- 6 -

Dressed from head to toe in fluorescent ski gear, complete with all sales tags, I looked completely ridiculous, but I was especially warm. Thinking of the dirt and dust that engulfed me as I opened the outside door the evening before, I completed the ensemble by donning some almost matching yellow tinged goggles.

It's funny how you can feel embarrassed about how you look when there is nobody there to see.
The doors opened more easily this time, but the outer door still required a firm shoulder because of the stiff wind and the resettled filth on the other side. Squeezing through, I lodged a large dead potted cumquat in the doorway. I had keys, but being outside was still overwhelming. If I became trapped, I'd definitely lose the plot. 

The garden was in ruins. What hadn't died had gone to seed and strangled everything around it. The little path was covered in leaves dirt and weeds. The water tank had overflowed many times leaving permanent puddles and rivulets carved into the dirt and debris. 

Standing by the water tank, out of the wind, the absolute silence startled me. What day was it? Probably midweek sometime. At 9am on any weekday I should have heard horns, the murmur of the city, trains, trams and just general living sounds. It was like the city had held its breath.

There was no delaying it any longer. I edged towards the chest high wall. The wall was as sturdy as the building itself, but at that moment it looked flimsy and inadequate. There was no way I could trip and fall over the edge, but the thought of the twenty story drop made me creep towards the edge as though the ground were about to give way.

Summoning every last dribble of strength and will in my body and mind I craned my neck and peered over the edge.

At first everything looked normal. It had been such a long time since I'd bothered to observe the world I'd forgotten what it was supposed to look like. 

The streets were there. There were even cars, trams and buses, but it was like a picture, not a first hand view of the world. Forgetting my fear I ran to each corner of the garden. 

There was nothing moving in any direction. The feeling that descended, smothering me like too many clothes on a hot day, was isolation. After years of shunning the world, discovering that it wasnt there when i was ready for it was too much to bear. 

No wonder my sister didn't answer her phone. The catastrophe unfolded in my mind. It was quick and devastating. So quick the electricity and water were still running. Probably an airborn plague.

There was a strange relief hidden within my panic. It wasn't that nobody wanted to speak to me. Nobody was there.

The wall was low, but the ski gear made it a clumsy climb. This was the only way. I'd seen the zombie movies. There was no point holding out. As I stepped off the edge, I thought about how ridiculous I must have looked. Luckily nobody would see.