The fog covered the trees so they appeared to be floating, grown spontaneously with no roots anchoring them in the soil which produced a strange and unnatural image. This thought occupied me for a few quiet minutes as I gazed, enraptured by the image that presented itself before me. It was a strange feeling to think of how unworldly visions appeared in natural, daily life quite frequently. Perhaps it was simply my perception tainted by the unnatural occurrences in my own personal life that caused me to view quite normal happenings as an unusual phenomenon. What was whole and real, solid and unchanging seemed to falter in my mind often and I began to question everything that had once been absolute. My standpoint on things has become less of a stand and more of a one-footed balancing act. I would wholeheartedly place blame on my obtuse past that has drastically altered the course of my future for the way my perception has morphed into a somewhat skewed life view. My path from anonymity to idolatry has failed to instill utter arrogance and self-absorption but rather plain insanity at the plausibility that I could be considered such a rarity and of such value. My rise to idolatry instead of the rightful damnation that which I would gracefully accept has also baffled me and caused a great shift in my quite divided perception. The b******ization of the modern world is something I acknowledge as a disaster of my own cause although the modern world fails to see this as I do. Why does the world fail to see me as someone who honestly deserves to be condemned instead of hailed as a hero and a patriarch as they do worship me now? Well, every effect starts with a cause.
Graciously, youth flees from everywhere it will spend time. Youth struggle to see the entire landscape of a plan instead being plagued by minute details or only having the ability to make sense of the portrait. True to the former statement I was plagued by a minute detail. The minute detail was named Henry. There was truly nothing outstandingly striking about him at all. In fact there were plenty more outgoing, more interesting, more attractive and more fun people to be around. It is true that most of us are in nature attracted to the brightest, shiniest of objects as well as personalities and appearances. In a crowd, those willing to outshine the others will become the most noticed. No one will pay attention to the bystanders during an interaction between interesting people. Those telling the joke receive the attention not those who only laugh along. But I was a careful girl while I was young who did pay attention to the small details. I was never entertained by those who threw themselves on a stage of social interactions, drawing attention to themselves through obnoxious actions. Since I was withdrawn and thoughtful in nature I was also drawn to those who were most overlooked. I perceived Henry with a sort of endearment and empathetic disposition. I began to grow the need to understand his quiet mannerisms, to hear his deepest woes and feel his embrace when I became his most valued listener. I also thought I saw something different in his quietness that was unalike to others. I began to interpret his actions as extremely thoughtful and therefore I grew to perceive him as something I really had no basis for. Naturally, a fondness for him rooted in my girlish heart.
Over time and with careful strategic decisions, I became close to Henry. We became friends, talking for hours and I managed to probe the cavern of his inner thoughts and emotions. Perhaps I became too close too soon for him seeing as he was accustomed to being ignored and left idle by girls. The sudden intimacy that had bonded between us could have scared him. To this day I can only speculate. He could have said it best when he told me I was unwanted by him. It is too natural for me to ignore words and probe beneath the surface into psychological reasons beyond the speaker’s own recognition. Regardless of his rhyme or reason I was torn apart. I had generally given myself one last chance to get things right and here I was looking into the identical eyes of a face I had only grown too familiar with: rejection. I struggled to deal and retreated into a disturbing stage of my life plagued with loneliness and dejection. Every night for 6 days I prayed, pleaded, hoped and wished that I could be the only girl Henry would ever pay attention to. Someone was listening because when the following morning is a day I will never describe. I shudder at the thought of the days in my youth, dark days of struggle and inconsolable mourning. Responsibility and guilt are the heaviest weights I have ever carried. Back in those early days I was heavily guarded by my closest male relatives and I took sleeping pills so I was able to sleep days on end while reality was too horrific to bear. The monstrosity that had occurred by my own hands and my own pathetically foolish wish was catastrophic.
My family and I had no choice but to retreat into the high latitudes of a mountain where I have ever since resided out of fear of my own personal safety. single-handedly destroyed the future of the human race. Whoever listened to me on that fateful 6th night distorted my feelings and altered my true meaning of my wish. I had wished to be the only girl Henry would ever pay attention to. The devilish nymph that this wish fell upon granted me this wish in a horrific way. On the morning of that dark day that I will never revisit I woke to find the world in a state of terror. That morning, I was discovered to be the only girl in the world.

