Track length: 4:14

C

Missing you, missing me, pissing off this misery — falling like blame, sleeping in the cracks of the sidewalk you traversed yesterday. Calling my name doesn’t heal the wound of conversation. Two perfect strangers stray.

V1

Slicing up the words we speak is delicacy — mincing meaning somewhere between dial tones, peppering the silence with our memories, serving up a mess of mixed messages.

C

V2

Forking over debts we owe in courtesy — eating almost two years of lost confidence, chewing on excuses for this distancing, swallowing the pride of two confused.

C

Track length: 5:40

V1

Is this beginning or the end? Is this something we’ll defend? Are we truly synchronized, or is this something we’ll despise? How do you know when you first meet that somehow now your life’s complete? Because I had taken to the path and never felt like I was half. Is this beginning or the end?

C

Feeling less and less each day that I am reeling from the curses I had known. But feeling is more and more a luxury. I cannot trust myself to be alone.

V2

Is this beginning or the end? Is this something we pretend? Are we pawns the gods direct, or is this something more complex? How do you know from the first drive that two will remain side-by-side, and have no need to grab the wheel to say this ride’s no longer real? Is this beginning or the end?

C

Track length: 5:46

Inspired by “The Birth of Venus, “ a painting by Sandro Botticelli (1486).

V1

Like a Venus on a half shell, too shy to embrace words — a sacred pearl neglects their sound and savors silence.

V2

I watch the wind try to taint her. I watch you wrap her flesh in your robes of reason. We all forget sometimes — love will not answer, and it’s better left naked.

C

Follow me, and I won’t hollow you. Borrow me, and I won’t sorrow you. The fatality of you and me is nourishment for decadence.

V3

Weeping willow, lift your spirits at the sight of her beautiful detachment. You know, I envy your ease of separation — for I’m only an artist.

C

Track length: 4:16

C

Cruising the necropolis, buried under thunder seed. Praying that we will exist someday, without a single need — except for what we never see, for unity amongst our creeds, for lust of light and family tree, for nothing dead forever bleeds.

V1

How can one be a monopoly? Blind minds find a new design. How can I sit through the shit and spit, and not move as the song improves? How can it fly that people slide by? Sleep standing straight. Sheep branding hate. How can I live by the money sieve to die soul-broke?

C

V2

How can I trick with a penny stick, poke fun with a broken pun? How can I sing what I cannot bring, tongue-tied in my rhythm ride? How can we act when our love is wack — pairing off the same, leaving talk lame? How can I sink into another drink and still find you?

C

Track length: 5:57

Music from the previous track is played in reverse, so we’re running it back here for final commentary.

NARRATIVE

The last human standing on Earth is a person of understanding, instincts, and artistry. And yet, he is suspended along the string, without path or purpose, a tragic amusement. His emotionality and internal conflicts confound visitors to his once-flourishing planet. His cycling of alternative scenarios will never resolve or amount to anything, because none of his kind remains to listen. There is no consideration.

It is infinitely simpler for the others: want, seek, and take without negotiation or suggestion otherwise. Chemistry and means differ, but the others share two powerful evolutionary traits: urgency and stealth. They avoid announcement and they leave no trace.

No one anticipates or remembers. Time is nascent and only present. The void of recollection would seem superficial to human sentimentality, except when you weigh their impossible lightness of being. 0f course they can continue. It’s ironic, really, considering how often humans fancied themselves to be capitalists.

The last human survives the final atomic war, the destabilization of climate, and artificial intelligence in total isolation and meditation. When he emerged from the mantle, he was captured without signal. His existence was immediately made eternal by the Ecladeians. This was remarkably lucky. Had any of the others found him, humanity would be lost.

His knowledge was presumed to be redundant at the time of his hiding. Earth tech made sure of that. But the others who have since arrived show little interest in the machined. They’re fascinated by his imperfections, especially the nicks and scars about his hands. They stare as he carves wood.

As it turns out, wood is the rarest of materials. Unlike diamonds, which form under extreme pressure in many cosmic environments, wood is a product of a biology that’s only found on Earth. It’s why the others travel so far to experience it. Trees require liquid water, a stable atmosphere, and a remarkably complex ecosystem to rise.

The last human reads the trees. He comprehends the shift in density from early to late wood and back again. Every winter, when it becomes too cold to photosynthesize, growth pauses. When spring returns, it resumes. As it was in the time of jazz, the space between the notes always defined the music.

Trees have long provided the environmental archive: droughts, fires, pest outbreaks, and more. They speak to the future of Earth’s climate, if you know how to interpret the data. That humans never fully embraced the wisdom in trees became a contributing factor in their demise. In the end, they tore down or burned more than they planted.

The last human was once a young boy. His mother encouraged him to go outside, remove his boots, and walk the forest. She didn’t want him to disengage from society, sink into these machines, and dull senses. That his survival later hinged on leaving most of the natural world behind is the kind of strange lesson only Earth can cultivate and teach.