By Ben Austell
Noah wasn’t sad that no one was around. In ten years, he had never been given the chance to see the hotel this way before. The hallways had once been lit twenty-four hours a day, and yet it was barely six p.m. and already he was struggling to see his way through the gloom. He was happy for the hotel, finally asleep after decades of continuous activity within its walls. He tiptoed to the front door and pulled it shut one last time. He had everything he could possibly need.
The rain continued to fall. It was four weeks by Noah’s guess. He had slept so much in that time that it was as though he was losing more than one day each time he closed his eyelids. Years might have passed as he lay cocooned within his blankets, the rain driving against the window pane. Had the hotel not resided at the top of a hill, he might have awoken to find himself at the bottom of the brand new ocean that was rising in the lower-lying parts of the city. He had ventured out twice in the early days, but had not needed to go far to realise that nothing of any use had been left behind.
Except for the pills that were everywhere, and all for him.
At night, the hotel bar was the only room with any light. The TV, dead for years, now sat above the fireplace, exuding an idle glow. It was odd. Nothing was normal about any of this, but everything else so far had followed a certain logic. The end of the world meant no people. No people meant no one to keep the power on. No power meant no lights, no heat, and definitely no TV.
He took another sip of water and stared into the blue of the screen. He could still feel the spot where a capsule had caught in the back of his throat. “What are you still doing here?” he asked the TV, startled by the sound of his own voice.
The TV had an answer. “I don’t know, Noah. I’m just a television. What about you? What makes you so special?” The words hung on the blue display like ships in a fluorescent sea. It was a good reply.
Noah took a few days to think about it. He avoided the bar until he had found the words.
“They left me behind,” he said one evening, as the rising water slopped around his ankles. “I wasn’t very good at being happy. I was given pills for it, but they didn’t help. I pretended not to notice everyone leaving. I kept waiting for someone to stop and tell me what to do.”
The TV dimmed and hummed. It processed Noah’s reply. “I know, Noah. I know you found it all quite hard. I’m sorry.” The TV flickered. “I watched you, you know? Back before all of this. I kept an eye out.” Noah smiled. He hadn’t known.
“You deserve a break, Noah. You have nothing to prove and nothing to answer for. Try not to worry so much, okay?” The screen strobed. Faces and colours appeared, settling themselves into repeats of shows and episodes Noah had seen a hundred times before. It was comforting, knowing where to laugh, where to cry, and what was coming next.
Within a week, maybe two, he moved his bedding, the last of the supplies, and the TV up to the top floor. The ocean rose behind him in his sleep.
“Where are they?” he asked one morning, sat in bed, water up to his chest.
“The pills?” the TV said.
“Yes, the pills. They were right here.” He could hear laughter outside, champagne corks popping from the boats that bobbed past the window. They’d been circling the top floor for days.
“Maybe you left them down in the bar.”
“No. You took them.”
“How would I do that?”
Noah tried to rise from the bed, but it was impossible. Someone had strapped a rock to his chest and tied his feet together.
“Why won’t they leave me alone?”
“Who?”
“The boat people. Did they do this?”
“There’s only one person left in the whole world, Noah,” the TV said.
Noah closed his eyes and turned his head. When he opened them the pills were still gone.
“I think I’m in trouble.”
“Oh, no — no, no no. I don’t think you need them anymore, Noah. You’re doing so well. I’m so proud of you. Shush now. It’ll be over soon.”
Noah nodded. His hand brushed the remote, wrapped up in the bedsheets by his side. The rock was getting heavier. The water was rising up above his neck.
“What shall we watch?” the TV whispered.