*
*
*
In days since that first incomparable morning, I have felt large magnitudes of loneliness in my complete isolation. How is one to feel when they know they are responsible for the most mysterious disappearance of an entire gender that left everyone else in utter ruin? I owe many things to my dearest family members who have protected me with their lives and taken complete care of me. It was decided that my family should look for suitors in an attempt to create female children. The rate of one woman giving birth as well as the chances of female children would not do much to help repopulate the world but it was something and because of my unbearable guilt I obliged without protest. One might wonder how I willingly went along with an arranged marriage but I have become so internally distressed that I am greatly unaffected by many events in my life. Though I suffer through unbearable despair I will never consider suicide because I do not see myself worthy of an escape of a hell of my own creation.
A suitor was found and we became “husband and wife” unofficially. My husband was a neighbor boy that I went to school with. I had never turned an eye to him before and I had no intentions to do so now. I was matched with him many years ago now and since I have borne only sons and I am ashamed to say that I can see the irony in this since this would have been seen as good fortune hundreds of years ago. I have stopped giving birth to children as this is only a frustrating and deep disappointment. I also do not wish to bring any other children into a world full of a dying race. We are the last civilization to ever be on Earth and this thought bears a suffocating weight on my chest.
I have much retreated into my own head and I now pass my days in a separate wing of the castle where I am not disturbed. I do not keep up with news and events in the world of a race of men anymore. I have no interest in knowing further details of my wreckage. The last men on Earth are a constant thought in my head. They are with me when I sleep and when I wake up. I have frequent haunting dreams where the men attack me; in others I reveal myself but they are more interested in one another than the only female in the world. I awake and yet I can’t help but wonder if they really do send each other meaningful glances out of the corners of their eyes. I do not like to think too intently on these poor, tortured beings. If I do the thoughts begin to spill greedily and hungrily, viciously tearing apart any shred of light there is in my life as if the thoughts of the tortured men are jealous of any positivity I may hold. The thoughts of these poor men are like demons with gleaming red eyes in the dark, hissing and gnawing at my insides with their nails buried deep inside the flesh of my mind. These demons slither and taunt any images of hope I have, mercilessly glaring and cursing my happiness. “Do you really deserve to be happy?” They whisper with incredulous faces.
Positivity floats and hovers in my mind as if ready to dissipate at only a moment’s notice. These thoughts are angels of positivity radiating light, smiling and laughing as though they know a hidden secret but their lips reveal nothing. Only on days when the images of the angels are thin do the demons reveal themselves, wrapping their cold thin limbs around me. Their grasp is familiar and on darker days I welcome their embrace. The prospect of happiness and good fortune is something I have accepted is out of reach. Hopelessness is what I’ve known for decades now. It has been engraved, pounded and pressed into my memory. My thoughts pool and when left idle they spin in a fury, eating away, devouring and destroying anything positive I have imagined. After the storm the dust does not settle. I do not settle. I shake, I break. I crave, I need. I fall with no supports. Frustration pumps through my veins as a second blood. Hope is lost.
The angels of positivity gracefully fled at the predicted moment’s notice. The ghosts of these beautiful angels remain, imprinted on the stone walls of my mind to be treasured. Instead of mocking the pathetic angels, the demons now quietly whimper and lie in strange arrangements with one another with minds void. They have become void and coma-like at the departure of the angels, no longer active and taunting. My demons know the angels may have been mirage-like but they were true and they will be considered whole and solid. As the absence of the angels caused such an impact, the demons at first shrieked out and reached for them weeping as their small and battered hearts began to turn in on themselves. The demons found no relief in weeping so their eyes dried and as something left, it was replaced. The thoughts became unfeeling and a great nothingness took shape. A sleepy sheen began to cover the angels’ absence and a shy snow fell, silencing and masking the demons’ cries. With the snow came a quiet, bearable sadness. The demons’ formerly outreached claws withdrew and began to close. The fire of the demons cooled into coals and they were forever silenced. In the quiet I find stability and I hope the quiet stays throughout my remaining days.