Woo, cheesy/corny post of the day.

WARNING: This post may contain traces of cheese or corn. If you have cheese- or corn-related allergies, it is advisable to stop reading now.

Oh, how I laugh at my younger self. Young Ali was a fool - so irritating and fatuous a fool that Present Ali would have repeatedly punched Past Ali in the face until there was nothing left but a bloody pulp. Romance is disgusting, but here we go:

Looking outside the window, the anonymous footprints in the snow remind me of a time when I was infatuated with this young man, a stranger whom I would never have the chance to actually meet. (Ew, I actually just typed that soppy sentence. Argh, must carry on.)

I was always the first person of the day to walk through this idyllic, pseudo-rural avenue, with elegant trees on either pavement, on the way to school every morning. There was a small farm on the right, and if you ignored the busy road behind, you could well imagine that you were ambling along a country path. Sometimes there would be horses and bulls grazing on the grass, lifting their lazy heads as I walked past. And every morning, I would chance upon a beautiful, tall, slim, young man, with a pleasant demeanour and a strolling gait, going the opposite way to me. He was of Oriental origin, but I couldn't tell exactly what his origins were. And every morning, he would walk past me and I would keep my eyes fixed on the ground, my cheeks flushing.

Occasionally, however, if one of us were late, we would miss each other, and that would affect my mood for the rest of the morning.

On one such occasion, it had snowed over night. The Young Man had evidently left his house earlier than usual, and so I missed him, but lo and behold, his footsteps were still fresh in the snow! His were the only ones along the avenue, and so I amused myself by walking alongside them and lengthening my gait to match his. His strides were a lot longer than mine, and every now and again I would walk on his footsteps, occupying the very space he had been only moments before.

The last time I saw him was last year, (but by then I'd stopped drowning in this infatuation that was fuelled by adolescent hormones, of course) and now I can look upon this and shake my head at such utter nonsense.

"W-what year is it?" murmured my blog as I resurrected it.

Hello faithful ones, I'm pleasantly surprised and grateful you haven't abandoned me all together, and it seems I have recently acquired a new, mysterious follower despite my absence. (Who are you?)

It's been about half a year since I wrote anything at all here and it's because... well... I've been having... an... affair with another popular blogging site.

"What! How could you?..." My blog looks at me with tearful eyes.

"I'm sorry!" I cry. "It's just that... Tumblr is so fascinating and charismatic... I couldn't help but be drawn to its charm! But I've returned, it's all fine!"

"You... you're just going to break my heart again. This - THIS - right here, this is just going to raise my hopes. All you're going to do is write this one post and then leave me for another six months!"

"No, no that's not true! I'll write more often, I promise!"

I don't promise, but seriously guys, Tumblr is like an explosion of awesome. I write a lot more on Tumblr. Also, it's less demanding - you can reblog stuff and gah, it's just really great.

Come join...

A cautionary tale of the last human male - continued...

Then the entire global human population sprang from their hiding places and yelled "SURPRISE!"

Just kidding. Everyone was dead.

Anyway, where did we leave poor, lonely Steve?

Ah yes, he spotted a dot in the distance and was running towards it. It was difficult to make out the figure so far away. It was definitely moving closer to him, as was he to it.

He was getting tired. All those doughnuts had made him put on weight and after a hundred metres, he stopped running, wiped his brow, and put his hands to his knees, panting.

A minute later, he straightened up, and started running to the nearing dot. It was definitely human. Steve could make out the tall slim stature of the stranger in the distance and hoped that this was not a mirage.

“Hey!” shouted Steve, waving his arms. “Hey!”

As he neared the figure, he could just about see that they had long, flowing golden hair.

Oh, thank God it’s a woman, thought Steve.

Then he tripped over a dead guy, fell over and hit his head on a lamp post.

                                                *          *          *

He was woken up by someone shaking his shoulder quite hard. He opened his bleary eyes to find it was the golden-haired woman.

“Hey man, wake up already!” she said, in an oddly low voice.

“It’s alright, I’m awake!”

The evening sun was too bright. Steve closed his eyes again and smiled. He’d found a gorgeous blonde.

He attempted a romantic move. (What the hell, he thought. I’m the only man on the planet. It’s not like she can pick anyone else.) “You have beautiful hair, by the way. I saw it shine in the sun, like a… like a… uh, sun.”

There was a pause.

Steve opened his eyes. He frowned.

He rubbed his eyes.

The woman not only had beautiful blonde hair, but also a beautiful blonde beard.

The blonde gave a gruff laugh. “Dude.”

“Oh my God. You’re… you’re…” Steve swore. “No homo, man. No homo.”

“Yeah, sorry, man. Looks like it’s just the two of us.”

The blonde man broke into the nearest convenience store, grabbed a couple of beers and sat back down next to Steve.

“Here’s to… uh, here’s to the human race. It was fun while it lasted.”

They clinked beer cans, sat back and watched the sun set.

#46 or some number. I can't remember.

Is anyone still reading this thing?
Anyway, I apologise, lone reader, for having left you hanging for so long. The last time we saw Steve was four months ago exactly. I have promised to finish it and finish it I shall.

Someone remind me somehow, or Steve will forever be alone and die on his lonely planet.

#45 - Beirut

Well hello, it's been a while, hasn't it?

I will finish that story about Steve in late June or something.

This shall be a post  really only talking about Zach Condon, from the band Beirut.
Some random things:
He's a true musician who plays multiple instruments (he plays the accordion, keyboards, saxophone, clarinet, mandolin, ukulele, horns, glockenspiel, and percussion along with Barnes' drums and Trost's cello and violin. Plus he made a horn from a conch shell).
His wrists don't align, but that little imperfection makes him all the more endearing.
His life story sounds like something out of a novel (he dropped out of school and travelled to Europe at the age of 17 and fell in love with Balkan folk and gypsy music).
His voice is beautiful - really pure and resonant.
He's so awesome that I don't know whether I want to be him or be with him.

