To the Well-Organized Mind

Chapter Two

When the Amazon burned a record amount in one year, we knew the true beginning of the end had arrived.

-from Ridge's scattered papers

*

When I find out the truth, my bad mood becomes permanent. 

These wasted "survivors" are attempting to cross the Barrens, too: only they're coming from the Outside. From Beyond. From where I need to reach.

Except when I ask about the Scientist and the Cure, none of them know anything concrete about it. One woman exchanges glances with a man, and finally announces that they heard it was back the way I came, back in the Barrens.

I have to turn around.

*

As I rest and drink some of the stagnant water here, I hear their whispers.

They believe I will lead them across. To Paradise.

They do not ask if I know the way to any kind of sanctuary or civilization. They do not question whether I am there to save them or there to use them—they simply assume I am their salvation. Why else would I be wandering the Barrens than to sweep for survivors and bring them into our welcoming arms? Yet none of them dare approach me.

Better to assume erroneously than find out the truth.

So none of them are truly thankful, not at their core, to see me stumbling into their dying oasis. My very presence could destroy their tenuous hopes and smoky daydreams.

So at least the feeling's mutual.

But to be honest, my survival must make them all hate me more. Here, a single person has survived the crossing, so what excuse do they have left to refuse to leave? They can no longer pretend that they might live longer if they stay in this rotting hole of stench, no longer forfeit the chance at life by lying. 

If I tell them what's waiting across the Barrens for them, maybe they would thank me, grateful to die in their garbage-filled tombs, pulling the blanket over their face at night like the shroud it truly has become. If I tell them how once I bring them to Asis they'll be facing a worse kind of death than starvation, I don't think they would rise quite so eagerly to their fragile legs.

If I warn them how prevalent feralism has become in Asis, I don't think a single one of them would follow me out. Lies are a bitch, but reality is sheer despair.

I don't think any of them know how desperately Asis needs them, rather than vice versa.

So I let the hopeful cling to me, I glare down the angry, I speak concise logic to those who try to argue themselves out of fresh air. 

I came through, and I lived.

Come with me, you live.

Stay here, and you die, dehydration and starvation the only things lamenting your loss.

That's it, that's the fragile truth that keeps them all following after me, my rag-tag tail strewn out across the Barrens. 

*

I am leader. No need for an election, no cause for a cheer, not even an informal hand-raising. My hair is still piled to the right from the bitter Barren crosswinds; I still have the dirt and sand wedged underneath my fingernails and buried deep into my scalp; my clothes have faded from the beating of the sun; and my eyes have trouble focusing on anything closer than the horizon. I reek of survival, and that is the only vote I need. Never mind that when I found them, I collapsed, on the brink of death, unable to squeeze two fingers together.