The smell on industry was something rather abstract and yet prevalent throughout most of Mr. Frank's time in the city. He mistook this certain death for progress. Wasn't that what the newspapers had called it? Certain death? Surely they were mistaken, he thought, and with this in mind Mr. Frank entered the charred skeleton of an office building.
Immediately Mr. Frank was overwhelmed by floating whispers of memory hanging in the air, obscuring the carnage with nostalgia and lost beauty. The sound of ash and spark quickly brought him back and the shapeless memories dissipated as Mr. Frank made his way across the lobby. After riding up the elevator and navigating through mangled technology that no longer held the promise of a better tomorrow, he was soon standing behind the desk of a dead man.
Mr. Frank remembered his friend. Quietly he sat, there on the third floor, alone and comforted by the hollow sound of the wind, the wind that had yet to die down after five years. He sat and remembered. He had a name, this friend. Mr. John is what he was called, the illusion of informality in a strictly professional world, but Nestor is what he was named. Nestor despised his job, occasionally went golfing with Mr. Frank, enjoyed drinking to excess, and was burned alive along with many others the day his office was attacked by an arsonist. Mr. Frank sat and remembered.
In the past years the world quickly tore itself apart as it was bound to do. Mr. Frank was assured it was not the apocalypse. If it was indeed the end of the world, he reasoned, it should at the very least be a grand religious affair. If not that then it would surely be man's doing, as opposed to the inexplicable decay he witnessed those last few years of his life. He had heard preaching of changing ways and doing his part all his life. Man was stubborn Mr. Frank knew, and incapable of changing. An event so grand and catastrophic should be at the hand of man, as the result of greed, or caused by corruption, he believed. All this damn war, how could it not end in a fiery explosion? How could it not be the epic climax to some petty argument between simple bloodthirsty men miles away? None of it was true.
Mr. Frank sat in his house one evening and thought very hard. Not of himself or of the world, but instead he thought of a woman he had met in a bookstore when he was much younger. Mr. Frank shot himself soon after. His home wasn't elaborate, but had very cozy furnishings. There was no art, and the furniture was acquired at a discount store in the city. The house and everything inside was outside city limits in the countryside. There was a stone fireplace that had survived the ages it seemed. There was a fire going when Mr. Frank died. He had just put another log on in case he got cold.
Mr. Frank was wrong. The world was in fact coming to an end. To put it simply, the earth could not sustain life any longer and thus began to deteriorate. Whether or not this process was expedited by humans became irrelevant as soon as the riots started. Panic ensued and civilization was destroyed at the hands of those so dependent upon it. Banks were looted, communication networks went down, and an office was torched by an arsonist.
Moments before his death, Mr. Frank recalled an amusing afternoon from his youth. He stumbled into a bookstore looking for some light reading and began conversation with a lovely woman who worked there. The talked a talked a great deal about various things including postmodernism, abiogenesis, politics, and subsequently what bullshit it all seemed to be. Mr. Frank had a difficult time continuing the conversation after awhile. He was too busy admiring the color of the woman's eyes.
Before he killed himself Mr. Frank set another log on the fire and remembered. His mind wandered as his eyes gazed out the window at the blue of the sky and he thought: How lovely.
