Author: Chaos

Note: Another creative writing exercise, but I've modified it from the original story I wrote because I was unhappy with the way it was.



Alone, empty, desolate. How long had it been so? Hours? Days? Eons? He couldn�t recall. He did not speak, afraid to break the silence, wrapping the lack of sound around his soul, clutching it as if it could be torn away at any instant.

There was only the deep silence and the blank, bare room. Often it seemed that the over-bright light, the chair, and the door were the only things that had ever been, all there would ever be. Just him and the precious silence.

And then it happened.

There was a knock at the door.

It was a single authoritative knock, then there was silence again. It was not the first knock that he had heard. It would not be the last.

The man did not move. He simply stared at the door, his face blank, his shoulders slumped, his hands limp on his knees. No movement, not a single twitch other than his slow steady breathing, marred the stillness. Silence reigned; silence of the body, silence of the mind, silence of the soul.

The knock came once more and was gone, its echo resounding again and again in the stark emptiness of the barren room and across the desolate landscape of his mind. The man reflected that he felt a little like that echo. He was all that remained of something much larger. Small and alone, he and the echo, each a memory of what went before, each destined for the same fate.

The knock came again, this time a soft insistent rapping. It continued without a pause or break in rhythm. The man blinked. This was new. A soul-deep sigh whispered past his lips. He did not believe that They would go away this time.

They. That is all it was. They wanted inside with him, but They could not cross the threshold by themselves. No, They needed him. They needed him to open the door, let them in, yet there was no sound other than the constant tapping. There was no imploring, no cajoling, no subtle, vocal seduction, only the knocking. Always the knocking.

Maybe I should let them in. Maybe They will end the isolation. Maybe They caused the isolation, the loneliness. Maybe, maybe, Maybe. Will I die if I do not open the door? Maybe I will die if I open it. When I die They will be all that is left. Maybe They are all there really was. Leave me be! I cannot decide. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

The man hung his head in his hands, his eyes closed, his mind and soul writhing. Too many If�s, too many Maybe�s danced and paraded through his mind for him to recapture his earlier peace. Or had it been ambivalence? Another Maybe.

He forced himself to stand. The command reached first his knees, then his hips, last his shoulders and back. He faced the door, and the knocking, and waited. He waited for inspiration. He waited for the decision to be taken from his hands, but They refused to comply. They were as insistent and constant as the rap-tapping on the door.

His feet turned of their own accord and paced him around the room, around the small island of the chair. Too many If�s. Around the room he paced. Too many Maybe�s. His heels scuffled slightly on the dingy floor as he went around and around and around and If and Maybe.

End it. The thought came unbidden to his mind. The knocking will stop and I will know and there will be no more knocking and no more Maybe�s or If�s. No more. End it.

Irresolute he paced around and came at last to face the door, his eyes staring, not really seeing. No more. Maybe. If. He pressed his hands to his head. �No more!?he shouted.

The knob was in his hand.

It turned.

The door moved, opened.

Nothing.

The door closed.

The last man on Earth sat wordlessly in the chair and stared silently at the floor past his limp hands. Alone.

There was a knock at the door.