A ruined wasteland. Scorched grass and burnt leaves. They crunch in the wind, crumbling and frail, like late Autumn leaves, as regular as the rising and setting of the sun, the heat of day and coolness at night. The word ‘regular’ is foreign to this land, though, as it is mid-March according to the old calendar and not a single living thing grows here. Not in the dry, cracking soil, or among the roots of dead trees.
Not a single soul knows this place now. No foot has made its cautious tread on the cobbled paths and dirt roads of this land for years. No one calls it home. The last of its dominant species died out, as their ancestors did to. Those that didn’t die on this forgotten land did so somewhere better. Greener, and richer with life. Or at least, died in hope of reaching somewhere better. In vain hope.
Supposedly, the last species alive after the world ends is the cockroach. They’re extremophiles, and thus can withstand the intense heat and sparse food present in a post-Apocalyptic world. The cockroaches died. What’s left after the last living species has gone extinct? The environment it lived in . The dirt and fruit and grass and leaves around it. Slowly, these things die too, an everlasting death. Disintegrate. Buried into the very soil they were born from.
Some things, of course, do not go so quietly. The copious amounts of metal and plastic, littering our streets, stubbornly refusing to die. The plastic bag that chokes the turtle to death will remain intact, strong interwoven fibres unbroken long after the last marine animal has drawn its last breath.
These tiny forms share the shore with shells and waves, and soft, fine sand. Beautiful and bright destroyers. The last product of man’s ambition. His boldness, lying plain as day on the soft sand of the beach. Mankind did leave a mark on its earth after all. An unassuming bottle, clear and unbroken. Made by the machines which were made by the machines which were made by man. Plastic has never been alive, and yet has outlived us all.