Ashes to Ashes

He stopped at the first mound. Nothing. Ash. Waste. Grey. White. Black. Oh…. A ring. With a diamond. Small. Maybe half of a caret. Smaller than he would have gotten for her. But it wasn’t hers. It’s not what he was looking for.

He stopped at the second mound. Same. No jewelry. Must have gotten rid of it before. Or maybe didn’t wear any. Smart. Sad. So sad to be reduced to…. This… Whatever… this… is….

The third mound…. More of the same…. By the fourth he was becoming numb. It was rote. Like the Pledge of Allegiance. Don’t forget to say “under God.” That’s an instant penalty, to not thank God and Country appropriately.

Fifth. Sixth. Seventh. Eighth. Ninth… Tenth…

What even mattered anymore. He was numb. Immune. Immune? A year ago he would never have believed it. After all, he was a fighter. A warrior. He was the one with a gun, and he knew how to use it. He would persevere and he would prevail. After all, they were looking out for him. Not looking out as in searching. But looking out as in supporting. They were supporting him. And his kin. He was one of the chosen. By the government. By the Lord, himself. And, yet, here he was, selling out. Instead of being cared for in the New World Order, as he’d been promised, here he was. Inspecting all of the graves, for some inkling, for some morsel, for some…. evidence… of her. A tear slid down as he remembered. He remembered what was. He remembered what could have been. What should have been. In the before times.

He thought this assignment would be painful. It wasn’t. It was excruciating. But he had to keep going. So he started digging. He dug and he dug. He dug a grave for each mound. To be marked with a meager wooden cross. Always with the religion. It didn’t matter who the inhabitant was. What was important was God, and Jesus, and the Holy Bible. You were one of the chosen, who would ascend into Heaven, or you were one of the Wretched. No middle ground. No opportunity for redemption. No chance to redeem yourself. That was it. Submit to their agenda. Or else, done.

Done. He ruminated on the word for a moment. What does it mean to be “done.” Tired. So tired. Of fighting. Of trying to do the right thing. Of standing up for what was right, and just. He was, at his heart, at his very core, an American. A true Patriot. Someone who believed in the Constitution, and the goddam American Experiment and the fucking Declaration of fucking Independence. But they didn’t want any of that. Turns out they wanted to form it in THEIR image. In the image of the white bread perfect well-inherited Christ-like figure that they believed themselves to be. And not into what the disciples wanted, and not into what he read into the Holy Word. But… What was he doing. He was waxing philosophical again. That would get him nowhere. He was a writer, a philosopher, even. But that was useless now. Unless it was their pro-State propaganda, there was nothing to write. Slavish adherence to manufactured facts. That was good. That was reward you with a spot closer to Supreme. Anything else, well, that sent you here. Where he was….

And then the bell sounded. Day is done. Gone the sun…. From the lake, from the hills, from the sky. That’s what he learned in scouts. He remembered the song he learned so many years ago. And he waited in line. Holding his dirty shovel, impossibly achy. When it was his turn, he handed over the shovel and placed his right thumb on the pad, the time clock. “Off” for the day, he headed home. He wanted to wash. To feel clean. To grab some dinner. To rest. And to try to feel human again.

In his studio apartment he prepared a simple meal with his rations. Some undefined meat, some beans, and dry bread. He only received a small amount of veg each week, and he didn’t want to waste it. That was to be saved, and savored, on Friday and Saturday.

The weekend was always her favorite. The weekends were to be celebrated. The end of a hard week. The start of a quick break. A respite from the drudgery. The “respite” was a bit different nowadays. After all, Saturday was “volunteer” day, spent in service to the Republic. How strange it was to spend another day, unpaid, working for the Republic, when the prior five days were similarly spent and were paid, meager though they may be. But, he continued, because that is what was expected. That was what must be done. Because there was nothing else. If he didn’t, he’d end up like those he buried. Ashes. Vaporized. Until nothing was left but his watch. A hand me down from his father, who got it from his father, who got it from his, sometime way back in one of the World Wars. Someone somewhere served in Europe and brought home a case of PTSD and a Rolex. Fat load of good that expensive hunk of metal did him now.

He shook his head slightly to clear the fog, and reminded himself to keep going. if he wanted to continue to exist in this reality, he had to keep going, to keep pushing. And he did. Didn’t he? Is that what he wanted? Yes. He did. He wanted to push forward. That is what he wanted. Deeply. Viscerally. Not for himself. No, never for himself. But he needed to find her. To find out what happened to her. Was she dead? Was she alive? Did she escape? No, he couldn’t leave this “mortal coil” until he found her.