Anyway, I'll leave you with Beirut's 'Elephant Gun':

SPACED

... is my new favourite old comedy.

Watch it here:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/spaced/

Uh... Sorry. I realise I haven't posted for a while and I've left you on a bit of a cliffhanger with Steve.

Is Steve the last man alive? Find out next time on I dunno. I haven't even decided yet.

A cautionary tale of the last human male

So I'd told Wandi I'd write a short story of a man and a dot ages ago. It's long. It's awful. It's unfinished. But it has pictures. Enjoy.

Steve was the last man on Earth. Everyone else had been wiped out by a highly infectious and fatal disease to which only he was immune. Some might say he was lucky, but then again, he was the last human on Earth and also hence there was no 'some'.

It had happened so quickly - overnight, even. He'd switched the TV on to watch the news. The advert about Babybels came on and that made him happy. "Bop-bop-bop, bop Babybel."

The new virus only affected humans and it was spreading incredibly fast - the news reporter suddenly died while doing his report. One by one, the cameramen dropped dead and shortly afterwards, the TV went blank and the sound of white noise filled the room. Steve had fallen asleep before the news even came on, so he didn't know what had happened.

When he woke up, he choked and found his cat had been sleeping on his face.

He left the house at half past seven to go to work. He looked at his to-do list:

Yes, the cat's name was Cat. Steve had a very limited imagination.

He was half asleep as he reached the tube station and crashed into the barrier. The station had closed as the tube wasn't working.

Steve swore and kicked the gate, stubbing his toe. Having recovered from the pain, he walked to the nearest bus stop. Then he realised it was oddly quiet for a Tuesday morning. He looked around and saw people slumped everywhere.

Puzzled, he scratched his head, like monkeys do in cartoons. Steve was hairy like a monkey.

He paused for a while, having stopped scratching his head. A metaphorical light bulb lit up above his head.

"Oh... I see." He grinned. "OK, guys, I know what's going on," he shouted. "I'm on TV, aren't I? C'mon, prank over."

Silence.

"Guys."

No response.

He walked over to the nearest slumped figure and prodded it. It didn't move. He poked the figure next to it and that one didn't move either.

He shook another and yelled at it and hit it and still it didn't move. He checked for signs of breathing, and realised it was dead.

Steve began to panic. He flapped his arms like a chicken and paced around for a bit.

Although a wholly useless action, humans do tend to do these kinds of things. 

He looked around and saw the whole street was covered in corpses; people had simply died on the spot and lay immobile, frozen.

"Hello? I said, HELLO? IS ANYONE OUT THERE?"

The reader will realise that of course, only those within Steve's vicinity would be able to hear this, and that was also on the condition that they were alive/weren't deaf. He took out his mobile and called his mum. It went straight to voicemail.

"Uh, Mum, hey. I know I never call - sorry - but I wanted to see if you were OK. Right. Bye"

He called his best mate, Martin. It rang for a while, but then went to voicemail.

"MARTIN YOU BASTARD, GIVE ME BACK MY TWENTY POUNDS. Oh wait, are you OK? If so, call me back as soon as you get this. And meet me at the bar round the corner. Preferably with the twenty pounds."

He stood there and rang every number on his phone, but no one picked up.

A front page of the Metro flew about in the wind. Steve chased after it, tripping over dead bodies. He caught it eventually. The headlines read: "DOOMSDAY APPROACHES". Apparently he'd missed Doomsday because he'd fallen asleep, and now it appeared everyone had died.

Steve milled around for a bit and pondered (something he didn't do very often).

His first thought (and later he was ashamed of this) was to raid the Krispy Kreme store, because he'd realised that since everyone was dead, no one could stop him from just helping himself to whatever he wanted.

While eating a doughnut, he had a series of thoughts. He thought about his love for doughnuts. Then he thought about love. Then he thought about the people he loved. Then he realised all of them were probably dead and he was probably the last human on the planet, all alone with no future.

He heaved a heavy sigh.

However, the reader will know that it is very unlikely for there to be just one solitary human immune to a particular disease. Out of a population of 7 billion, the likelihood of at least one other person being immune is highly likely.

Steve ate four more doughnuts, jeered at the dead Krispy Kreme vendor ("HA HA, I got free doughnuts!"), then went home and threw up.

                                                *          *          *

Electricity had stopped. Only batteries could be used. He tried using a radio to find if there was someone else out there, but there was just a perpetual crackling that meant nothing.

This carried on for weeks. He could walk quite casually into any store and help himself to anything he wanted. It was fun. Kind of. He talked to himself, or to the festering dead, to stop himself from going insane. Perhaps he was already going insane. Who knew?

The city was beginning to smell. The millions of corpses littered about were starting to decompose and all Steve (not being of a particularly intelligent nature) could come up with was to stick tissues up his nose to stop from smelling the dead.

He toyed briefly with the idea of killing himself. It was a depressing prospect, this being alone forever. Cat had run off with some other cats and had left him utterly alone. The human population had ditched him and now even his cat had done the same. But he couldn’t bring himself to commit suicide.

However, things changed dramatically one day, while Steve was wandering around the city with a doughnut in his hand. He espied a dot moving about in the distance, and at first, thought it must be a dog or something. A small flicker of hope still existed within him, and he hurriedly neared the dot. What if it were a human? What if it were a beautiful young lady? After all, if it were just he and this young lady, it would be up to them to repopulate the world... He began to run, getting closer and closer to the moving figure.

To be continued...