Towards the Light

 

http://thelakehouseoffloverslane.blogspot.com/

"Phototropism: "directional growth in which the direction of growth is determined by the direction of the light source."

Plainly stated, plants grow toward sunlight.
That glowing orb Apollo comprises their whole world, their meaning for living, their life source."

I remember my biology teacher, Ms. Larkins explaining the effect of phototropism and wondering what this could ever mean to me. It seemed like common sense; plants should grow toward that which gives them life, they should grow towards the sun. So what?

Now, walking east towards I have no idea what, towards the rising sun, the irony of that lesson is about as subtle as a smack to the face. It's been maybe 6 or 7 months since the outbreak first reached widespread proportions. A half-year since I lost my entire life. California is completely overrun and there is no way to go back.

I got by for awhile by migrating from one hideout to the next, but hiding isn't the way to survive this apocolypse. I have to keep moving, at least until I find what has become my only hope for salvaging any kind of life worth living, a city in the east supposedly untouched by the outbreak.

I find that I daydream a lot more in this post-apocolyptic world. Anything to keep from focusing on the reality of my situation. Life is good in my brief trances. It's simple, like when I was in high school and my only worries were to focus on my studies and being a good boyfriend. God what I'd give for those days right now.

Life is anything but that now. Complicated, like a book I read in college once, Nadja. In the book the main character meets a woman and becomes infatuated with her, but not because of her looks or because he loves her. He's more interested in her outlook on life and the various values and ideals she adheres to. It used to be that when a man fell for a woman it was because he loved her, just like it used to be that there were people all across the country. I guess things change don't they?

A Touch of Destiny

http://voguein1.blogspot.com/

As I keep walking I start to wonder if I'll ever get to where I'm supposed to be. I'm still not even sure I know where that is. How long have I been walking now?-- A day? A week? A month? Hell, it could even be a year. I walk on for a little longer, exhausted from each new day's heat, and just as I'm about to give up this ridiculous pilgrimage to nowhere a little piece of paper blows right into my leg and wraps around it like a car around a pole after a bad accident. As I pick it up and begin to analyze it I realize this was no accident at all. The first thing I notice is a photograph:

At first glance the only oddity I notice is the yellow cab. Why is this the only thing in the entire picture that has any hint of color? But then something else catches my attention. Everything else in the picture seems to be from a different time. Whether that is just a trick of coloration or a result of some other phenomena beyond my thinking I have no idea. I read the note to see if there is any explanation, but when I finished there was only more confusion:

"You have arrived. People passing, doors swinging open, elbows shoving. The lights are never becoming dim, the background only fades into blurry craziness. A metropolis not made for the lazy, your feet become the main mode of transportation. Everyone owns the sidewalk, and you better watch out for the shoulder shove. No one knows who you are, and most never care to. It's their city, not yours. You're too new, so watch where you walk.
The yellow ones don't stop."

I thought to myself, "What a strange place." By now my mind was set on this place. "They say curiousity kills the cat," I said to myself, "but they also say cats have nine lives." With that I continued my march east in hopes that 1) I wouldn't get stopped at The Wall, and 2) that I find this place and that it's better than anywhere I've ever come from.