(Written as the writing prompt used as the title… to just write something every day, as the muse strikes me…)
It was the end of an era, exhausting and exhilarating both combined.
The townsfolk had apparently turned in for the evening, lights on porches casting a spot of focus in an otherwise dimming and fog-filling world of deep evening. Even the square was empty, which, he would admit, was unusual even this late, but it was an unusual evening to be sure.
Earlier that week, the local park was a bustle of activity. Some child or other had celebrated a trip around the sun, and there was still faint remnants and reminders of that still scattered in the bushes and weeds. Fragments of crepe paper, a wind-flopped balloon dancing limply from the swingset beam. But not today. Today it was empty. And it would remain so for a good while.
Sighing, the older gentleman, stared at those party-scraps, and hoisted a worn and dirt-stained shovel onto his shoulder, lifting it, as if the weight of not just wood and steel, but also decades and dispair clung to it along with the clods. He sighed again, with the merest hint of a smile, curling the edges of his lip for a moment, then faded back to grim resolution.
He walked down the street, plodding, and careful. Eyes wandering from door to door, with that vague mix of contentment and consternation. Eventually, he arrived at the door of the town hall, and set his tool down with a rough ‘clink’ of the metal on stone, leaning it against the white yet darkly-splashed pillar outside of the City Hall bricks. He ran a curiously rust-stained hand through similarly matted and russet-red tangles of hair, and sat down.
The job was done, finally, and from his pocket, the man pulled a flask, tipping its contents gratefully down his throat. The job was done.
Surveying the town once more, nodding at each fresh pile of upturned earth in front of the homes on main street. Nodding at the dried rivulets along the gutters, that would make the rain run crimson-brown when it came next. Nodding at the silence.
The man touched the shovel once more then, causing it to fall over. It fell, gracelessly into a large hole, dug beside the steps. Once, that spot held prize roses. Once it bloomed each summer, for the annual Town Picnic. Now, it was cut, and a dusty deep basket of bare ground to catch the shovel remained. The man, smiled then. A proper smile, with a hint of wild toothy, primal mirth. He pulled one more feeble and unquenching draw from the now empty flash, and tossed it into the hole beside the shovel, with what might have been reverence, or at least more focus than a mere casual act. Then, the man reached down, to the large wagon beside the hole.
He leveraged himself beside his tools, and smiles once more. “That’s better…” he whispered, to no one in particular, wiping sweat from a bloodstained brow, and laid down, reaching up to tip the wagon of dirt above him. It was dark then, outside and inside. The lights would continue to burn, for the next week, until some traveler wandered through the quiet little town, and found it’s empty homes and quiet streets.
But the man didnt care about that distant future. He wouldnt know the end, beyond the cloying earth that surrounded him at last, along with the results of his days long effort to bury the others.
It was the end of an era, exhausting and exhilarating both combined.
Almost all the other Games and gadgets and gizmo apps were relegated to the Dustbin of Dis-use.    Overall, it was a great RESET.
Compared to the old device, I think this is a better camera than even a Real Camera I used to have back when married.  This phone rocks. It took the pictures shown here (but the smaller version posted does not do them justice).  My favorite is the “walnut” one above. That was a happy little bit of Serendipity, where I was just snapping pics and wondered how it would focus if I just set it on the ground “upside down” near that walnut shell, and clicked the snap-pic button.  I was beyond pleased with the results!
A near-future time, so I’m looking forward to it, but today, it’s the little victories that count.  Every first step begins the Journey, after all!
Maebius Musings 