You can have everything

There's a beauty in empty places that are supposed to be full of people. Not like your office after everyone's gone home, or a stadium in the offseason, but places that aren't ever supposed to be empty. Like a mall. Or a grocery store. Those things are never really devoid of people.

Some people think there's beauty in nature, in finding some secluded dell that nobody's ever been in, and being by yourself. But that's not the same. They're choosing to go where nobody has ever tread. I'm choosing to go where there used to be dozens of people, or thousands. I'd trade ten forest glades for an empty airport, and a handful of hidden waterfalls for the abandoned town near Chernobyl.

It's exactly because these spaces used to be filled with people, their sounds, smells, and thoughts -- and are still filled with some of their stuff -- that makes them magical. A place built for nobody with one person in it is pointless. A place built for millions with just one person in it is magical.

It's fine if some of the windows are blown out. There's still plenty of room here for me, and for my stuff. I guess I may as well refer to all the stuff here as mine. I never really wanted a shoe-polishing stand or three thousand and eighty-four pickup trucks, but if there's nobody else to claim it, I guess there's no distinction to be made between "my stuff" and "not my stuff". Maybe it's all just "stuff" now.

I like having everything to myself now. I just wish I knew what happened that I'm still here, and everyone else is gone.