Patrick Seaman

The Young Man

THE YOUNG MAN By Patrick Seaman The Young Man eyed the field nervously. Standing in the tree line, just inside the covering brush, he was invisible, he hoped, to any prying eyes along the opposing field. He scanned up and down, looking for any movement that could be a threat. It was quiet. That was normal, given the lack of birds and other wildlife. The wind blew through the trees above him. His father had told him about birds, how they once flew constantly through the air, perched in trees, and sang their cheerful songs. They were all gone now. He had told him stories of the woodland mammals; squirrels climbing up and down trees, foraging for nuts to store for the winter. Chipmunks running about through the leaves on the ground. And the deer, majestic, trotting silently through the forest-the bucks with their beautiful antlers, and the does with their little spotted fawns. The Young Man looked forward to a day that he could see them for real-not just pictures in an old tattered book, or videos on the computer. He wondered what they would smell like. Snapping out of his thoughts, he refocused on the task at hand. It had taken him months of travel to get to this point, and he didn’t want to fail now. The Raiders could be hiding anywhere. Ambush was their specialty. Cannibals who killed and ate unwary travelers between the domed cities. The Young Man wondered what meat tasted like. Even human. He had never had any meat at all; he and his clan, like everyone else, subsisted on plants-fruits, vegetables, nuts & seeds. After the Shift, as his parents called it, there were no more animals to eat. And very few humans to eat them, as well. He was an Outsider-part of the small percentage of humans left who didn’t live in a domed city, protected from the Raiders, and other outsiders.