N. the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that's usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet:
A school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds.
An emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just em...
After a few more days work, meaning finding more batteries around town and cabling them in I could confidently say my DIWhy idea worked, the little light bulb in the office shined brighter instead off the sickly glow it had before even tho it was still not perfect with the other building cabled into it too.
What worried my now is nothing lasts forever and one of these days the cabling won't either and I fear it might break in a part we cannot fix.
"There we go, for now this is good." I looked at Lucy.
We had layered wooden planks wrapped in plastic under the chicken place and added even more support, I am not losing these birds.
"Good job." I was hesitant but high fived her as she held her hand up for it. "How are the preparation going?" I asked.
"The room looks like a mental hospital's one, padding everywhere."
"Ours too, gather a lot of clothes too. In the School there is a room that is purely filled with clothes with little bags of lavender that say they keep bugs out of yours clothes thrown in there and I think they work since the clothes are all good."
"True."
"I found one of the old timey washboards people used to wash their clothes in the museum uptown and use that or just soak the clothes in a kiddy-pool on the roof."
"This world is a mess huh? Not only from the husk-ys but also because of the trash, who thought we'd get so used to everything smelling rotten and bloody that we don't even smell it unless it is a hoard."
"Yeah." I closed the gate when we left. "My ears have started ignoring the sounds of these husks, they are just so used to them." I shrugged.
"Yeah.... Hey I don't remember if I always said this but still... Thanks for helping us, even if it was not your choice."
"Yeah sure and I guess sorry for shooting her." I said, walking ahead, hands in my jacket pocket, it was August, hoodie and jacket season again.
"It's fine, I understand... I just wish we would have been more careful, if she hadn't hurt her leg we would still be together, the three of us."
"Sometimes the world is cruel but other times it shines happily on us, you both get to live to remember her."
"It was such a stupid accident tho and it is all my fault, I asked her to come with me.... Shit she was my best friend, heck even more but I never dared to say."
I really didn't want to deal with tears again but here we are.
"Look, follow me." I said even if she already was.
It was a short walk to the bridge, long had the time for slow walking gone, always fast walking everywhere, I lead her on it.
I didn't know what I should feel, the elements having blown the grave marks away completely as winds could get really strong.
"This place once had three handmade crosses." I pat the bridge just above where they had been, opening the notebook in my pocket and showing her the old drawing of what they looked like.
Hoppla! Dieses Bild entspricht nicht unseren inhaltlichen Richtlinien. Um mit dem Veröffentlichen fortfahren zu können, entferne es bitte oder lade ein anderes Bild hoch.
It had been a long time since I flipped back to this page...
"Vic, Hope and Fred." I said. "First friend in the after, first baby in the after and my father in the after.... They all died too stupid accidents too."
"I'm sorry." She said, holding the notebook.
"It's fine... It hurts but I grew and you will too, as I said before your job now is to survive not only for yourself but for all the people you lost so there is someone always left to remember them. I met people I couldn't save, Nancy, Jack, David, they were already doomed, Adam doomed himself because of his actions, a lady died because I was trigger happy, Lana was known by my father, never met Theo but he did, I only remember their voice as they ran passed where I was hiding and never saw their face, old man Ed I shot.... No matter what their story is I will remember them all, even if they were evil or not to me, I live for them and for those still alive."
How many time have I repeated this? Hundreds? I have one fear worst then any of the other ones this world forced on me, I already thought of it too, I am not giving myself a life expectancy of more then five more years as survival will get too tiring after a while and that's my fear.... That having people to remember, to live for, will once not be strong enough.
"There is a graveyard near here but I could never, I threw their bodies in the water, so they can rest in the ocean and be free, free from the grasp of the plague that blankets the world." I leaned on the bridge. "My father died of the most stupid accident, pissing outside in the snow and slipping on ice while hitting his head.... I didn't notice he was gone until too late... Hope then got sick probably from some bacterium from leaving the stuff my father died in, in the room, he died too and then Vic hung herself.... And yet I still live for them."
"No one is left that hasn't lost someone huh?" She asked, also leaning on it.
"Seems so but that's the world so try and...." I took a deep breath and sighed, not believing what I was saying. "Don't be guilty for surviving."
Oh course I was guilty... So guilty.
I looked at Lucy who was staring ahead with a smile before I did too with the slightest one.
But it was easier to live when I was no longer alone.
