Short story

Dedicated to Rik - because he asked to read it =D   


Blessed are the Meek.


    “I’ve only got a few hours left,” he said out loud. “I may as well enjoy them.” He finished calmly peeling his apple and popped a slice into his mouth. Then an angry frown gripped his brow and he crunched it viciously. A tear fell from his eye, smashing into droplets on the marble floor.
    Sure enough, they were all gone within three days; every single living creature, and I was the only one left. 
    All the wild and corny stories that men had ever written, about the Last One on Earth had finally come true.
    And it was me.
   
    It was such a shame. They had just begun the final experimental stage of a treatment for the terrible sickness that was consuming the whole living world of creatures. I was among six others to whom they had administered the new drug, but they had all become too ill to watch our progress.
    At first, my companions died, one by one, so, with no encouragement to keep working, the scientists gave up the fight and retired to small ailing groups to await their ultimate fate.
    If only they had stayed to observe, but only one dying man came, probably out of morbid curiosity. Sadly, he was in the last stage of the disease, and the excitement of my recovery was too much for him. The sight of me, alive and thriving, drove him into a frenzy of joy, misery and panic. I had survived both the virus and the treatment, so suddenly he was obsessed with an insane effort to treat himself. Within moments of  filling the tube with the drug he had collapsed and begun convulsing. I watched him die on the clean white floor. He lay there, his back arched and rigid, a look of sheer terror fixed on his face. His flailing arm had released the catch on my prison and I was freed.
    I left the room and the building, grateful for my good fortune and ready to explore. I passed by bodies that had been maturing for days, lying lonely and neglected in the summer heat. The only sounds were from moving plants, abandoned washing and deserted mechanical systems that continued their faithful tasks, unaware of the pointlessness of their existence.
    It was a rich and beautiful world. Everyone had been so contented and happy with their lives, until a strange new virus had arrived on incoming transport from space, survived all the eradicating techniques, infected the atmosphere and spread rapidly over this delicate and unaccustomed planet, destroying all animal life with unexpected speed and virility, and before we had actually noticed anything, it was already too late.
    So now this gentle Earth was all mine.
    I explored far and wide, stopping for rest at one point in what was once the Chief Administrator’s palace.
   
Odd-shaped robots went about their business as if nothing had happened, running out their programmes with blind devotion, and even attempting to feed the occasional fresh body until a medical check program reminded them that corpses do not need sustenance.
Shortly thereafter a disposal unit would arrive to remove the body and sanitate the immediate area.
    The main hall had been decorated with fancy illumination according to the personal whim of the man who had been the chief. Tiny flickering lights swivelled sparkling colours, gently, round glittered walls, with a complementary main light source originating in the floor; a reflection on the wealth of the age.
    The soft deep chairs were all empty. I settled into one of them.
    This is all mine! I thought to myself. All the beauty and fortunes of the world were mine. All the food and drink, all the visual entertainment, servants . . . .
    I quickly tired of the chair and the great hall, so I moved on into the City. The night life was waking, as it had done every dusk for a hundred years. The almost-silent clicks of flashing signs disturbed the air with their minute vibrations. As the sunset deepened, other sounds sprang out of the silence.  Mechanical vendors and various shades of music, interrupted occasionally by the warm hiss of the empty monorail cars swishing high over the moving walkway, halting at the rooftop stations and opening their empty doors, only to draw smoothly away again, still empty. The absence of the hubbub of human activity screamed at me, and I shut my mind to the futile noises that persistantly ground on and on, as I drifted into thought, and a cool wind touched me from behind.
    “This all belongs to you!” it whispered.
    Yes, they’ve left it all to little me. If only they knew. I replied to the breeze. All the wealth and riches. All the fortunes, all the space, all the emptiness, all the solitude, all the wasted world.
    This wonderful city, the tall and stately buildings, great leviathans towering their vacant magnificence above me, so small, on the stationary paved zone. Did they know they belonged to me, that I had become their master? The street led into beautiful gardens, created for the relaxation and pleasure of the people who had lived here; coloured lights on drooping willows and cascading waterfalls, but now the people had all gone. My only company was the spectre of memory, and the sad and crumpled bodies, huddled together for comfort in anticipation of death.
     So beautiful.
     So tragic.
     Perhaps I should have felt guilt as I entered the dimly lit living quarters. Small, empty and frozen in the cold moonlight. Who knows how long the two dead people in the bed spent, exposed to the chilly summer nights? I could hear all the little apartments calling to me,
    “We all belong to you!” Their blank stares of windows and open doors profoundly expressing their pointless existence. Great grey pillars of power in the distance, destined to function for centuries, giving light, sound and warmth to the empty land and the purposeless automatons.
    “But you know I have no use for you!” I cried out loud to the desolate grey shells that had once been homes, “I have everthing I need to live without all of you!” I shouted back at the cool wind, “It is such a waste, I don’t require any of this!” I stopped shouting.
The ideas had calmed me. I whispered to the two corpses in the bed, “I am laden with eggs, and there is plenty of food for thousands, no, millions of my children and their children for years to come.” The bad moment had passed and I remembered why I was here, and it pleased me.
    I flew over to the larger of the bodies to deposit my precious burden, one by one, and with no fear of disturbance I had time to carefully place them in the eyes, nostrils and around the open mouth. The destiny of the world was left to me; I and mine had inherited the Earth, with all its useless trinkets. Little me. Who could have predicted that?
    A little housefly.

