. The guilt of leaving still plagues me...I remember what she looked like though, thankfully.
I'd wanted to end my life many times in the coming weeks and months but right then I wanted to kill everyone else...To lash out at all those who never treated the virus as seriously as they should have. They deserved to die as much as my wife deserved to live and I blamed them for spreading it.
It spread more rapidly and widely due to people's neglect and refusal to distance themselves from others. Life would go on and it wouldn't happen to me seemed to be the ethos...Ego, pride and hubris the motivation.
But life didn't go on for most...Billions died.
I had left though, eventually...We'd prepared for that very event only two weeks earlier at the height of the infection. But when my wife succumbed we'd decided to stay. I figured I'd get it and we would die at home together. Now there I was driving away alone, tears replaced with a rage like I'd never known before.
I lashed out too...No one who stood before me, challenged or threatened me, received quarter. That's what happens when chaos meets rage.
The streets were like nothing I'd ever seen, and I'd seen war at it's worst...This was different. Normal, everyday people had turned into animals, probably myself included, although I was more calculated...A hunter, not the hunted. I drove away as quickly as I could, removing obstacles as I went, with impunity and extreme prejudice. She told me I had to live, and so I had to make sure I did.
Within a week it was almost over. Most were dead and the survivors either fled to remote areas like me or hid hoping for salvation that wouldn't come.
Within two weeks I saw only sporadic glimpses of others...A month later I abandoned my vehicle as I couldn't get diesel and set out on foot with my pull-cart and in the last six months I've only seen five people, and those from a great distance. Close proximity to people mostly ended badly these days.
That's when I decided I wanted to die.
But I couldn't do it. She'd made me promise I would survive and that I'd make my way to where we were most happy in life. I'd promised of course, I would deny her nothing. And so I didn't blow my own head off...But I killed many others in that journey to our special place, 3,000 kilometres from home, and had almost been killed in return several times.
The world had become a more simple place. Kill or be killed generally. Charity? It was gone. People helping people? That fallacy had died with those that held to it. If you wanted to live you fought for it, just like the planets' other animals did.
It's been two years since I arrived here at our special place. I still walk to that cliff top and sit there looking east. Every day. I can't remember when she got here, but she arrived and now comes everywhere with me, a constant companion.
We sit and talk about the old days, that first time we came here and stood watching the waves crash onto the rocks below all those years ago. Sometimes she answers but mostly she prefers to sit in silence happy to listen to me talk. I don't mind, as long as she's here with me, and thankfully she always is.
Today is a beautiful day. The sky is a jigsaw of clouds and blue, the water pushes in to shore, a constant and comforting motion, a whitecap disrupts the blue-green water here and there, birds call overhead and the grass dances back and forth in the breeze. We sit here together and she listens as I tell her about my plans for the future.
I don't think about those rocks below the cliff anymore, not now she's with me. I know I've tipped over the edge of sanity, that I have lost my sense of reality, but with her here I don't care.
Nothing else matters.
Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default - Tomorrow isn't promised.
Be well
[Image is mine - Ballina, New South Wales]