We'll trade our butterfly knives for Adderall.

Lately, my inner neurotic has been manifesting itself in a new and unexpected way: whenever I walk outside and there are no cars and no people within my immediate vicinity, I mean, no life to be seen, there is the tiniest instant, just a fraction of a second really, where my brain, in all seriousness, is totally convinced that I and the living creatures in my presence (the dog; the cat on the console just inside the door; the coworkers or friends I've just left behind) are the only creatures left alive. And then a car drives by or someone comes out on their front porch, or, you know, my reason fucking reasserts itself, and I'm okay again, but there is just that instant.

The suddenly-alone-post-apocalypse motif is one that particularly resonates for me (I suspect that there are valid and probably disturbing psychological reasons for this, but I don't know what they are, exactly, though I have a few suspicions; feel free to enlighten me, if you think this is something I really need to know). I can't say I'm not ambivalent -- the creeping dread/horror I feel when confronted with these situations is almost perfectly counterbalanced by fascination -- but I can't think of another apocalypse motif that I find even half so enthralling as I do this one.

Anyway, the idea of being utterly alone, of being forced to navigate a landscape of a twenty-first century world emptied of life and nothing else, is one that I have always loved, in fiction, but I never expected to actually feel it, justified or not (and okay, I think we can all agree here that my brain is entirely unjustified when it tries to convince me that OMG THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING), and what feeling in those tiny moments has done for me, besides make me question my sanity about twice a day, is it has made me want to hold on tight to my other living things, call all my friends and family and force them into some hideous survivalist scenario, just because if it ever really does happen that one of these days I'm to be stripped of all life except the life I'm currently touching, then I'm going to be touching all the life I can. Like Alexander and Margrethe in Job: A Comedy of Justice, discovering quickly that the only thing they really need to hold onto in a constantly shifting universe is each other.

So. That's how my week has been going, and how's yours? And also, do you have a favored apocalypse scenario? Maybe it's one that brings you particular joy or horror (or, as in my case, both), or maybe it's just something you can actually see happening? I may be crazy, people, but surely I'm not the only one. I hate to think of that: me all alone.