I used to hate midtown. Couldn’t walk down the street between the tourists, the women with the SUV sized strollers, and the self important assholes in suits. I thought, back then, if I could just walk down the street without having to get hip checked and tagged on the shoulder, I would be happy. I should be happy now-this empty street.

It’s a dangerous thought.

I decide to focus on something else. I should be thinking about what to do next. I’ve been putting it off, but it seems that there is no other choice. Take a car and drive up to my mother’s house? Drive to another city and see if there are others like me? Try and find a radio station or TV station and pray that that they left some sort of broadcasting for dummies book around so I can find others.

I look at the huge MacClaren stroller overturned at my feet. It’s still laden down with a water bottle, blankets, toys, no baby though.

No baby.

The virus or poison or whatever it is-it thrives on endorphins. That’s what the news told us. When the news was still on. Claimed it was engineered in the Middle East as part of the war on terror. Killing us with our own smug satisfaction. Not a bad idea. Although I’m not entirely convinced that it wasn’t our own government. Some brilliant scientist exploring a hypothetical possibility until Joe Bob from Tallahassee sent a letter on fake letterhead asking for a sample of that there highly secret poison and off it went. And before you know it people are grinning themselves to death in Florida.

I didn’t think I would mind so much. I mean, I always thought Florida was the gateway to hell. And lord knows I hate happy people. How many times did I sit in bars, restaurants, buses, trains, benches and see couples holding hands and smiling and wish them dead? Not that I did this. Not that I’m guilty, but I have to admit that since this happened I have realized that real horror isn’t justice or cruelty-it’s wish fulfillment. It’s here take it and now look and see what you really wanted.

The children. The children went first. Of course, they would. Did they think about the children? I didn’t. I was wishing those couples dead, thinking of a virus that kills happy adults. I didn’t think of the children. And what children did survive-their eyes large and hollow, their bodies marked by things I would rather not think about. I'd seen them before in textbooks, newspaper clipping, special newsreports. Sure, they would survive until they found some young mother who had lost her child. She would scoop up this child and kiss her cheeks and hug her and tell her about the wonderful things her new life was going to be like.

They’d both be dead within the hour. But I supposed they at least died happy. There’s something in that. The only way for us to survive now is through misery, brutality, and rape.

I think about my friends. What would they think of me now? If they were alive to think it, that is. They always thought that my tendency towards depressions was going to ruin my life. They thought of themselves as the survivors-those who could always see the bright side, with the go get 'em attitude. Look what they got out and got. I wonder if they would be amused that out of all them, even insane Howard the lawyer with B.O. issue, I was the only one who managed to survive.

Well for this long. Because objectively I have to admit things don't look good. Sure I can go on being miserable. That's not a problem. Even before everyone I knew died, I was depressed. Couldn't get a date then, certainly not gonna get one now. Not going to have children. Not going to get married. Not going to finally get a promotion. I can't even have chocolate. The endorphin rush. Can't risk it. But eventually something will get me, even if it's not the virus. The question is how long?

Of course why would I want to survive like this? Biological imperative? Denial? Can't be hope. Hope kills these days. Literally.