Dusting

A thick, pressing dust covers every inch of my world, as far as the eye can see. It chokes me, makes it hard to breathe. But I am used to not breathing. We all are, because we're all dead, have been for generations. They say it is The Past People who did this to us, ruined us because they were so greedy and compassionless and tore each other to pieces. Killed us with their New Things and nonexistent emotions. They housed grotesque, bloodthirsty monsters that they liked to call 'souls' to make themselves feel human. Nobody is human. They were mongrels then, and we are only ghosts now.
I stand in the ruins of my antique yard, staring at the gray-stained sky that hasn't allowed the sun in years. Across from my yard lies a vast, ugly wasteland where hundreds of people were killed by the Dust Storm. Buried beneath layer upon layer of heavy soot that seemed to come from every direction without end and then forgotten. Nothing marks their loss, not even a chiseled, weather-eroded tombstone the same color of our life. Nobody wanted that memory.
I allow my legs to collapse and unhinge, fall to my knees and plunge into the filthy grit, sending a plume of it into the already-polluted air. It snakes its way into my lungs, making me cough and sputter and gag. But it subsides quickly, leaving me empty and bare and raw inside. I am sure if I stay here long enough I will blend with the atmosphere, melt and fade into it like the pretend thing I am.
My fingers dig through the thick sand like deranged claws, scrambling to find the ground and my sanity. I am just barely able to feel the course, aged dirt scrape my fingertips, trapped under the waste. When we were little, the older kids told us the dust was the ashes of lost loved ones. They laughed when we all ran home crying and dove into the grime, shouting and searching for our dead grandparents. People are cruel. Everybody is, twisted and demented in some way, their minds just not quite sane. Some people just hide it better than others.
I don't hide it at all. They all think I'm Crazy, that the dust has finally worked its way into my bloodstream and made me irreparable. Sometimes I think that too. They blame me for the Fire that killed all my friends, say that I started it from a match and a vengeance. I don't deny it anymore, maybe I am the one who started it. I never think about it long enough to find the answer.
I fall backwards, letting gravity push me into the rotting earth. I hope it will consume me, chew me up and swallow thickly. Send me to the core of the earth where it is warm and I can be alone in the good way, way by choice. Where there is no dust to suffocate me. I watch a cloud of the dull cinders fly upwards, mixing in with the intoxicating air to create something deadly, yet not as deadly as I am. Fragments of smut obscure my vision and fill my body, but I lay there as still as I can so that it will take me. I wait for the earth to mercifully dispose of me while the unchanging night turns as black as my insides.

(Okay, super random short story, not sure if anyone will want to read it all. I'm sorry for all the dark stuff lately. A couple of things have inspired me in that direction. I feel like my writing's all the same... Anyway, I'll try to write something lighter soon. We'll see how that works out. ✌)