A Park Bench

So I realize I've been silent for the past little while. I was doing the whole NaNoWriMo thing. That story has taken up the bulk of my time. I'm pretty excited to share the finished product. For now here's a really short story(seriously, short) I wrote a while ago. Hopefully I'll have something new to share soon. Until then, Enjoy.

A Park Bench
By: James Jakins

In the shade of the decaying trees the man sat. His eyes unfocused, he stared into the fading light of another dying day. He rested on what had once been a park bench. Now it was just a marker for the millions dead.

He slowly turned his head at the sound of something falling. Another marker had been pushed over. He looked down at his hands, slowly kneading the air, then he stood to investigate the sound.

At the mouth of a dark alley he found the metal trash can lying on its side. He picked it up and placed it upright. As a proper grave stone should be. He ignored the pile of lifeless forms stacked in the back of the alley. They ignored him as well.

He walked back to his bench. He sat long after the sun had set and cast the broken world into a more perfect shadow.

He sat up straight when he saw the silhouettes. Two forms walking down a hill towards the dead city rising behind him. They walked side by side, their shapes a stark contrast to the emptiness he was accustomed to seeing in the night sky.

He stood excitedly. It had been too long since his mouth had formed words. He tried to shout hello. Only a faint groan escaped.

The forms, still far off, did not hear him. His excitement grew as he watched them come closer. He could almost make them out now. A man and a woman. He began to wave his arms in the air. After a few more groans his mouth remembered how to speak.

“Hey, hey! Hello.”

The forms stopped and looked in his direction. He began to run towards them. The man pushed the woman behind him and unslung something from his shoulder.

The gun’s report never registered. His body slumped several paces in front of his bench and his hands kneaded at the air one last time before going still.

A Park Bench by James Jakins is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.