The Last Communist by Tyler Braggins

And the last communist, beaten and run down by the world, picked the rubble out of their hair. They dusted themselves off, stood themselves up, and took the first step towards the rest of their life. 

It was not a war that caused this. To call it such would be a gross overestimation of the actual conflict. It was a battle, a great and terrible battle that rocked the earth so completely that humans would not live long enough to see it recover. 

None of this was of much concern to them. The last communist had seen this coming. They prepared, they studied the writings of philosophers and educated themself in the way of self-reliance. When the end came, they got about their business.

It was peaceful. Humans were rare these days, and so they were not often bothered. They tried to remain friendly and personable, but it was difficult. Life was difficult. Fertile soil was a myth, and water suitable enough for farming was even more unlikely to stumble upon.

Still though, they had their log cabin and mushrooms, they had their traps and bows and arrows. They had a gun, too. A hunting rifle, belonging to a man they once called Father. It sat mounted on the wall, collecting dust and reminding them of the path not to follow. Of the old world and its mistakes.

Those fools had killed the world, in their obsession. They lauded ideology above all else, they created factions and waged wars and killed relentlessly. They failed the world, they failed each other, they left great civilizations as piles of rubble.

How could they not know the path they walked? How could they doom humanity to exist as nothing more than scraps? Why couldn’t they see the truth? It was so blindingly obvious. Didn’t any of them read?

The last communist would have to remind themselves to quell their rage. They would breathe, and let go of the pain like one might dispose of the garbage on sunday morning. And then they would return themselves to their work, for it was the only distraction from the world that seemed worthwhile. 

They would spend most of their day foraging in the forest near their home, though it had no leaves or birds or anything a real forest would have. It had stalks, and ash, and soot, and sometimes an imprint of some creature within that ash and soot. It was not ideal, but they didn’t mind. 

Sometimes, when food was plenty and worries were few, they would go into town. Most of the buildings were gone now, if not destroyed in the battle then done in sometime after, by man, of course. The church was still standing though, almost impossibly so. 

The last communist was not religious, but still admired the grit with which the rotting wood and chipping paint held itself together. Each small piece contributing its part to keep the whole standing. They would walk inside, and spend a long time slowly moving through the building. 

Occasionally, they would find people sleeping within. They would walk over them most of the time, leaving them totally to their business. If they were particularly dirty, or otherwise disturbing the peace of the church, they would ask them to leave, a small knife in their hand. The last communist had a certain reverence for the place, a sense of respect that was evident in their careful steps and silent exhales. The one they once called mother was buried not 30 meters away, and maybe that was the reason for their devotion to the husk of a building. 

They would leave once the atmosphere became overwhelmingly sad, and would spend the rest of the day walking through the empty streets, remembering. They didn’t like the world before, but they had an obligation to it. An obligation to remember, if not for the people of the past, then for the people of the future. 

And so they would return to the cabin, and they would write and write and write until their hand felt numb and their fingers throbbed. A leather-bound journal, containing within it as unbiased and complete a history of the world as someone who called themselves “the last communist” could muster. This was the second volume, actually.

The first lay safe in a small hole in the floor underneath the desk. They wondered if there would ever be a civilization in the future that could make use of the books. Would they be able to read? Would they understand english, if they could? Would they ever even exist?

And then, when their mind was tired and exhausted and filled with anxiety, they would sleep, sometimes making it to the pile of clothes they called a bed, sometimes never getting up from the desk. And they would do this, everyday, for a very long time. 

One day, on an outing to the church, they noticed a brick that seemed looser than the rest on one of the pillars inside the main chamber. They moved the brick, and found a single, immaculately preserved rifle round. The thing they once called Father had mentioned something like this, lifetimes ago.

The last communist pocketed the bullet and left the church, seeing a small group moving through the main street. The leader of this group regarded them kindly, offered them food and trinkets and other frivolous things. Something spurred inside of them, urged them to speak and converse with this group, to reach and grab hold of this connection. But the tomes called to them, their pen wrapped its wispy fingers around their neck and tugged them gently towards the cabin. The last communist shook their head, and walked in the direction of their home. They had no time for this.

They slammed the door to their shack, set down their bag and jacket and other loose things, and sat at the desk. The bullet weighed down their pocket as they returned to writing. And they wrote and wrote and wrote, until their hands felt cold and their fingers shook. They placed the sixth volume in the space in the floorboard, and sat at the desk in silence for a long time. 

They had aged remarkably quickly. A side-effect of the disease ever-present in the air, they assumed. They felt regret. And shame. The worst of it was, they couldn’t figure out why. It was like the truth of it had escaped them, had slipped out of their hand just as they were about to grasp it. 

They looked to the floorboard containing the journals. What use was it? They were hidden, purposefully so, and the odds of anyone finding them at any point in time was highly unlikely. They had written the world’s history, and yet had no one to share it with. 

They stood up from the chair, hoping if they ran to town they could still catch the group. But their legs protested, and their arms had to lean against the desk to support their weight. They’d waited too long. Their time was up.

Slowly, they leaned down and collected the volumes from the floorboards. They placed them delicately on the desk, their hands aching as they did. It was bitter work, but they needed to finish quickly. Take too long, and the group would move too far away to hear the bang.

Their eyes, of course, glanced to the rifle. And then their body moved to it. And then their hands picked it up. And they wiped off the dust. And then they loaded the bullet. And they took a deep breath, and let out a heavy sigh. And they closed their eyes. 

And the last communist fired the final round in their gun, the last bullet the world would ever witness, and took their ideology with them to the grave.