Last Words...

We are old now. We sit, aged and tired, in our chairs, watching the world pass by outside the window. The world is now different to the one we grew up in and learnt to love. The world has seen many changes, as have we. Wars have ravaged the land, making much of it uninhabitable. The winds blow across the barren wastelands and sting our tired eyes. We are the last of a dying race. A new breed of survivors now are in control. We were required to make the transition, to show the path that was needed to take us from what we were to what we became, and ultimately to what they have become. Our time has past, and we are now simply the relics of an older, more complicated age.

When the bombs came, most died. Most of the rest suffered, and then too, died.

Few survived long enough to consider trying to rebuild something, anything, on the ruins that were before us. We were of the few that did. I will always remember standing in that cinema, remembering how only a brief year before I had been sitting there, enjoying the marvels of modern technology on the screen in front of me. Enjoying the popcorn and company. Now that cinema shows no remnants of its former glory. The bright curtains no longer hang from the walls. Most were destroyed, and the few rags that remained are now in service as clothes or as bedding. The hole in the roof let in the weather, which tormented us with storms and rains that could kill a man.

But we survived. Those first few years were the worst. I thought we would never make it, but somehow, as time went by, things that once seemed of great importance fell by the wayside. We adjusted to the more simple pleasures of life, and not only managed to survive, but to thrive on it. And we were happy. Somehow.

I don't think I could have made it without you though. It was your presence that always gave me the strength to keep going when all seemed lost. And many times all did seem lost.

I remember when our numbers fell to just the two of us, and we spent one night, thinking it was our last, together alone under the trusses of what was once a great bridge. It had since become a home to the vermin and rodents that now seemed to be everywhere one cared to look. And for us, we expected it to be our graves.

But yet we survived through some miracle. The next day gave us new companions, and new hope. We slowly formed a group, a tribe if you like, that was self-sufficent without relying on scavenging for all its needs.

We were the ancients amongst them, and tried to help them towards a world that would be more perfect than the one we were products of. I do not know if we helped them or hindered them. But their destiny is in their hands now.

We are too old to help anymore, and now just sit here at the vacant window, watching as they rebuild the world with their own dreams and visions. They seem to be doing well, and we are well looked after. I am content with my life, and the time I have spent with you.

I know it is my time to die now. I give to you the last remnants of my love, and hope to see you again in a world that is better than this one.