Fashion versus the olfactory nerve.

There are very few perfumes which I actively like, and only two which I would wear.
One is L'aimant by Coty [which has unfortunately become associated with old ladies exclusively] or Estée, by Estée Lauder, which I cannot afford. [My sister bought me a bar of Estée soap once, which I treasured, but my son used it all up because the box and bar were blue and he'd discovered where I'd stashed it.
I didn't even know until I opened the empty box when I was about to treat myself to an Estée bath.]

Camay soap. Oh, dear Katie Boyle, where and why did that soap go? It was beautiful. I have one precious bar left.

I possess a very acute sense of smell which is rarely a great gift, and I'm glad I smoke, because think how much worse it could be....?

Smell memory is important, and I've seen many people stopped in their tracks by a smell that reminded them of something from when they were very young.
So. When companies want to attract me to a product, why do they seem to think that changing the scent of it to something never smelled before will do them any good?

There was a perfume which hit the market some time ago called "Poison".
Well, they got the name spot on for me.
If I smell anyone wearing it my throat feels as though someone has emptied a tub of exquisitely vile talcum powder down and it literally makes me gag. I have to quickly get away, usually choking and coughing and with my eyes watering.
Since other perfumes have sprung into existence trying to imitate the stink of that perfume I find myself being made uncomfortable more frequently now.
Certain checkouts in shops are no-go areas for me for that simple reason alone.
I do try not to make it obvious that I'm reacting to the poor woman or man who has spent good money on the terrible stuff.
There is a nasty, powdery, underlying smell which a lot of modern perfumes seem to be based on.
Old ones never were.

I can't be the only one?

Take Glade, for example.
They make many household squirty and stinky things to - ahem - "freshen" your house. When they first introduced "Shake-and-Vac" I actually really liked the "floral bouquet" one, so when I heard they were changing the smell I bought quite a few reduced tubs of it from a "discontinued item" bargain bin to keep me going.
I only used it because I liked the smell, otherwise why would I want to throw dust all over my floors?
I've never bought "Shake-and-Vac" since because they all smell dreadful, often with that underlying powdery nastiness.
At least you can get a whiff of the stuff before you decide not to buy it because it's hideous.
I will never waste money on their air fresheners because I can't sample before I buy. Why would I?

I have always had to rely on discovering a nice smell in someone else's house and then asking them about it.
Quite frankly, I haven't liked any air fresheners - anywhere.

