pre-VEGAS

And with that, all the lights in the world went off. Everyone knew that this was it. All kinds of people had come and gone since this whole fiasco sped up last March.

Except no one knew what the fuck was really going on. It had been years since any real information was allowed to get out to the teeming masses, the directionlessly angered population.

Everybody knew that it was getting worse and worse, but no one could remember any particular thing changing. Just nameless fear, like the dull throb of a freshly remembered nightmare. Brief spike, but then the general dull anguish going on and on endlessly.

All the lights went out.

In a few hours the pink and green streaks of the morning sun would be trying to break through the congealed gases that smear the surface of the sky, but for now it was everyone's darkness. No one said anything to anybody. Either there was nothing to say, or it had all been said already , in so many words.

Not in any kind of overt way, mind you. Not in any kind of serious way. You start talking like that and anything could happen to you.

Get yourself locked up with a bunch of blank-eyed "shells": hollow human forms used to store government-created chemistry for a rapidly approaching day when "human" bombs are the only discreet option left. But that's a whole 'nuther angle not to think about too hard.

Now it's dark.

Not in some cliche way that can be filed away comfortably in anyone's mind. No one has the mental capacity to pretend that this is like any other time. The so-called Apocalypse date has come and gone with a minimum of hand-wringing, but more than an average amount of wide-spread nervous laughter, despite the city-sponsored fireworks display and garish banners hung along all the major streets.

An age is ended. Ending. Whatever.

People are being very quiet... at least for now. There is no electricity in the air. No anticipation. No buzz of human-generated energy.

The word has become moot. As if forgotten.

There will be no more resistance. No one knows what to resist, what to fight against.

So, we might as well just lay down and all close our eyes. Tomorrow there will be time for fleeing to another insane situation.

A desert. A distant hope.

A small fire to huddle by in the back of what's left of our collective mind.