Brian Stansford

We are the last two men on earth.

Brian Stansford and I.

I hate Brian. Of course my life ends up like this.

I hated Brian before this whole "end of the world" fiasco. We worked together in an office. We were both salesmen. We sold ink cartridges. An awful profession, honestly. Brian and myself worked next to each other. He didn't shower much. He was easily the size of a manatee. He constantly snacked and chewed far too loudly. He was a thorn in my side. So of course it's him that I'm stuck with.

Everything is so desolate. The buildings that weren't demolished or burned down are completely empty. The streets are blackened and stained. Most of the street lamps have burned out. Empty shells of cars are everywhere.

The decadence of man in decay.

We stay in my house. Brian talks in his sleep and smells worse than ever, even though the shower system I've set up works just fine. He rarely moves from the bed in my guest room. Just lays in there watching television.

Now that the entire human race is gone, Brian has come to think of himself as a sort of philosopher. He keeps coming up with these ideas. These rules for life. Reasons why it all happened. I think he's mad. He sounds more like Manson than Nietzsche.

I get away from him during the day as much as I can. I wander around. I go inside buildings and try to find supermarkets. Supermarkets that still have non-perishables. I look for other survivors. So far, there's no one. It's eerie honestly. The world is empty. There are no bodies. There are no survivors, save Brian and myself. I never thought the end of the world would happen like this. Nor did I think I would be stuck in it with Brian.

When I am around the house, I work on this helicopter I found. I've always been fairly skilled with my hands and used to work on cars with my dad when I was younger. Helicopters and cars aren't quite the same though so it's taking me a while. Once it's finished, I'm going to use it to widen my search for food and other humans.

Lately though, I haven't been finding food. We collected most of it within the couple of months, and there's no way out of the city since all the roads are covered with pieces of buildings or stacks of cars. Our stockpile is starting to run low. There's only a few cans left. We tried to start a garden, but neither Brian nor myself have much of a green thumb.

Once the food runs out I'll be left with two options as far as my sustenance goes. I can either starve to death, or I can eat Brian Stansford. The idea of ingesting that pitiful excuse for a human is horrifying. He's disgusting. I can't imagine he would taste any sort of good. The food's running out though, and I still need another month or two before the helicopter is ready to fly, or before I'm ready to fly it for that matter. I don't have a damn clue how that thing works.

Tonight was the night. I rooted around in the closet till I found one of the guns we kept for hunting (which neither of us ever had much success with), walked upstairs to the room where he was watching old episodes of Gilligan's Island, told him I was sorry, and put a bullet through his head.

This proved to be a great deal messier than I had imagined.

I barbecued him though, and I'm chewing as loud as I can.

I was 15 years old when my father died. That was 56 years ago.

He was 47. He was a brilliant man and a drinker. There were only a few things my father loved. He loved his family, Architecture, the art of Salvador Dali, and whiskey. My father was never violent. He never showed the slightest hint of anger. Although, he could be stern sometimes.

I remember the day he died more vividly than anything else in my life. I don't remember most of my birthdays.The memory of my honeymoon is starting to fade, and I don't remember what my college campus looked like. I remember that day though.

We were living in Dallas. It was summer. One of the driest we'd had in years. Everything was a washed out, golden yellow. The dead grass. The sun beating down on me as I rode my bike through our neighborhood. I had gone to see if my friend James was at home. We were supposed to go swimming. There was an ambulance in my driveway when I returned. I didn't understand. Why would there be an ambulance at my house? Why was a crowd of people starting to gather? Why were policemen keeping people away from our home?

I rushed past the policemen and through the front door of our home. My mother and sister were huddled together and sobbing. I still hadn't figured out what was going on. I didn't, until I saw him. Rigid on the floor. My mind went blank, and then everything started to happen at once. The medics lifting him onto a gurney. The policeman explaining to my mother, my sister, and I what had happened.

My father had been shot. A burglar had broken into our house. Upon seeing my father, he shot him.

It was such a simple death. A death my father did not deserve. Such a complex man felled in such a trivial manner.

I harbored such a horrible anger and bitterness for so long. My father did not deserve that. My family did not deserve that. It completely devastated my sister. She was only 10 when it happened. A cheerful, carefree girl became completely closed off. We couldn't get her to talk for 6 months.

I wanted to be an architect like him. I thought he would like that. I thought that would have made him proud of me. Unfortunately, I did not inherit his ability for architecture. I did, however, inherit his love of whiskey. I started drinking that night.

I found one of his bottles of whiskey and began my alcoholism. The searing of my throat let me know I was still alive and the events that transpired during the day were real. I cherished the taste and the pain. I drank myself into a stupor that night. My vision blurred and my strides became stumbles. The world swirled around me as I fell into the darkness of intoxication.

So today I am in a hospital bed and my liver is failing. I don't have much to show for all my years on this earth. I did find the man who shot my father. It was about 20 years ago. I had spent my entire life looking for him. He was an old man, frail and dying in his home in Reno. I knocked on his door and after a couple of minutes passed he opened the it. After spending my entire life looking for this man, I didn't know what to say to him. He looked at me with this blank stare and asked me who I was. I told him I was the son of a man he shot about 30 years ago. And I shot him. I left him there on his porch and walked away.

The rest of my life is a blur now. Only those two memories remain. I suppose that's how it should be.