I went outside today.

It was too hot to stay indoors.

It was too hot to go outside.

But I went out anyway, looking for water. I was thirsty. I had been thirsty for days.

They say you can survive for a week without food.

Without water, three days.

There’s no water anywhere.

Faucets are dry. Sinks, even the toilet, dry.

The electricity is off. The refrigerator door hangs open, the shelves empty. Every bit of moisture has been hunted down, gathered, sucked dry.

I tried not to remember the ice in the freezer. Frozen water. Even the memory is melted, gone.

Outside, arid. Even deserts used to have oasis. Now, no.

I staggered across the former lawn now brown and brittle. My reluctant feet shuffled and I heard the dead grass give a last twisted cry of despair.

I reached the street, looked up and down, across and back.

No one.

Nothing.

The body of a neighbor was lying at his doorstep, desiccated, mummified.

I looked at my own hand. Skin and bone, without blood.

The neighbor yard once held a cactus in the corner for decoration. It hung limp and shriveled. Around it lay the dried bodies of birds, small animals, lizards. They had drained the cactus, then fed on each other, drinking blood, then died.

A neighbor was crawling in my direction. He spoke in a dry whisper. “I made it to the corner. Nothing. I’m trying to crawl back home to die.”

I said, “Goodbye.”

I turned, staggered, then crawled back to my house, reached the steps.

I took a pencil and a paper from my pocket and wrote all this down.

There was mail on the porch, left when they stopped delivering. On top was a flyer from the government. It showed the fat man in Washington pointing to a banner that read “Global Warming is a Hoax!” I took my pencil and drew a line across his face.

They had shown that banner on television days before, on every channel. Then the power went off and the screen went blank.

I took my pencil and paper and wrote My Letter to the World.

“I’m dying. Goodbye.”