Click.
“0800 hours, four days since I entered my mam and dad's room for the first time since dad was evacuated. It's pretty much the same as it's ever been – patchwork quilts and rickety wooden furniture galore. I don't know what I was really expecting, to be honest. But yeah, I took all the quilts out of their room and permanently migrated downstairs into the living room with Cye. We just took all the mattresses downstairs and sleep in the living room next to the telly now. Honestly, I like it better sleeping down here. It's kind of eerily lonely upstairs.”
There's a faint snort of amusement, muffled by the thick quilted duvets.
“Real cute, Cam.”
“Fuck off. Stop listening to me doing my recordings. It's giving me stage fright.”
“I thought you wanted the next generation of humanity to listen to these?”
“Yeah, that's totally different. I don't know them. I'll be long dead by the time anyone else gets their hands on these. You'll still be here tomorrow to wind me up about everything that I say.”
“True.”
The word tails away into a deep yawn and a drained moan. The floorboards creak under the weight of the two teenagers shuffling to get comfortable.
“Cye?”
“Hm? Look, are you done? I'm tired.”
“That's entirely your own fault. You shouldn't have stayed up so late playing cards with me.”
“You poked me with your manky foot every time I drifted off. Anyway, what is it?”
“What? Oh yeah! I was gonna say, you should make breakfast.”
“No.”
This evokes a dismayed splutter.
“Ugh, come on, you're a much better cook than me!”
“Flattery will get you no where. I'm average. You're just horrendous.”
“Blah. I was never any good at home eekies in school.”
“I could believe that.”
“Shut up.”
“Mm.”
Morning fatigue washes over them like a wave, and soon the soft sounds of snoring fill the room.
“Cye?”
“Hng...”
“Cye? Have you gone back to sleep?”
“... I had, yeah.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
…
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Did you want something? Why did you wake me up? Again.”
“Oh! It's, uh, it's nothing.”
“Mmhm.”
“Seriously, just go back to sleep, it's fine.”
“No, I can't sleep now that you've started to talk to me, it'll annoy me for the rest of the day. Just tell me what you wanted to say and we can both chill the fuck out.”
“I just... I mean, not that it really matters or anything, but... I, y'know...”
“What, Cameron?”
“If the Infection hadn't happened, where would you be right now?”
“...There's not much point entertaining 'what ifs'.”
“Yeah, I know. I don't think I'd be much different anyway, to be honest. I'd probably still be at school during the week and working the farm during the weekends and the holidays. I always just kinda planned to continue working on the farm with my dad and the other guys, y'know? I mean, it's not very ambitious, but then again I was never a very ambitious guy. I like just, going with the flow I guess. Sorry. I'll stop talking now.”
The voice bubbles in nervous laughter, fraudulently airy tone attempting to lighten the suddenly heavy ambience.
“... University. I wanted to go university.”
“Seriously? Wait, how old are you? Would you be at university just now?”
“I'd be in my first year. I'm either seventeen or eighteen. I'm not sure. I kind of lost track of the dates after a while.”
“It's been four hundred and twenty three days since the last Scottish newspaper was printed. That's what, almost fourteen months?”
“Mm. I'm probably eighteen then. How old are you?”
“Sixteen. I'd still be in school, probably. What did you want to do at university?”
“Naval architecture.”
“What's that?”
“It's, em, it's like marine engineering. Construction and maintenance of ships and oil platforms and off-shore wind turbines etcetera.”
“Whoa! That's awesome! I didn't know you were smart. What makes you want to study that?”
“I liked boats, I suppose. And I liked the idea of working off-shore, away from everything. You're isolated from the rest of the world when you're at sea. I liked that.”
The discussion slows after this comment, both speakers hesitantly waiting on the other to break the silence first.
“You're kind of a loner, aren't you?”
“Tch. You could tell?”
The sarcasm diffuses the tension somewhat and the higher voice lets out a relieved exhalation, like the air being released from a balloon.
“Just a little, yeah. Y'know how you talk about all that stuff in past tense? Is it because you've given up on the idea completely? Like, you don't think society'll recover enough to start universities and stuff again in this lifetime?”
If the ensuant silence was a road, it'd stretch for miles and miles and reach out beyond the horizon to kiss the pale morning sun.
“... Nah, it's not that. It's more like, having actually been totally isolated and alone after the people I was travelling with were evacuated, I found I didn't really like it as much as I thought I would.”
“Oh.”
“And then I met you.”
“Oh...”
“... Keep pulling that slack-jawed face and it'll stick, you know. And are you still recording this? I swear to God, if anybody ever gets their hands on these tapes—”
“Ah ha ha ha, no, don't be so silly, of course I'm not recording this, what do you take me fo—”
Click.