“I was outside a few minutes ago,” the radio announcer said. “The freeways were quiet. I saw the usual birds circling and landing on cars. The meat inside, what was left of folks like you and me, was all the cars had to give them. I walked down to the beaches. Bones are scattered here and there. Some of them looked a lot like human bones.
I fished using poles from one of the local sports stores. I figured the owner didn’t need them any more. In fact, the guy was strung out on the floor with a rifle in his hands, probably to ward off robbers. I dug some grubs from under the flower gardens and hooked them up. After about thirty minutes, I had caught three nice ocean catfish and a perch. I put them in a solar box on the roof. I cleaned them first at the ocean’s edge so that their innards could maybe feed some other fish out there. My hands smell like fish now. I know the fish I’ll eat in about four hours of baking in that foil is going to be really good. There’s still some cats in town, so I’ll put what’s left outside somewhere. Everything has a right to live in this town if it can figure out how to do it. It’s not like there is a need for stinginess these days. Even with all the death around, I guess I still have goodness in my heart.
“I have become nothing more than a vagabond. I’m not exactly homeless. Vagabonds usually walk around without focus, you know. They are unwilling or unable to work, so they loaf here and there. Well, I’m a lot like that now. I am still broadcasting, but I’m not getting paid for it. The paycheck is out there. I can literally go into any store and just take whatever I want from its shelves. There’s literally tons of stuff in them and no one to give it to. I have whatever I want out there where no owners and no shoppers exist any more.
Now that it’s come to this I find that I don’t want for much, and I don’t take much, either. I dunno. Did I buy stuff I didn’t need in my past existence just to keep others from getting it? Is that a part of the old way of doing business? I think it was. What I have now is a lot better. Because I can have anything and everything out there, I don’t want anything.
“I just want what little I need to survive. Maybe a can of food. Maybe a fish or two. The fish in my solar box are cooking up there, and the neat thing is that there’s no cost for the fuel. A fourth of the electricity I use here comes from a few solar panels. I’ll be fetching some more next week. I saw them on a business’ roof. They won’t be needing them. That’s for sure. Someday the generator will either break or the gas will be gone.
“I’d certainly like to have a self-sufficient supply of electricity then. I am the only person transmitting to this entire city. It would be nice to have the means to do this a little longer. There’s got to be someone out there listening to me. Solar power is the perfect answer. After all, we have a lot of sunshine here in California. We are known for it. The trouble is that every time I venture out of here for food, solar panels, batteries, and water, I run the serious risk of infection.
“We are all under the infectious A-bomb. Each of us are probably vulnerable. Out of almost one hundred people who worked on this radio station I am the only person who has not died in the pandemic of whatever in the hell has been killing all of these people. Now, to be honest, there is no way to get out of here. The highways are closed off. The people who live in other areas don’t want what we have to give them. What we have to give them is death. They want none of that, because they want to live. We all want to live. I want to live. My dead comrades all wanted to live.
“For some reason, LA was hit the hardest. Other cities got sick, but LA is the holy grail of this death thing. We got it the worst. Yea. We got it real bad. I’ll just have to suck it up.
“How could we be this unlucky? Is there a dark star that hovers over us? Did Hollywood piss someone off too much? Did Disney do this? Was it Universal Pictures, Paramount, 20th Century Fox? Was it the goth people in their black clothes with their fingernails painted black to match? Who is the culprit here? I am not sure. No one knows why LA got hit so bad. But here we are. Screwed. And there’s still people out there listening to me. We are not all dead.
“Now, some day this is all going to go away. The doors will open, and people will come out into the streets. The sickness will be gone. All pandemics run their course. You don’t see the black plague running rampant here or in England or the rest of Europe as it once did. That plague killed three-quarters of Europe, but today it is nearly gone. There’s a few people every year that get it. Most of those are in New Mexico where rats still have bubonic plague in their nests, and they give it to fleas who then bite you, and you get it. But its only ten or less people per year who ever get it now. Five hundred years ago, it killed nearly everyone. Then, it lifted. Although it went on hundreds of years, eventually it died out and Europe regained its health. It was as if nothing like the black plague ever happened. I can tell you that the pandemics that went through here may already be on their way out. There’s people out there who survived it and have immunity. Who knows? Maybe they will pass that stuff, the immunity, I mean to the rest of the world from right here. Then, the deaths will stop happening, and the world will go on, totally cured.
“So the bad news is that we got the black ring on the carousel of death. Los Angeles was snake bit the hardest. In other words, we got screwed. The good news is that other cities were barely scratched by this. Doesn’t that just make you grin? No? Why not? Don’t be a sore loser! Rejoice in the luck of the Irish! Laugh. Be happy.
“I need to sign off now for awhile. I know there’s lots of you out there. Even if there are only three or four of you in this entire city, I know you are out there. I know you are hiding in your homes. Keep up your hope. This will be over one of these days, because it cannot last forever. I will speak with you in a little while. I have to let the solar panels do their thing, make the batteries charge back up, run the gas generator, and then I will be back. Signing off.”