It’s silent, still. I stand and wait, expecting. Someone pressed the stop button. I’m frozen with one hand on a large boulder, one foot on a burnt tree. Waiting, head tilted, eyes searching the clouded sky.
Come on, make a sound. I’m not asking for laughter, of hands patting backs. I’m not asking for singing birds, for chattering chipmunks. A cry of despair is okay with me. The sound of sobbing, punctuated by hiccupping, the sound of a lion’s deep growl that signifies that it is hungry and looking for a snack; they’re fine right now. They’d do. Something, something at least, to tell me that something, something is alive. A sound of happiness is not what I need, though it would be welcomed, so welcomed, but a sound of life is all, and I’ll take it with deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling to the fresh sound of it. I don’t want to be alone. Not here. The ruined buildings in the front of me; they scare me. The torn up road behind, asphalt digged up, shiny and sticky looking; the cement sidewalk broken like crackers, mixed with the asphalt, sprinkled with powdery dirt, dry and dusty.
No, I do not want to be here. No, no, no. My breathing increases, chest feels heavy. No, no, no. I squeeze my eyes shut.
If only Jess was here right now. But he is not here. Not here for a long time.
My eyes sting. I squeeze them harder.
He’ll know what to do. He always knew what to do. I open my eyes and look up into the distance in front of me, behind me. Did I leave him somewhere? Is he reaching his outstretched hands towards my fading back? Is he ahead? Maybe he is waiting at the end of some finish line of some twisted race, sipping on lemonade, a medal draped around his neck that says, “Marathon of Hell - Finisher.” If it is that simple, I tell you, I will not hold back. I will chase him down and kick all that is stupid out of him, because leaving me alone in this frightful world is stupid, and I’ll chase him until he is running the marathon again, away from me. And then, and then, well, and then I’ll hug the daylights out of him because it’s already been three months since the last time I heard his corny jokes and saw the lines crinkle around his green eyes whenever he made a dumb pun, bright, against the red sky.
His eyes are pretty. I must be dehydrated because I know I did not just think that. It’s just because I haven’t seen him in a long time. Or the fact that red is the opposite color of green so it makes his eyes stand out more. Yes. That is right. That is logical. Of course.
But that thought doesn’t change the fact that he is not here right now and he is the only one who can make it feel bearable in this hollow world. He’ll burp a Shakespeare quote on command or something, though he never touched a soda the past eight months, and I’ll feel infinitely better because the first rule to crude humor is funny bodily noises, and the buildings will look like Lego pieces ready to be rebuilt, and the road will look like a puzzle, because that end of the cracker looks like it belongs there, and if we shake off the dirt and put it in that pile, right under the upturned tree, it’ll be just like new.
Yes, he’ll know. He’ll know. So where the hell is he now?
My hair tickles my ear. A breeze. And the sound of wind blowing past me brings me back. Someone pressed the resume button. How? I don’t know. The wind is not alive. But the sound is all I have to convince myself that I have not already died, my conscious floating in thin air, unable to hear, unable to sense, suspended in a vast place of nothingness.
One foot in front of the other. I need to keep moving. Just in case there really is a finish line somewhere.
My stomach hurts. The pain is sharp. I hate it. But nothing in my backpack can make it go away. I have a dead flashlight, two extra batteries of the wrong size, a dried out pen, a notebook with fresh pages, a box of nearly empty alcohol pads, a roll of bandages, an army knife, one half-empty purple water bottle and the wrapping of a granola bar that was eaten three months ago. Why did I not throw that away? I should throw that away. That’s gross. Oh right, because Jess said that it is not right to litter because it contributes to pollution and someday that piece of plastic wrapping will end up in a seagull’s throat and that is bad. Where are the seagulls, though? There are no seagulls. There are no living things. But I didn’t say that because I know he’ll say something stupid like that the world is not broken, and can be rebuilt, and when it is rebuilt, we will have to take care of it well, so we might as well start now and get a head start on taking care of the world. What a hippy-dippy. At least its not heavy to carry around.
My hands sting as I grasp at jutted edges of rubble to help me climb over.
Our plan had been to go east because when the sky started to darken and fire began to break out, it came from the west. The edge of terror loomed near as we stuffed provisions into two backpacks and ran the opposite way. We chased after the snippet of blue sky, the tuft of green grass that is east. The darkened sky was catching up to us. Little by little. But we ran. It was hard to breathe. Not sure if it was the smoke from whatever was burning behind us. Not sure if it was the suffocating sounds of poor, wailing souls, trying in vain to stop it. But we ran. We continued east.
And then, it was on us.
And the grass wilted. Buildings fell down, down. Fires, sirens. And the blue sky became smaller. It was going further away. Little by little. The green tufts of grass, dried up now, crumpled. Little by little. But even when we could no longer see blue skies. And even when we could no longer see green grass, we still went east. We don’t know where it stopped. We don’t know if it did. But we hoped it did. We hoped it did soon. And we walked. And the grass turned to dirt. And we walked. And the dirt turned to asphalt. And we walked. And the asphalt turned to cement. And somewhere along the way, two became one.