And, so, he continued. As another cog in the machine. He needed to eat. He needed to live. And he needed to keep looking and he needed to find her. And, so, he continued doing what he was told. He kept his head down, and his shovel productive, and he kept pressing toward what “they” wanted. If he did, he thought, he could survive. He wasn’t sure how yet. But…. He had to keep going.

Of course he thought there had to be something at the end of this. Certainly, this wasn’t all that they’d worked for so tirelessly. And, isn’t the happy ending part of every dystopian story out there?! Fuck you George Orwell. He didn’t fucking love fucking Big Brother. But he wanted to. He wanted to sell out. He wanted to give up. He was beaten down, and broken.

A tear slid down his cheek. And then another. What was he, without her. Without her by his side to make him lively. To experience life, and to experience love. Nothing. That’s what he was. But he couldn’t help but want to give up. Every day he dug graves. Every day he searched the piles of the “Wretched.” He hoped desperately for something different. For a different fate for her. Perhaps, he would find her and they would escape together North, toward Canada. Or even South. Who would have ever believed that South would provide a better life. Certainly not him, when he first bought into their propaganda. Hook. Line. Sinker. He was a scout. Then paramilitary, junior, groups. Then, full militia. Did his duty. Left honorably. Continued to serve as he could. They were doing the Lord’s Work. Upholding the Holy Bible, the Word of God, and the goddam United States fucking Constitution. Only…. He noticed early on that only the highest leaders got ahead. He was merely a foot soldier. He thought he was on the road to redemption. To eternal life. To paradise. Instead, it was the road to perdition. To purgatory. To everlasting, involuntarily servitude.

They brought him in, and many others like him, by playing on his patriotism. “They’re coming for you!” they warned. “For you, and for all that you hold dear to you.” “They want to change things. To make you a second class… Nay. A third class citizen. Join us. We are the ones who care about you and about the future. They don’t. They care only for power and keeping themselves in it, and they are fomenting revolution the likes of which have never been seen before! We must fight. Fight! Fight!”

Then, once they had recruited enough manpower, with enough firepower, and had enough people in enough high places, they declared marital law. And they took over. “Join us, and thrive. Defy us, and die.” It’s that simple. All those who didn’t fit the narrative of their New World Order were vaporized. They came after all the women first. After all, it was Eve who tempted Adam. Oh, they’d been planning this for some time. Decades, even. Although the plot changed as the winds changes, and they waited. They made small, incremental changes at first. Got the support the general populace, before the populace even knew what they stood for.

He’d fallen for it too. He couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been. He freaking fell for it. He was part of their little revolution… And now. Now, they had a weapon that could literally vaporize people. Body. Clothing. Everything. Metal survived. That was it. Fun trying to identify someone when all that was left was no teeth but an anciently old metal dental filling and some nondescript ring.

He fell into a fitful sleep, waking several times, only to roll over again and fall asleep into more nightmares. Finally the clock rang in the new day. He got up to do it all again. No matter, at least he could continue at his post at the Stockyards. There, he would keep looking for her. No matter how long it took, he would find her again. Would find out what happened to her. After splashing his face with some cold water and pushing around only slightly less cold toast, he was on his way.

First mound, nothing. Ash. More ash. When he started in this post it first bothered him to think about what form the ash had taken prior. Was she someone’s wife? A mother, perhaps? What was her crime? So many things punishable by death. Murder and abortion, of course. Infidelity. Prostitution. Impurity. Ha. What a joke. They’d gotten his sister that way. She’d accused a soldier of raping her. Her punishment was death. For her impurity. He kept looking, and looking, one pile after another. Dig. Dig. Dig. Look some more.

And then he stopped in his tracks. The shovel fell from his hands and landed on the ground with a loud clang. There it was. There. It. Was. It was diminutive. Delicate. Fragile. Unassuming. Nothing much of nothing to anyone who didn’t know, even though it had meant everything to her. Just a small gold locket. Partially covered in soot and dirt. He picked it up gently, tears sliding down his face. He already knew what he’d find inside. After all, he;d given it to her. A photo of them in happier tines. Laughing. Smiling. Carefree. So much different than today. But something else fluttered out. A wisp of paper, so small he nearly didn’t notice it. Except that he did. After a quick glance around to ensure no one else saw, he deftly picked it up and concealed it. Only once back at his tiny studio apartment did he dare to look at it. Just a few words. But it was nothing that he’d expected and much, much more than he’d hoped for. “I ran for it. Meet me North. As soon as you can.”

He had a new mission now, a new purpose and, maybe even some hope.