Things That Survive the Inevitable Apocalypse of the Future

a short story
***
I walk the rubble in my sneakers.
The ash in the air is suffocating, and tears form in the red rims of my eyes from the smoke. The remnants of life lay strewn like forgotten bones beneath a dark sky choked with dust. The sun in this reality is absent, and my eyelids are heavy as I follow a vague flicker of light in the distance. Every step I take echoes a hollow rhythm, a reminder of the absence that replaces the thrum of existence.

Some things I find are indisputable:
The future is called anxiety.
The past is called regret.
The present, however. It is different. The present is nonexistent within this realm of existence, this apocalypse. Dust coats the present, and I can no longer shape the future as I used to. 
It controls me.
Anchors me to my handcrafted reality.
Imprisons me within my creativity.
The broken keyboard makes meaningless stains.
Wet lines are soaked up by the paste of dead cells.

And so I walk this desolate street with no hope of future, past, or anything. 

Finally, the tendrils of my hair illuminate beneath the sickly yellow glow. 
It must be this one.
The last streetlight to withstand the test of time. The last yet to be replaced by the nauseating blue-green of the future.
I can see the rust creeping over it’s surface, a mirror of my own decay, as if it too had accepted the inevitability of its collapse.

Some things I find I used to miss:
The satisfaction of control.
The direct cause and effect of pressing pen to paper.
The pride in my achievements.
The responsibility for my mistakes.
Calm; breathe.
I breathe the weight of it all.

I feel a strange kinship with this small, bilious light. We both seem to have lost the will to cling to an existence of which the world has long since turned its back. We are resigned to our slow fade into oblivion. And so I linger beneath its dim glow, hoping still that maybe in our collapse we will both finally be free.

The buzz of the school day returns, and I am snapped back into the present, however finite it stays. The streetlight flickers still, but I am forced to move past it. I turn back momentarily, however, to stare at its suffocating gasps against the brightness of the world around it.

These children pass by this neverlasting streetlight, unbeknownst to its infinite power, too focused on dreams of the uncertain future.

That’s why
I must learn to relinquish it all.
The weight of responsibility, the pride, the control.
Calm; breathe.
The world in my hands.
And the one in my dreams.
So I can fly and chase mine
Or be happy
watching everyone else fly
without me.

I take my last fleeting look at the streetlight.
Calm; breathing air of the present but living in the past.
The light flickers.
I flicker back.