The Adventures of Soap Boy

Part 1: The Cataclysm

I love sleep. It's peaceful, it lets you dream of a better time, and it even lets you forget your hunger for a while. For that reason, the whirring of sirens in the early morning quickly became my least favorite thing in the whole world. Especially when it almost always preceded the bangs outside. It was especially bad that day. Possibly because the end times were upon us.

"I get it! The bombs are dropping! But the bombs are always dropping, so let me sleep!" I yelled at nobody in particular, immensely frustrated by the noise ripping me back to reality.

After a minute, I'd managed to calm myself. I was up, and the sirens wouldn't stop for at least the next several minutes, so there was no point in trying to go back to sleep. I reached over to my bedside table and turned the clock my way to get a better view of the display, only to find that it wasn't working. It only took me a moment to remember why. The power had gone out seven days ago. I still couldn't tell if that was due to being in an active war zone, or having nobody around to pay the bill. Either way, I still needed to know the time. Looking outside, I could see the sun just beginning to shine on the horizon. For October, that'd be about 7AM.

I stepped out of bed, and was very glad for where I lived. Elsewhere, I'd heard that going a night without heat at this time of year was a death sentence, but in Caracas, I could sleep in comfort all year round. That didn't mean that it was good to be without power. Just that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The temperature overnight was probably in the twenty degree range, which was about where I liked it. Now though, it was feeling more like twenty-three. It was time to get out of my pajamas.

After changing, I felt hungry, so I headed to the kitchen. My apartment was a fairly normal two bedroom on the eighth story of my complex. A hallway ran directly through the center, between the bedrooms and into the kitchen. That made the trek to the kitchen rather short, though not easy. Since the power went out, I'd had a hard time eating the remaining food. It was the first time I had ever felt true hunger. The whole walk to the kitchen felt like I was walking uphill.

I arrived, and checked up on the state of my remaining supplies. Food was becoming frighteningly scarce. Very little was left, and I didn't have the cooking skill to make use of it. I was starting to wonder if I had enough to last until my parents returned. They had left two months ago, the same day the bombs started dropping, and had yet to come back. My hope in their promised return was starting to dwindle, but I would hold out nonetheless. I sensed my thoughts starting to go in a bad direction, so I moved onto another goal. If I couldn't eat, I would just go to the bathroom.

I reached out the kitchen window to where I'd placed several pots and pitchers. It had rained last night, and they were all full. I grabbed a big soup pot, and spilled only a little in getting it to the kitchen floor. I was young and working on very little food, so if I could do something the easy way, I would.

Once the pot was settled on the floor, I dragged it to the bathroom. I used the pot to fill the basin, and set to relieving myself. I flushed, and was rather proud of myself for finding a way to manage it. All that was left was to wash my hands. For that purpose, I had left a bit of water in the pot and set it by the sink. I climbed up on the chair I'd placed next to the bathroom sink, wet my hands with some of the remaining water from the pot, and made a terrible realization.

The entire apartment was out of soap. I had used the last of it the day prior to wash a dirty pot so I would have one more to set outside the window. Hand soap, shampoo, body wash, dish detergent, and even the old pet soaps from when we used to have a dog. They had all been used up over the last two months living alone.

I had always been a very clean kid. My parents had taught me all the ways that cleanliness helped us in our day-to-day lives, and that it was very important to always wash my hands after using the toilet. That I had lost even my ability to clean myself forced me to consider how alone I was. My father would always go out when soap was low, and would buy more. My mother would refill the dispensers diligently when they were empty. But neither of them were around anymore. I was hungry, lonely, and now, unclean. The very thought of continuing like that was torture. I felt my eyes begin to water, and had to stop myself. I had to clear my mind. I had promised my parents that I wasn't going to cry the day they left, and I wasn't going to break that resolve over some soap. It took several minutes, but I eventually did prevent myself from breaking down.