Life After Them

Caves


    I woke up with my head pounding. Memories from the recent hours began to swim into my mind and I let out a groan as my hand pressed into my forehead. I sat up and pulled the blanket up over my chest, modest in my recent sobriety. The naked body next to me was breathing steadily and deeply. Fuck it, I thought. Let him sleep. Any time spent away from worries of the invasion was time well spent. My hand released my forehead and my fingers found their way through my hair, tousling it as the strands moved smoothly around my skin. I felt the ring on my left ring finger slide its way through my hair. I smiled. Looking back down I saw the matching ring on the man laying next to me, and it made my heart swell.
    When they first informed us of the invasion, it was as if time completely stopped. People can fathom war, and seem to tolerate it fairly well, seeing as most people don’t have to get their hands bloody. The government ships off groups of people and mostly everyone returns to their everyday life. People hear bad news on the television, and they swallow it down, only to absorb it and forget it. My point is, until war is in your front yard, or at least threatening to be, most people just don’t think about it. 
    Threats of nuclear war came first. Everyone’s assumption is that once people started talking heavily about dropping bombs onto our cities, our government started building the caves. No one would have imagined that fleets of soldiers would be coming into our country to take out the cities themselves. Little Rock, Kansas was the first one to go. Certainly not one of the largest cities, but destroying that city let everyone know they had already gotten to the middle of the country. They could have been anywhere. Nuclear toxin sat on top of that city now. Just rested upon all the dead bodies like a lethal blanket.
    And suddenly life wasn’t the same anymore. Our military moved fast. They started to evacuate everyone to separate cavern cities, the caves the military had been building since they first caught wind of what was happening. These caves were in the sides of mountains, vast hollowed places that would serve as our home for the next few years, or decades, they didn’t exactly know. The rule was that only family could stay together, everyone else was tossed into a randomized lottery that decided which unit we would belong to. Jonas had always been my family. Though we had a few close friends, both of us had been abandoned by anyone that could actually be called blood. Jonas and I had found each other as young children and had grown to be inseparable friends.  I remember how the thought of losing him had blinded me to the outside world for a moment, and when I finally started breathing again, Jonas was beside me, kneeling down on one knee. A week later, we were wed. A week after that, they came in and shipped us away. None of our friends were in our unit. We were alone, in a sea full of unfamiliar faces.
    The journey had been long and dusty, out of the city and into mountains that no one had ever bothered to see. We rode into the makeshift city, and it was sealed behind us. I last saw the sky 24 weeks ago. Sometimes, late into our sleeping hours, I had to make myself remember that the sky was blue. That sunshine hurts your eyes. It had been a painful transition, but mostly Jonas and I just tried to remember that we were safe, and we were with each other.
    Our room was decent at best, and that was if you were being optimistic about it. Small and uneven, it was dark except for the few battery operated lights that were scattered throughout the mismatched room. Our bed was a queen mattress thrown directly on the floor. It had come with two pillows and a blanket. Safety has its price. Jonas and I had joked. You could stand up fully in most parts of it, which was something to be thankful for. We had taken a couple blankets from our old residences that had made the room less foreign. Made it slightly inviting.
    Our haven had been hard on us the first few weeks. The darkness caused us to squint until our eyes slowly adjusted. The people we saw were unfriendly, and we mostly kept to ourselves. People walked around with their heads down and their spirits low. Smiling at anyone would have been fruitless, even if we could have gotten our faces to mimic happiness.
    Food was fair but consisted of terribly small portions. They needed to conserve in the first few months in case our unit wouldn’t receive more rations. This made everyone fearful and grumpy, from lack of sleep and a surplus of hunger. Jonas and I had spent most of our time just laying in our room, whether on the bed or the couch that had a broken arm. The caves had been so quiet in the beginning. No one wanted to meet anyone else, fearful perhaps, that new ties would only hurt if they were severed.
    Jonas and I have always said that we don’t know when it happened, but slowly and without warning, the cave started to become home. Subtly, strangers became friends. The fear had ebbed away slowly. Grimaces had turned into half smiles, and eventually grunts that almost resembled laughter stopped surprising us and started to form into actual laughter. We had unknowingly started to become a community.
    And then, when our unit leaders finally felt safe with the members of their cave, we were supplied with alcohol. We all rejoiced. Heavily and often. Our drunken laughter filled us more than our meek rations, our stumbling made us happier than our sobriety.
    They kept us working, for some sort of routine and discipline. Once we were off the clock however, we would sit around together in the food hall and drink. Drink till we couldn’t remember the stories of our childhood we were waiting our turns to tell. Then we would giggle and retreat to our beds. I would crawl into our bed and Jonas would wrap himself around me and we would sigh and fall asleep.
    Normally I would wake groggy but otherwise content. I would stretch into Jonas’ arms and he would kiss my head as he woke as well.    
    Today was different. Today it felt like something was banging around inside of my head and with a rickety sigh I shifted to lay back down. Jonas and I had not wed as a couple, but had wed to stay together. He had been my best friend, my everything, and slowly throughout our bed sharing in this city we had become more than that. It was terrifying and wonderful. Never before had I felt so happy and complete. Unknowingly, he had become fused to me. I was separate and yet he was a part of me. He had confessed that he felt the same, and the night we both expressed how we felt it was tender and sweet. His lips had softly kissed me with meaning and innocence, and we rocked together in new found bliss. This lasted a few weeks, until the alcohol was introduced. Once we started getting tipsy, our animalistic feelings and fears seemed to take over our bodies, and we became fiercer with each other in the nighttime, our mouths and hips fused together so hard that it reminded us we were still a part of something. Still here, on this planet.
    I laid down and curled onto my side. Even breathing hurt. I was not used to feeling hung over, and felt naïve for assuming this alcohol wouldn’t dehydrate me like every other kind of booze does.
    As I curled into myself, Jonas curled in next to me. His hand smoothed over my cheek and he murmured into my hair.
    “Savannah.” Hearing him speak my name filled me with a pleasure that was still new to me. Made me realize that saying I loved him was an insult to how I felt. What I felt was so much more powerful. I let him curl into me and I breathed deeply. I smiled.
    “I didn’t want to wake you, you look so cute and innocent when you’re naked and unconscious.” I felt his arm snake around my waist and pull me into him.
    “I’m always innocent and cute.” I could feel him smile up against my back. I pressed myself into him.
    “My body disagrees with you. My body seems to think that you are far from innocent Jonas Embry.”
1.
Differences   

