From this elevation we see the beginning of grassy, rolling hills stretching west toward foothills of distant mountains. Dropping down we see a small city'a large town really. At a lower altitude we notice a difference. It takes a while to understand. There's a lack of something. Movement. There isn't any.

Lower still, the town looks as if a giant hand has rolled up its sleeve, shaken it and left it as it lay, only to suck itself back up into the clouds and roll that sleeve back down again, snorting a petulant 'so there!'� The buildings are intact but the streets are littered with everything'cars, trucks, even a washing machine.

We see a bit of movement now. An occasional deer grazes in a yard, certain wildlife scurries about. No cats though, you'd figure they'd be around, but they aren't. Nothing mechanical is moving, and there is little sound'only the wind whistling off the prairie through what was once Bismarck, North Dakota, U.S.A.

We rise up and scan the city, looking for people. Papers dance the windy streets, some trash, but not much. On the western edge of town, just at the beginning of a grassy knoll we see a group of buildings. The outskirts'it looks as if traffic had both streamed in and out of this town. There is more clutter here.

Down a bit, a scarred, gray pick-up, head-on'ed into an old Chevy Impala. For some reason there is a red tricycle sitting perfectly still atop the Chevy's wreckage. Upon closer inspection we find that all of the cars are not unoccupied. A few contain mummifying corpses. Across the street from the accident a Greyhound Bus station next to a liquor store. Something nabs our attention, niggling it. It takes a while to see it, sitting there, cross-kneed, staring blankly into the plate-glass window. A lone man.

He seems catatonic'no movement, arms around his knees, open eyes glazed, not seeing the window he is staring at. Butt hunched underneath, arms pulling the knees back. Maybe a slight rocking movement, maybe not.

Focusing, we find that he is alive. All the humans are gone, make that dead, save him'sitting and staring into a liquor store window. There is a chunk of brick next to him. His eyes unglaze and see through the window, spying the bottles just a few feet away. While there is no shift in position, there is a shift in his being. Even a blind pig can find an acorn once in a while.

Rising quickly above the clouds a brief scan once again indicates no other human life signs. He is it.

Back down again we access his mind'a blank slate that requires searching. A plague of some sort, death, loss, and emptiness. A trudging trip from Montana eastward, endless miles on lonely asphalt. The occasional broken down bicycle ride, tossed aside after multiple flats, but mostly a walking trip. Worn out shoes, flap, flap, flapping against asphalt and the shade from his beard growing longer at his feet.

Also inside is a life before'first pain and then peace of a sort.

We witness of life of violence and alcohol and drugs, too cliché to not have been real. A lost soul in a mountain-side Lutheran church. A friendship develops with a waitress. He begins to fit in and to change. The people, normal people, not particularly pious, coax him out from underneath the rum-induced porch of his existence'a starving dog, knowing he needs water and food to live, but still needing to be coaxed out to it. He slowly changes and he believes it is God. There is a life of peace and of family'a life now ended. All life now ended.
..........................................................

Terry Golan's mind alternates between shell-shocked nothingness and frenzied racing--both inducing blankness of mind. He is rocking now, ever so gently, and without rhythm, his serpentine tongue failing to moisten chapped lips.

Two thoughts knock at the door and gain entrance. The first has been patiently reconning his mind for an opening. It has been flicking its jab since Montana, hell, since Rita died, truth be told, probing defenses built up over time and torn down so quickly. It says, 'drink, you fucker. Grab a freakin bottle and jump out the window. There is no hope. There is no Rita, no church on a hill. There is no God. Come, be with me.'

What is left of his mind races to shut it down. To nip that thought in the bud'�again.

A second thought has been nibbling away for almost as long. An idea even more abhorrent than a drink.

God, in the form of a small church and a smaller congregation, saved him from drinking, from his violence and thievery. The church is gone, the people dead.

He slides his arm toward the chunk of brick at his side. He raises it, taking aim at the window'cautioning himself not to break the bottles of relief standing behind it.

Does God exist, could God exist, if there are no people? He'd soon find out.

The End.

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