Ambi Pur have a better idea, although they tend to charge a small fortune for their scents, by having scratch-and-sniff patches on their boxes.
They used to do one of their wall-socket-pluggy-device things which I liked. It was supposed to be anti-tobacco, and smelled really posh and lovely, but they stopped doing it.
Why?
Why-why-why?
Again, I've never liked any other smell by them since.

Vanilla candles? NOOO! Vanilla should be in pantries and special sugar bowls and cakes, not on fire in the living room. And I hate the smell of burning vanilla and wax anyway.

I never ever buy bleach.
Guess why.
=)

Vaseline intensive care lotion.
I bought that because I loved the smell. It reminded me of my dear sweet grandmother, who died when I was seven.
Vaseline, in their wisdom, have changed it completely and now you have to buy a whole array of gaudy-coloured bottles to fail to do what the original lotion did.
And they all smell horrible.

And what is it with cleaning fluids?

What bright little whizz kid decided that everything should smell of fruit?
From kitchen cleaning stuff, shampoos and conditioners, soaps, fabric softeners, body lotions - you name it, they all smell of FRUIT?

I want my hair to smell of clean, nice hair, not a bloody fruit salad!!!

Why would I want my kitchen to smell of mandarins?
I associate the smell of fruit with being horribly sticky and therefore dirty, so leave it out, Procter and Gamble!

I never even liked and have never bought "fresh lemon-scented" cleaning stuff either, except by accident.

I actually buy real lemons or cooking lemon juice [which doesn't reek the house out] for descaling and shining, but artificial scents themselves are ALWAYS WRONG!
I wouldn't dream of ever washing my windows with strawberries, and I never want half a banana to fall from my hair while I'm gently flicking it around to show off my fresh, shiny and full-of-body tresses to my admiring public.

Would you clean your cooker with lemon curd, then expect your toad-in-the-hole or roast potatoes to come out smelling delicious?

Mango chutney, maybe, but NOT blackberry jam, or water melons, or passion fruit.

If only one company would have the idea that retro could be the way to go, I might have a chance, but until then, I wash my hair in the herbal Fairy Liquid [purple one, rosemary I think, which isn't gorgeous, but the most acceptible to me].
That reminds me. Dove Silk conditioner is no longer produced, and nothing else smells as nice as that did now.

Dear old Fairy. The only other product left that doesn't stink everyone out with that horrible powdery smell or fruit.
The only product true and faithful to its own scent is Nivea.
Nivea cream still has the original smell, when I last bought some, anyway. My grandmother used to use that, too.

There's only one scented cleaning product that I like at the moment. Bold Infusions washing machine cushion thingies. The creamy-white one.
I suppose they'll be changing it soon. I won't buy it any more if they do because it is incredibly expensive for simple clothes washing.

Excuse me, now. I've got to go out and buy some star fruit and lychees because
I need to clean my car...... ;)

Resurfacing

My personal puzzle for today has me foxed.
Last week the road where my house is was "resurfaced".
Not like my definition of the word "resurfaced", you understand, but something else entirely.
There are quite a few dents, bulges and potholes reappearing since last year when they did exactly the same thing.
The work:
Basically, a small gang of guys in yellow high-visibility gear and safety helmets wanders around with spades, sprinkling little piles of powdered tarmac grit over the blemishes.
WHAT IS THAT?

Now, I'm no pessimist, but I wasn't surprised when this disappeared again over the following few weeks after they were here last year.
When the sun glinted on it, you could see the bald road surface gleaming brightly where the new loose grit had sandpapered off what was left of the previous resurfacing job, several years before that.
At least that was level, though.
This year's effort was left in little mountains and spade-action swathes and looked something like a Jackson Pollack in monochrome.