My arms shake as I tried to pull myself onto a flat surface of the ruined building. Maybe it was a collapsed wall. A ceiling. A roof. But all that is important right now is that it is in a higher elevation. And that means I can see. Or at least, see more than from below, because one look at the foggy sky already crumpled my hope like feta cheese. I love feta cheese. I didn’t use to love it before, but I love it now. And food. I love food. I haven’t eaten much more than energy bars and trail mix since the asphalt turned to cement. At least when the ground still had grass, random vegetation was easy to fine. A cluster of mushrooms. A patch of dandelions. Are they even edible? I don’t know. I said that they weren’t. They could be poisonous! You are not supposed to eat random patches of weeds, I said. It’s stupid, I said. But he shrugged and ate them. It’s just dumb. But while I cursed and lamented, he hummed. And while I was starved and hungry for food, he ate. So when my stomach growled too loudly and the pain was too sharp, too intense, I grabbed a fistful of weeds, with dirt still hanging at its roots and stuffed it into my mouth. It was disgusting. Like if I had french kissed a lawn mower and then drank a green juice made of broken spinach and broken promises. But he grabbed another fistful, and soon we were distracted from our quest, going north, going south, in search of edible plants, instead of going east.
It was funny. I thought it was. It was stupid. But best friends don’t let each other do dumb stuff alone. Even though I did let him do that alone in the beginning. But that was only for a short time. I promise.
I could really use a fistful of raw leaves at this point. The taste of granola and nuts leave a sickening feeling in me. If I just squint and tilt my head, maybe they’ll taste like a cheeseburger. If I took a bite of cheeseburger after each handful of nuts and seeds. Oh, if I never have to taste the nutty, dried flavor of trail mix I’ll - my arms gave out.
I fall hard against the jagged rubble beneath me. My knees bang at cement walls, ceilings, roofs, whatever it was. My shins smack against metal pipes. Ankles cut by a lighting fixture. Hands and arms, extended above me, surprised that they had let go. They weren’t supposed to. My brain didn’t give the command.
It hurts. It hurts like when I first learned to ride a two-wheeler in elementary school and I kept going sideways. And falling off. And scraping myself. And Jess would ride up behind me with his training wheels on and a first-aid kit to patch me up with band-aids and Neosporin. What a doofus. He didn’t have enough sense to know that training wheels are for babies. But when I told him that, he just tilted his head, gave me a dumb smile, got on my two-wheeler, and rode off as if he was born to. I hated him for that. I don’t think I ever forgave him. But I would so like for him to show up right now with some extra large band-aids and some heavy-duty Neosporin and patch me up because it hurts a lot and I am bleeding and I would really like it to stop.
I grit my teeth hard. I try to move my legs. Nothing’s broken. Nothing’s jutting out at odd angles. Nothing’s mangled. Bruises dotted my shins and knees but I could still move. Good. Okay. Yes. I lift the edges of my jeans and gently, as gently as I could, peel back the edges. The blue fibers sticked to the bloody cuts along my ankle. Shoot. I look closely. Not too deep. Just bloody. Good. I guess. Well, not too bad. I guess.
The cut may not be deep, but it won’t be that that will kill me. It'll be the infection. Judging by the dusty and rusty lighting fixture that hit me, I knew that the cut is not the cleanest it could be.
Cursing, I take my bottle of water out of my backpack. Half-empty. Should I clean the cuts? No. I drink from it instead. Water is precious.
I fish around my backpack once more and pull out the box of alcohol pads. About thirty left. Not too much. I don’t know when it’ll heal, but like anything now, I just hope that the answer is soon. I rip open a pad and take a deep breath. Okay. Okay. It’ll hurt but it’ll be okay. Pain now and still have legs later. Right. Good trade-off. Okay. Ready. One. Two. I dab the pad on the cut on my left foot repeatedly, trying to kill as many germs as possible in my wound. I hiss through my teeth. Okay. That hurts. Next foot. Damn it. Right. Okay. Pain now and two feet later. Okay. Got it. Ready. Not ready. Okay. Wait. Right. Okay. Ready. One. Two. I dab a fresh pad on the cut on my right foot. Tears sting my eyes. I bite my tongue. That hurts. Okay. The worst is over.
Tomorrow the cut will clot. Platelets and such. Right. I reach into my backpack and take out the roll of bandage and wrap it around my right ankle. Around, around, around. I cut it with the army knife and tie it up nice and tight.
I hope Jess is okay. Is he injured too? I hope not. Did he have a roll of bandages with him? How about a box of alcohol pads? I hope he’s okay.
I bandage my other leg. Around, around, around. Snip. Tie. Cool.
The sky looks darker, redder like a sunset, grayer than foggy white. The air, chillier. I pull my jacket around me tighter. Night is coming. I am tired. I am injured. All I want to do right now is sleep. I push myself up. My knees hit the ground. I blink back tears.
I limp closer to the bottom of the flat surface that I tried to climb before. The flat surface jutted out like a cliff, leaving a small, cave-like nook under it. Perfect to settle in for the night. It’ll be shelter against the wind, or rain, if it starts raining in the middle of the night. I climb into the nook and brush the pebbles and debris away. I lie down and curl up into a ball, putting my backpack flat to lay my head on. I remove my jacket and drape it over myself. Nighty-night. I guess. Don’t let the bed bugs bite. I guess. If I was in bed. If there was anything that is living around here besides me.
I close my eyes and willed myself to sleep. I couldn’t. My ankles throbbed, and the backpack was not a soft pillow. Whenever I shifted to get into a more comfortable position, my bruises hurt. I sigh.
I stare out at the fading light. At the floating particles of dust that turned into green eyes that crinkle. I think of lame punchlines. Pizza jokes are cheesy. Six was afraid of seven because seven ate nine. It was funny. Kinda. But it’s a secret never to be revealed. I think of Shakespearean burps that turned to screams. I think of going north, going south, instead of going east, and how that quickly turned into directionless tumbling. To sliding. To falling. I think of crying. But I don’t. I am strong.

My eyes fly open. I shut them just as quickly. The sun is at its zenith. I must have fallen asleep, then. My neck is sore. Back aching. Brain throbbing. Disgusting. I sigh and slowly open my eyes again.
Interesting.

Was I always so furry?