…and the last tree used for paper crackles and thuds to the ground to become the last handwritten letter ever mailed in the last envelope ever made to be delivered by the last mailman to the last mailbox still in existence. The last mailman will put the letter in his beaten leather bag, specially press his uniform, and open the rusty mailbox dented and weathered from disuse. The elderly woman to whom the last letter is mailed will receive the last paper cut as her quaking fingers rip through the pasted flap, a smear of blood staining the stamp. She will not recognize the handwriting, unable to read the florid arcs of cursive. A last love letter will sit on her kitchen table to become stained with coffee rings and smudges of tomato sauce─the last words from her first love to eventually blur and wash over the edge of the page.
And the last silverfish will eat the last bit of paper from the last book on the last shelf in the last library. He has no appetite for Nooks or Kindles or other pieces of hollow plastic. Synthetic fibers from clothes give him bellyaches. He climbs to the highest shelf in the darkened building that has long since been boarded and condemned. With a last sigh, he jumps. His silvery body a quick flash in the moonlight, no longer to stain pieces of paper or wiggle across the words of poets or long-forgotten authors who wrote romantic tales about lonely souls seeking the wrenching death of love.
Grey Sparrow Journal 