Constant Reminder

It’s the end of the month, or so we tell ourselves considering we’ve lost track of the days and only know the year at this point; so that means it’s time to collect more supplies for survival. Last month, my older brother, Joseph, went with our younger sister, Carole, on this journey; that means it’s my turn and I’m not too excited about it. Where we’ve made our home, we’re surrounded by trees, which helps to provide us with cleaner air, and as we go off into the city to gather supplies, it becomes hard to breathe. This is how we’ve lived for the past five years; traveling with gas masks, sickness taking out half of the population including our parents, and clean water becoming scarce every time we go on this journey. People have turned on one another, and the neighbors that we do have, we only speak to when we make eye contact. To be honest, I don’t remember what life was like before the world fell apart, all I can really say is that at some point we had parents, until we didn’t.

Joseph, and Carole are staying behind today, the only time we all leave together is if we need to relocate or need a change of scenery.

“You have your gas masks?”, asked Jordan, my little brother and the twin to Carole.

“Yes. You got the first aid kit?”, I asked.

He was about to respond, until he decided to check again.

“Yes I do”, he said with a proud smile.

We grabbed our snacks and water, placed them in our bags, and said our goodbyes. We stopped saying ‘see you later’ after our parents left one day to get answers about what was happening in the world and never returned.

This isn’t a zombie apocalypse, a new strain of a virus didn’t come out of nowhere to slowly kill us, and aliens didn’t land on our planet hoping to wipe us out to create a new and ‘improved’ civilization for themselves. This dystopia that we’ve become accustomed to was brought about due to climate change. You know the many times we’ve seen those commercials that told us to reduce, reuse, and recycle, let's just say we should’ve been listening.

I have Jordan walk in front of me at all times during our journey; ever since humanity's downfall, we’ve heard stories of how little kids vanished all because their caretakers took their eyes off of them for a second; so to avoid the same happening to our little family, we do things a little differently compared to the others. It seems that everyone else has adapted the ‘every man for themselves’ rule.

It takes a day to get to the city and back, so we had to leave as soon as the sun made an appearance. When nightfall hits, it’s as if people add a new meaning to the word animal.

As we go down the hill, and go across the toxic river, we walk slower so that we can take our last few gasps of clean air before we hit the city. This part of the trip is my favorite; as the sun continues to rise, its warmth hits you like a warm blanket, and we enjoy that because in the span of just ten minutes the sun will be unbearable. This field is also the home of a makeshift graveyard; and if you ignore the unmarked crosses and cries of a family who just dug a new hole, you can actually see its beauty, considering the flowers, that we barely see anymore, that have grown or have been laid out upon the shallow graves. But soon that calm atmosphere will be interrupted as we put on our gas masks and enter the forbidden forest, also known as the city.

We first stopped at the supermarket, even though the food and drinks that are left are either destroyed or very expired; but you’d be surprised at what this family can turn into a good meal. Then we stopped at the pharmacy to find medicine that hasn’t been tampered with. A couple days ago, Carole started coughing and sneezing, and even though I admire the beauty of that graveyard, I refuse to watch a flower grow next to her cross.

At this point we had been on our feet for about four hours looking for undamaged goods, so we did one of Jordan’s favorite things, we sat in the movie theater to take a quick breather without our gas masks. Sometimes we would come home just as nightfall hit, and of course, Joseph would not be pleased; because our warden already has a hot head due to our tardiness, we’ve never told him our true cause for being late, we’d just come up with something on the way back.

We always roamed the hallways or sat on the floor of the theater, we never went inside one of movie halls because that’s what many people call home and it’s the only amount of privacy they’ll get for a while. So we sat close to what used to be the concession stand.

“I wanna go see if they still got some good candy,” said Jordan.

“You know it’s probably all expired,” I said.

“Maybe I’ll be surprised this time,” he smiled. He’s the only person I know who smiles at the darkest times. It used to annoy me, but now I count on it.

“Okay, well stay where I can see you, and don’t touch anything that looks like it could grow legs at any moment and walk away,” I urged.

“I’ll try,” he laughed.

All I could do was roll my eyes and hope that he took me seriously.

With this time, I took out my journal, and a new pen that I grabbed from the pharmacy to document another day being trapped in this hell we call life now. I opened it to a clean page, taking out my heart-shaped locket that I use as a bookmark; my father gifted this to me when I was just two years old. He gave all of us jewelry pieces once we reached that age, but I seem to be the only one that never lost, broke, or traded in their gift after all these years. I don’t wear it anymore because of the simple fact that I don’t know what I’d do if I lost it; it’s the only piece of my parents besides my siblings I have left.

I’ve realized that at this point I don’t even want to write anymore; I haven’t opened the locket in these past five years, afraid that I’ll damage it somehow. I take a breath and hold it so close that I start to cross my eyes as I look upon it, and carefully open it. There they are, my beautiful parents, with me in my mothers arms as they smile for the camera. For a moment, I couldn’t hear a thing, it was as if I was floating and everything around me just disappeared. For the first time in five years, I finally remembered what they looked like, but then again I’ve seen their faces embedded within my siblings this entire time. My fathers big brown eyes on Carole, my mothers deep dimples on Jordan; my fathers broad shoulders and mothers slim nose on Joseph, and if I look in a mirror I can see their smiles within mine. They’ve always been with me, I just couldn’t face the fact that I could no longer see them in real time.

“Cathy,” I then heard the whisper of my name, and it almost sounded like-

“Catherine!” Jordan yelled.

“What? What’s wrong?” I asked as I quickly yet carefully put away my locket and journal and gave Jordan my undivided attention.

“I found a snickers, and this is the only one that didn’t have fuzz on it,” he showed me as he broke it in half to share with me.

“No thank you,” I said as I closed my bag and stood up.

“Come on, take it. I know you still have a sweet tooth,” he smirked as he waved it in front of my face.

“Fine!” I took it and quickly took a bite, as I haven’t had candy in a while, it was as if I heard birds chirping a beautiful melody.

As we finished the candy, we cleaned ourselves up a little, to leave no evidence of fun or shenanigans, as we only came here for survival shopping, as Joseph would say. We placed our masks on once again and began the journey back home, making it back before nightfall, avoiding a speech from the warden. After we unpack the groceries, we usually talk about our plans for tomorrow, but I made everyone sit down for a moment. We haven’t talked about our parents since we lost them, so with my realizations, I thought now would be the perfect time. I took out my journal, carefully uncovered my locket, and slowly opened it to reveal our parents.

“Damn,” Joseph said in disbelief.

“Language,” Carole scolded. Joseph looked at her briefly and then went back to the photo, and passed it over to Carole who looked at it in amazement.

“That’s our mommy and daddy?” she asked as her eyes glistened.

“Yeah, that’s them,” I responded as I hugged her.

“Let me see,” Jordan said as he held his hands out.

“Careful please, it’s the only photo we have left of them.” I said, as I watched Carole slowly pass it to Jordan.

“They’re so-” Jordan paused to find the right words as he admired the photo, a smile slowly grew upon his face as a tear fell down his cheek, “...beautiful.”

After that heartfelt moment, Joseph and I told stories about our parents and the joys of growing up in normalcy. We talked about the time they taught us how to ride bikes, and the time we all went to the water park as a family, and about our last moments together, before everything was turned upside down. At that moment I knew that they’d never forget our beloved parents, and no matter how many years we experience this new normal, we’ll always be a family, shenanigans and all.