Illumination

It's Mark's birthday, and he has a secret to tell his mother. But will the world as he knows it end before he can do it? Did it end years ago? Or did it ever exist?Mark: What if we're already dead?Cody: I think we would have noticed by now.Sometimes I dream that I'm in a dark room, and it's like nothing's there in the dark at all. There's no sky, no stars, no grass or carpet or anything else. I think, therefore I am. I think, therefore I am, damn it. I'm in a void, and all my words are silent.The world is silence, and nothing makes sense. My blood is 90 proof. I could bottle it and sell it if there were still liquor stores or grocery stores or even a gas station shining in the dark, flickering lights buzzing cold and florescent over a parked car. And then I'm there, I'm there, and it's so bright it hurts. The cooler's got shelves and shelves of 90 proof boy blood, and there's a car at the end of the row of gas pumps with the horn blaring, echoing into the night. The trunk is crumpled up into the back, and the front bumper is buried in the pole by the pump.Go look, I tell myself. I dream in the present tense, because I live in the past. I don't ever look in the car, though, because I already know what's going on.