Solitary Dimness

The city seemed endless when it was empty. Half of it, maybe more, was filled with unused treasures that lay moldering in growing mounds of dust. Long streets stayed dark, no longer powered now that no one was left to keep the electrical grids up and running. Towering skyscrapers cast long shadows like tombstones over an open grave. Under their watch, daylight shrunk, dawn and dusk lengthened, and night lasted forever.

As far as I could tell my lamp remained the only constant beacon. I believed that other people survived huddling out there in the dark corners, afraid that revealing where they were with their own light would be an invitation to be victimized, but I never saw them. I used to range wide, pushing a shopping cart full of electric lanterns and batteries, leaving one pf each every couple of blocks but they were vandalized, broken by man or animal. Over time, my resolved weakened and eventually I gave it up as a waste of time.

These days it was hard enough to my own light running, much less bright.