This time the grit quickly collected into settling points, mostly along the gutter, and helped on its way there by drivers ignoring the temporary speed limit triangles [20mph] and skiing along at well over the legal 30 limit, sending high-speed pieces of gravelly shrapnel over gardens, into glass window panes and pedestrians' eyes. [I'm exaggerating now, but it doesn't feel safe out there =D]
Of course, a lot of this stuff is collecting in the roadside drains which were emptied and cleared only last month.

I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason for this, but it seems a horrible waste of tax-payers' money and I'm certain we didn't vote for it.
Imagine my surprise when, today, the thunderous drone of a road sweeper threatened in the distance, gradually gaining decibels as it approached.

With the infra-sound vibrating my house and my lungs I watched, incredulous, as it sucked up most of the loose grit from the gutters and roadsides.
Never mind my wonder at how the hell all that stone dust, with the weight of it, would FIT into that machine [especially with a panic-induced fuel shortage hitting us already, a week before this alleged tanker-drivers' strike is supposed to begin; Tuesday, the 3rd of April, I was told, which is tomorrow], I'm at a massive loss as to what special new idea some fresh little genius in the Department of Transport [whatever it's called now] has come up with.
I looked at the road in the wake of the gobbling road sweeper and saw that, sure enough, most of the grit which was applied with reckless abandon last week has gone.

Really. Am I missing something?

But perhaps my questions have been answered already.
A short while later a new rumbling hit the air outside.
I looked out again and discovered that little gaggle of surfacers are back [still with their high-visibility gear on] with their spades, but one of them has a bucket.
In this bucket is a hellish-looking black liquid - probably bitumen - which he is pouring over small areas of more severe damage on our road. The others are, more carefully, spreading that same grey grit dust over these patches.
It a least looks a bit more stable than the job they did last week, but as soon as the hot weather comes [I can hope ;) ] it will be slid off again and redistributed by our vehicle wheels.
One year, in the centre of Swaffham, where they had done a job very similar to this on a heavy-use road, the layer of black "glue" was a lot thicker.
It was hilarious for a while, seeing traffic, including heavy goods vehicles, stopped for the traffic lights and other junctions, creeping along extremely slowly with melted tarmac peeling off the road onto their wheels like pastry around a rolling pin. =D
The road was a complete mess.
Pedestrians were getting stuck in it like ants in honey.
Hilarious, that was, until you got indoors somewhere and discovered that your car, and your shoes, were coated in the stuff.
Only petrol would clean it off, out of my own car, of course, but not until after A LOT of transfer, haha.
It made me understand how Midas must have felt, except I didn't get any gold =D.

So why did they put the dust down, then sweep it up?
Was it some sort of obscure "preparation" technique to "sandpaper" the surface a bit flatter?
Was it a very expensive April Fool joke?
I rather suspect it was a huge mistake by someone trying to cut corners and save budgets.
The latter is the most likely explanation as my local council have got previous for those.
The error-maker won't lose his/her job, though.
Our local government seems to be a tad "family"-oriented. Once you're "in", you're there for life.

Oh, I've just heard that road sweeper again.
What fun!
It's on its way back =D

Childhood memory I'd rather not have =D

Childhood memories can be happy and magical.
It was a wonderland of discovery and invention, and some days stand out more clearly than others. Smells and tastes are very good at triggering a moment of cosy nostalgia.
Some memories aren't so joyful, though. As a child raised by a single-parent strict Catholic, guilt and paranoia play a large part of my own.
Yes, you remember certain punishments for dire transgressions, but there is one act which stands out and is branded onto my brain forever.
One inflicted punishment for which there was no crime.
There are many of us out there who have suffered in silence and for us there is no group or counselling.

To the parent, the deed can be innocent enough, and often is used as a last resort to keep family life running smoothly.
I don't suppose my mother realised how horrible it was to me, and I know it was hard raising three girls alone, one of whom was mentally handicapped by febrile convulsions and a very bad doctor.

No. She did her best and I will never criticise her for that, but there is one thing which I have NEVER done to my own children - THE SPIT WASH!

