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[existing-out-of-spite]

The Iron Giant: War Again and Again commission (2022)

Art by: Carlos Dearmas

[existing-out-of-spite]

[existing-out-of-spite]

Me: So yeah, casual english has completely changed since then. Nowadays instead of 'There was a crying baby on the bus today' you would say 'Me when I'm in a being loud and annoying competition and my opponent is crying baby on bus.' And then you'd post this picture of Squidward. Oh, uh, Squidward is a guy from a cartoon-"

Reanimated Corpse of John Wilkes Booth: *Has been staring angrily at a penny for the last 15 minutes and not listened to a word I've said*

[existing-out-of-spite]

[existing-out-of-spite]

I dreamed of being alone. No, I craved it. Every day I wished to be left in my own solitude. I begged for my phone to no longer buzz with texts from my eager friends and family. It would be my Heaven. I prayed the rest of the world would cease and I could exist in singularity.

But the morning of the vanishing proved me wrong. It felt off, it felt incomplete. I knocked on every door of my apartment building, I screamed in the street begging the world would take pity and reveal this was all an elaborate prank to make me appreciate people again. To fall in love with their mediocre conversations and actions, to crave them. But instead, the streets didn't hum with morning traffic, bakeries no longer smelled of freshly baked bread and cherry danishes, and house lights that were left on haunted me like ghosts outside of my peripheral.

The first year wasn't bad. My mind was focused on making it through the seasons. Stockpiling canned food and other non-perishable food items. But slowly expiration dates crept, taunting me that soon all the resources I gathered would disappear much like those I loved. I began reading books, acquiring skills like sewing, farming, and basic medicine to boost my chances of survival.

The second year was rougher. True loneliness crept up. I began writing letters to those I missed. Telling them of things I was doing. What I'd learned, what I dreamt of. How I hoped to one day, somehow give them these letters. How I could touch them again, and bask in this presence in hopes of never being ripped away from it again.

By the third year, I felt like I was forgetting how to speak. It had been so long since I had an actual conversation. Writing wasn't the same, instead, my neat letters spiraled into chicken scratch. I began monologuing my actions, talking to myself about anything. The wind, the trees, the quiet. I felt that if I stopped talking for a minute, I'd never be able to speak again. I'd forget completely. The more I talked the more I questioned the correctness of my own sentences.

The fourth year was the most difficult. There wasn't a day I awoke that I didn't contemplate giving up. Never moving again. Letting the ground consume me. What was the point, it had been so long? There was a chance no one was ever coming back. Even if they did, what if I didn't recognize them? Or they, me? What if we'd both forgotten how to talk? How to co-exist again? Was there a point in surviving if our suffering was incurable?

Somehow I made it to the fifth year, where I decided to never stop moving. I didn't stay in a place for more than a week. I changed scenery more than clothes. I preoccupied my mind with new sights and experiences. I took photos. I left signs showing life in case there was another soul in a mile radius of where I camped. But at last another campfire was never lit, filling the night sky with optimistic smoke.

By the sixth year, I had grown tired. I settled. I began building, creating, and experimenting with devices and contraptions. This new hobby distracted me and gave me goals and aspirations again. The plans only got more elaborate. An automatic watering system turned into a full aquaponics system. The chicken scratch sprawled across pages filled with complex diagrams.

By the seventh year, I had stopped writing letters to the people once knew. I had lost their photos ages ago and their faces slowly lost themselves in my memory. My dreams no longer housed anyone but me. Monologuing turned into ramblings, the journals I kept no longer reflected the person I used to be.

At year eight I could no longer recognize my name. It had been so long since somebody called it. When I attempted to spell it, I missed letters and the pronunciation felt foreign. It was a shell of myself that no longer held any value, for I had nobody to call it.

The ninth year blended with the eighth, I was no longer sure of the exact day, but only the season. Nature had reclaimed most of its lost land, filling concrete with roots and flowers. Vines sprawled carelessly from windows and electrical sockets. I had to battle the weeds that declared war on my settlement. While ferns grew spontaneously around the boundaries of my lawn, the clean-cut grass was the only form of control I resembled.

Year ten felt like them all, empty. I pondered how much longer I could last, would my hair turn grey? Would wrinkles form on my hands? Or perhaps I would go a week from then, and the earth would be free, slowly growing over the last of humanity's footprints.

But just as it all began, it ended. At first, they were unrecognizable. I saw them as beasts that had been born from the earth's core. They seemed wild, untamed. It wasn't until I caught my reflection in the water that I realized they were me.

Four of them found my camp first as it was difficult to miss due to the windmill I crafted years earlier. I felt threatened. They were everything I asked for, but they were embodiment untrustworthy. Utter strangers, with unknown motives.

They approached cautiously, bearing their vulnerability.

They asked for company. A chance of interaction to swap stories. Their words were unrefined and messy. They spilled over themselves, in a sense creating their own primal language. Each was the same. Each faced solitude. Begged for companionship, but their pleas fell short on deaf ears. They coped and distracted themselves. Some traveled, others settled, some flourished, others struggled. They all were unsure what changed, what had truly brought them back, brought everyone back. Even those who opted to not survive the years. Those who had lost hope and gave in and those who should've held on for one more day.

Each of those who were left theorized why. Perhaps this was one of God's tests, a chance to prove ourselves. Others offered some that a transdimensional shift that sent everyone into their own universe. Some believed it was nature's way of survival.

We danced around the topic of old friends and family, and what had become of them. Like a dressed wound, there was not much that could be done. Instead, we soaked in each other. We allowed not a bit of silence in fear it would be eternal.

Ten years ago everyone else on Earth disappeared. Now they are all back. Everyone says the same thing. Ten years ago, everyone else but them disappeared.