Viral Love

           If I told you the world was going to end tomorrow, what would you do?

           I think most people would freak out, and rightly so. There’s that whole ‘twenty-four hours to live’ thing, and the ‘how do you spend your last day’ thing. The ‘What would you do in your final seven days’ thing. People ask questions like that and then their friends bullshit some answers. Let me tell you how it really goes.

           Men and women alike leave their partners at home to go off and meet their lovers for one last fling. What’s sad is that half of them aren’t missed at home because their partner was cheating too. Even sadder, some of those people show up to find their lover with another. I guess that’s if you get sad about that kind of karma. I don’t.

           You see which parents loved their children. Ever seen a crying, screaming child wandering the neighborhood while daddy gets hammered with his friends and mommy gets high with her drug dealer? Yeah, wish I hadn’t seen that too.

           You see violence in a way that would make your skin crawl and your nerves curl, hiding deeper under your skin. I’m going to avoid telling you the gory details. Leave it at this. Your worst nightmares, those are some people’s daydreams. Obsessive ex’s, furious co-workers, stalkers that have waited for a moment like this. Oh, people come out of the woodwork for the apocalypse. It’s crazy.

           This thing we all went through, it’s an event. I mean, I’m talking a colossal event of epic proportions. The end of the world is the greatest showcase of human evil you’ve ever imagined. All the horror movies and books you ever read have nothing on it. I won’t even try to put into words what I saw, because I can’t. The words not only allude me, the ability to tell you does. I can’t. I can’t process them. Maybe I could, but I won’t. I refuse. And who’s going to make me? Who else is here to make me? She won’t. She loves me. But why am I setting the scene? You’re here for a love story, aren’t you? So, let’s get to it.

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           I saw her that day the world ended. Sure, it had been ending for almost eighteen months and had become terrifying that past week, but that day was the day everything truly went to hell.

When I say she was perfect, I mean that she was the most flawless human I could imagine. I mean that with no one else around, I’m not sure I can ever feel differently. Have you ever seen someone who became so ingrained in your mind that you couldn’t think of anyone better until you saw them? That new imagine becoming stamped in your memory over the last? I think the kids used to call that a crush. I recall a whole culture around it. Man Crush Monday, Woman Crush Wednesday, Hall Passes, all sorts of shenanigans and games. Funny how we used to entertain ourselves, especially when we still had days of the week. But I digress.

           She was the most beautiful person I ever saw up until that moment. An angel. Her eyes were the color of life, her hair the color of luxury, and her skin the perfect shade of unique. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so suffice to say she was beautiful in my eyes in such a way I cannot describe. At least I tried.

           As the world ended around me and the virus began to take its final toll, I was able to look past all this horror and see her. I had to have her. So, I made my way to her, breaking through the crowds, pushing and shoving against the people rushing to their last vices before their demise. Understand this, I didn’t know I’d live. While these others fought for their lustful self-satisfaction, I only wanted to whisper one last kind word into this woman’s ear. I’m sort of a selfless hero like that.

           So I fought my way past all these people, some bleeding and frothing already, inching my way closer to what I’d deemed was heaven on earth. You wouldn’t believe my luck either. It’s always been shit. When I got to where I was going, she’d made her way away from me, up onto a building. I’m sure she was scared, terrified in the hubbub. I knew I had to get to her, had to find a way to protect her, to comfort her.

           Another side note, I know, I fall victim to tangents often, is that I am quite the climber. Mother was a monkey. Kidding. But perhaps you laughed. Afterall, a story about the end of the world could have a monkey mother, couldn’t it? Ah, tangents!

           So, I ran to her as the world ended around me, as people fell to the ground gurgling as violence erupted around them. The virus attacks the brain in some people they say, and people were beginning to act a little crazy. This third iteration of SARS-CoV-2 has been a riot. Literally. It affects people very differently, and riots do ensue. The virus started like every other pandemic, people were scared, then they figured it out and weren’t. This time, the virus changed, and changed drastically. It started attacking the rest of our bodies. Turned out to be one helluva virus. Ah, tangents, focus.

           When I reached the base of the building I began to climb, pulling myself up foot by foot, grabbing and groping and pushing and prodding my way up the façade of the building. At first, hands grasped at me. People must have seen me trying to save her and thought they’d stop me, but as you’ll recall dear reader, I’m the hero type, she was a damsel in distress, nothing would stop me.

           The further I went up, the more confident I grew, and I made quick work of the building. Almost like my mother was a monkey, eh? By this time the world around me was covered in… Oh reader… How do I tell you this? People died. In droves. And being high up, you see more of it. The people the virus spared were tearing each other apart in a visceral show of volition. They wanted to hurt each other I realized to my horror. I prayed that when I reached her I would be greeted by a like minded soul, someone to live above the din and danger with. I just wanted to be safe in that moment. Mere moments later, I met her for the first time, face to face, my soul mate. I reached her perch, and since that day we’ve lived in peace.

           She’d found a safe place to stay on the roof of the building I’d climbed, the levels below were a grocery store and a department store. Crazy how they fit things into four story buildings in the city. I’ve only had to defend it a couple times, there aren’t many of us left. We live off the food and sleep in comfort on the mattress I moved up here. It’s lasted us these six months and will last us more. We live in luxury, if I’m honest. We eat what we want and spend our days lounging on the roof, just looking into each other’s eyes and being happy to have what we have. What the rest of the world wants. Somebody to love. It took the end of the world for me to find her, but find her I did. I’m happy for the first time in my life.

           I’ve loved L’Oréal ever since. She wrote her name just above her head, that’s how I know it. We don’t speak often, but we don’t need to. That’s what we have, that kind of love. And I’ve never been happier.