Flash Fiction

The footprints stomped across man made sand, stretching all the way out to some imaginary sea. The footprints too were probably imagined. My whole world for some time had been imaginary, by which I mean unreal. Living in a world of your own making has its vicissitudes, stomping footprints being one.

My new world had started one morning when the alarm didn't go off. I awoke with a start, my interior clock told me it was late. I ran around collecting clothes. I put them on haphazardly. The power was on, I noticed, but the clock only displayed zeroes. In the kitchen, the clock which was mechanical, had stopped at midnight. I knew it was wrong. I could feel it. It was daylight.

Outside my front door it was deserted. I mean, no noise, no people, no nothing. Everything was normal except nothing was normal. I walked to the bus stop but no bus came. I walked to work. There was no one there. I turned my computer on but the screen refused to be anything other than blank.

I wandered. The loneliness took a while, but it arrived.

Some weeks later realisation dawned. I had not seen or heard another living being since that morning. Not even heard the distant bark of a dog nor been irritated by an annoying bluebottle. Yet every day the markets were filled with fresh foods, to which I helped myself. Every morning cars were parked in new places. I had not tried driving one yet.

This could only be a world of my own making, imaginary and unreal. It seemed that, somewhere, just out of my sight the world was carrying on. Without me.

So, the footprints were a shock. It had been many months since the solitude began. Although unbelievable I followed them. They, of course, led nowhere. Yet for the briefest of moments I thought, I hoped they would return me to the unimagined world. But no, they eventually fade, and the solitude deepens.