    As usual, my arm woke me up. It had become an annoyance in the last few weeks, more than a pain, as the numbers that had been tattooed there flared to life and started throbbing. Time to get up. I rolled onto my back and put my arm in front of me. The numbers 1626 stared back at me. I mouthed the numbers while trying to remember the name I came here with. After a few moments, frustrated and surrendering to the blackness of that memory, I sat up and my hand subconsciously went to run my fingers through my hair. I rolled my eyes when my fingers hit bald scalp. I tended to forget it wasn’t there when first awaking. I shuddered as I remembered the interns making me sit on a cold chair. Crying as I saw my chocolate locks hit the floor. Screaming as they inked my arm and slid in a microchip that would let them know where I was, and would send a pulsating rhythm through my appendage as an alarm. More than annoying, it was lethal if you stepped outside of the compound for too long. Once outside a certain amount of feet, the pulsations it gave got stronger, until it caused you to lose consciousness. Few woke up by the time the Interns were sent out to get you, and after the Interns collected you, you never woke up again. The first few were used as examples to show others that this was home now. And I never forgot those pictures. They claim it doesn’t happen anymore, but sometimes people disappeared. They “relocated”, as the Elders would say.  But I knew. Everyone knew. But we didn’t say anything.
    As long as you kept your nose clean, things weren’t really all that bad. What I mean is, things certainly could have been a lot worse. I was fortunate enough to get along with the people in the rooms surrounding me. Their faces flashed through my mind as I pounded on the wall to my right.
    “Seven! Are you up yet?” My friend Seven seemed to be the only person I knew who could sleep through the alarm. I rubbed my eyes and walked over to the silver sink. I shook my head. Everything here was so cold. There was a hardly a trace of humanity left here. At least, the humanity I vaguely remembered. The younger ones here, this was all they had ever known. They didn’t have fragmented memories that swam around their peripheral. Memories and stories that begged to be remembered. It was a constant irritation, a tide that never fully came in. Just slowly rocked near the shore of my consciousness without ever really reaching me. The children here were too young to remember anything else. I never knew whether to be repulsed by this or envious.
    I looked up into the mirror. I was used to my appearance, but it still made me sad every time. My blue eyes looked desperate and critical. My pale skin was tight against my thin body, my cheekbones so defined. I told myself I was still pretty. And then I laughed. It sounded throaty and hollow. All these months and I was still so vain.
    I clutched my hands to the side of the sink and inhaled. “Seven!” I yelled again, if nothing else just wanting to hear him. There were times when I became scared that I was the only one here, that the others had all left while I was sleeping, and it made this entire ordeal horrifying. My cramped room echoed his name.
    A double pound on the wall let me know he was awake. Good. Irrational relief swept over me. I pulled on a pair of black sweatpants and a ragged tee shirt. I slid my door open and pressed my back into the wall. I picked at my nails and waited outside while he got dressed.
    “Morning Six.” He slipped out of his room and wrapped me into a hug. Warm. Tender. Completely against the rules. My body wrapped itself tightly around him for a moment, then he released his grasp on me. Seven understood my need for human contact. When I had first got here, it’s what kept me going. Knowing other people still had emotions.
    1627, or Seven, as I called him, as he called me Six, was taller than me with bright green eyes. His skin was about as pale as mine, but that’s because we didn‘t go outside. This was supposed to be for our own good, we had been warned that the outside world contained toxins our bodies wouldn’t be able to handle.  When Seven had first gotten here he had been fairly dark and slender. Now he was pale and muscular, the trials of labor and lack of sunlight.
    “So what’s the plan for today?” He smiled and started to steer me towards the Food Hall. The path to the center of the compound was so engrained in me that I hardly paid attention to where we were going. I thought out loud, my train of thought becoming concrete sentences.
    “Work, obviously. They want us to keep trying to plant crops, even though you’d think they’d let us give up by now. Eight months and no plant life would seem like an easy equation to me, but they want us to keep trying. After that… dinner, after that…I’m thinking booze. Also, we should probably get around to seeing 1625 today.” Seven crinkled his nose at me.  “Shush. I know she hasn’t been our closest friend, but she could use some company after last week. I know we didn’t like 1624, but he was close to her. We should try to cheer her up. Have her drink with us.”
    Seven smiled. “Well, if we ever get around to getting plants, I‘ll get her some fucking flowers.”   
    It was an awful joke, but I laughed anyway. As silly as the thought of Seven buying 1625 anything was funny enough, but the thought of plant life here, of all places, was ridiculous to think of. It didn‘t stop the Interns from making us try over and over again. The harsh fluorescent lighting and the grey stone walls were enough to snuff out the idea of something like flowers all together.
    1624 had been a rebel, to the bone. Seven and I used to hang with him a lot, but he constantly broke the rules. When he had gotten caught, instead of taking the beating himself, he had pointed his fingers at the two of us, which left us with some not so pleasant scars on our backs. We abandoned him after that, and unfortunately, with no one else to take the blame, it seemed like 1624 had finally been relocated. For the first time in a long time I actually experienced a sinking feeling. I hoped it hadn’t hurt, or lasted long, whatever it was the Interns had done to him.








    Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. I am writing this account of my life the last few months. I don’t know why. I don’t know who would find it, I don’t know where I’ll keep it, and I don’t know if writing it will end up being a horrible mistake. But it’s all that will ensure that I was here, once I’m gone. That I lived, that I loved, that I left something behind. This, is life after them.
  

Vanessa

The Unfamiliar Love of the Broom and the Mop.


Closing time has never been so lonely
one by one the lights are lost
and the nervous tapping of her fingertips
makes music in this vacant room.

The janitor comes
and the dance of mop and man begins
in the shadows it is more elegant
than satin sheets and ivory skin.

Closing time has never been so beautiful
the echoes of heels on hardened floors
create a tempo that sets a pace
and eyes are met with quickened breath.

She had felt so brushed off
as if stray hair on a face
only to realize
she was about to be swept away.

2005

What About Romeo?

Dear Pat,
You are so lean and shy
Your fair skin shines lonely
In a crowd of people
Who notice you
But never really see you.

Pat,
Earlier in the year we were cast in the same play.
But never once did I sit down to ask you how you were doing
False smiles overflowed
From your young hands

Cupped to collect anything from strangers
You wanted to get to know.

You were alone, Pat
But yet you never once blamed us
You just smiled
And let high school distance us
From you

Because you were afraid of confrontation
Or even saying hello.

At the end of the year
I received a letter from you
In which you thanked me Pat
You thanked me for being so nice to you
And I wanted to cry

Because though I was courteous
I had never intended it to mean so much.

Graduating made me realize
That I will never have the chance to be cast with you again
And no longer can I do what I should have done so long ago

Pat, if given the chance to go back again
I would look you in your eyes
And ask you how you were doing
And I would smile at you

With eyes that actually saw you.

Everyone casually picked on you
Like lint from clothing
And though it was never intentional
I did it too.

And while you never seemed to notice
I wish I would have wrapped my arms around you
And told you
I wanted you to be my friend.

Snow

A girl I call friend
passes a straw
and a piece of glass adorned with a
white line.
The glass reflects my face
and
   I
    cannot
       recognize
          myself.
What is this?
These are not my friends
Those are not my drugs
This is not my
life.
The girl who stares back at me in the mirror is
                                   distorted.
 Showing only bits and pieces of
               herself,
Peering out through powder flecked
                                     residue.
Thin white bars
             a jail she can't escape.

Mermaids

I remember sleepovers
and the cupped-hand giggles
that erupted
from our mouths
in quiet graceful waves.
I remember whispers about boys
long after my mother
had said goodnight, and turned out the lights.
Confessions carelessly offered up
between cousins
secrets kept
safes of information with
impenetrable
locks, this
I remember.
Play pretend in pools
mesmerized by movies
tanning in the heat of Arizona sunlight.
But mostly I remember
how those bonds of friendship have
never broken
and how twenty years later
(my baby cousin)
you are still my best friend.

Seconds

The reasons I love you remind me
of stars.
Too numerous to
count,
but each with the ability
to help light my way
home.