Picture the scene. You are ready to go out, coats on, shoelaces tied, Hair reasonably tidy, then Mother spots a smudge of dirt on your cheek because you were "looking at" the glittery bits of coal in the scuttle while she was busy with your sisters.
[When you are very young, the process of "looking" always tends to involve your hands.]
She advances on you menacingly, diving into her pocket for that slightly grimy cotton hanky that she forgot to replace last week.
Out comes the hanky - she shakes it and bits of fluff and pocket dust fall away.
Already nasty.
If the hanky looks too far-gone for her to dare putting it to her tongue, she says, "Lick this!", but you never seem to have enough dampness on your tongue to wet it sufficiently.
She gives up and licks the hanky herself to create a more moist patch and lunges at your face.
You wince, but it does no good.
A smear of her bright red lipstick has escaped onto the hanky where she licked it, so she scrubs even harder to get it off, not realising that the redness on your face is due to her over-zealous scrubbing.

"Oh, you'll do!" she announces, and you finally all leave the house.

Whatever your destination, you soon have to endure the second-phase-spit-wash horror.
It dries on your face in the fresh air, pulling the skin tight, so you rub it to turn the area back into flexible skin. If your hands are still dirty from the coal-treasure-hunting, you risk going through the whole process again, but as a child you don't think to look at your hands first.
For the rest of the outing, whenever the air is still, you catch a whiff of dried saliva and lipstick - which is disgusting, but there is no respite until your face is washed properly with water and a flannel.

I never had old dribbly aunts who kiss children and cause much the same kind of distress, but my sympathies go out to those that did. I imagine the suffering is the same for them as it was for us.
A pinched-up bit of crispy face and the stink of someone else's dried slobber.
I still shudder at the thought now.
I never committed a spit-wash on my own children. Although it was before the days of baby wipes I would always carry in my parenting equipment a supply of clean tissues and a small plastic bottle of clean water.
Is that so much to ask?

Needless to say I was horrified when I watched one of my daughters doing the Dirty Deed on one of their own children!
You KNOW who you are!
There's absolutely no excuse for it.

But I realise my mistake.
My own children never had to suffer the spit-wash themselves from me, so maybe they have no experience of how revolting it is to have it done to them.

Maybe it's an every-other-generation thing?

To PuzzledinCA; =)

Copied from EG24:
"Thanks, PuzzledinCA, it's heartening to know at least the television companies think people still care. And thank you for the walkthrough with clear explanantions for people who haven't perhaps followed the complete Minoto Ugly Duckling series. =D"

Thank you for taking the trouble to mention that. I never watch television, so it seems to me that everyone has fogotten.

I know disaster training probably figures higher in japanese education than, say england, where I live, but take for example policemen. All the training in the world never truly prepares one for the first dead body - sometimes a child.
I think the scale of the combined disasters in japan in such a short space of time [earthquakes, tsunami and power plant/s failure] must have been greater than even the trainers had experienced in living memory.
What I'm suggesting is that they can't possibly have been completely emotionally prepared for what happened, or the aftermath.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki [affecting smaller areas, possibly] would be the closest?

I'm not preoccupied with basking in the misery of others' misfortune, I just can't tolerate bullying, which the comments on Ugly Duckling 6 sort of amount to.
Kicking a man when he's down? It just seemed he could do with some back-up, so I got up on my soap box =D

Natural disasters fascinate me; my greatest dream is to go on a storm-chasing tour, and my favourite english experience was driving through a skinny tornado one summer night [yes, we DO get them]. My car window was open, and I only realised what it was when I got smacked in the head by very fast sand and a load of other stuff. =D
Apart from sand-blasting my face, I don't think anything or anyone was hurt by it.


The reason I spouted off on EG24 was because it seems so unfair to be firing so many complaints at Minoto's recent [FREE] games without seeming to consider that even if he hasn't lost everything, he probably knows someone who has.
Minoto is bound to be affected. His life will never be the same.