I can't tell how long it's been. It feels like weeks, maybe months, it could have been days. We don't eat. We don't sleep. We talk. After only a few hours, 7 and 8 year old me ask to play with my phone. I gave it to them, it hardly matters now. I keep thinking about other people, anyone. Everyone has told me there are no more people, they've looked. I'm still holding out hope that, after all this time, maybe there will be someone else. Maybe.
I started walking, just me, I've taken a new route every day. I don't know what exactly I'm looking for, but I have this bizarre feeling that if I keep moving, if I don't stand still, I won't be so alone. I was on one of these walks when I first saw it. I was several miles away from the bar when a piece of graffiti caught my eye. In huge green numbers is said simply '2016 WAS HERE'. Beside it lay the discarded spray paint can. I scooped it up. I had never used spray paint before, I was never I particularly artsy guy. I had, however, seen enough movies to know what to do next. My paint wasn't super accurate but it seemed legible.
2016 was real.
That was it. Just a few words, just a few numbers. I turned to walk back to the bar. Was it possible that someone in 1983 had decided to paint 2016 on the wall? Was it a coincidence? Or was someone else here with me. Someone who might know more, someone who could help me get back.
When I got back to the bar I decided it was better not to tell anyone what I had seen. It was better not to get their hopes up.
I had no way of knowing when I should go back to the graffiti. There was no time, no night, no day. I spent a few of what seemed like hours, but I couldn't really be sure, discussing my current job with me from last year. It was exhausting. My mind was constantly drifting back to the can of green spray paint, and the possibility of getting back to the real world.
But what would happen if I could get back? Would I exist along side the current version of me living there? Would I start up again where I left off? Was time even passing the same way on the other world?
