Flash fiction

My house stands at the edge of the Earth.

It didn’t use to. Earth was a normal planet, a planet-sized planet as it were. Round. Not as big as Jupiter, of course, but not so small as to see its edges. I’ve been to cities that were bigger than what Earth looks like now.

There are only a few thousands of us left. We can’t say we’re alive, really – we’re almost zombies. Everybody that’s still here lost family and friends. We’re in the acceptance stage now… there was fighting, and incredulity, and mass suicides, but everybody seems to be resigned to whatever fate we have. Nobody has a clue what happened. It doesn’t even make any sense – no celestial body this small should have an atmosphere, and yet the air is perfectly breathable. A lot more breathable than it used to be, in fact – there’s no industry left on Earth, nothing to pollute. I think all the animals are gone too, except for a few pets. Oh, and lots of insects. The scientists were right; the cockroaches will inherit the Earth. Whatever will remain of it, if anything.

I don’t know what happened. Nobody does for sure. Maybe God was fed up with the humans again, and thought floods were passé? Maybe some evil wizard played with something that escaped his control? Whatever it was, it destroyed us all. The speed of the shrinkage has slowed down, but even if it were to stop completely there are too few people left now and too little space to live in. Some people have called this the Earth Spaceship; it finally became true.

Why am I even writing this? I have no idea. Maybe I’m an incorrigible optimist, even in the face of certain disaster. Maybe all the pessimists died out and I feel responsible for humanity. Maybe this is all a nightmare. Oh God, how I hope this is a nightmare! Somehow, though, I can’t seem to wake up from it.

At least we avoided global warming.

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