Cooking With Ted In The Apocalypse

I overslept. The mattress and clean sheets, heavy blanket, and security of this society lulled me into a slumber I was loath to wake from, though my eyes did open to a high sun sharing its light through the windows, cut in long beams by blinds. I laid, unburdened by an agenda of survival but swamped in luxurious bed dressings, and my body fought against rising and shedding the cloths, and with it, the illusion of safety.

But it was no illusion, in pondering. Here, in a bed unlike any I’d slept in for years, surrounded by four walls, and city blocks of fortified boundary, I was safe. Safe. Truly freed from something that has been so certain for so long, terrible death at the gnashing teeth and reaching fingers of the evil creatures that abounded across all territories I’d come to journey. It seemed arrogance to lay here while they roamed. No, not arrogance. Defiance. What had come to represent our very breath.

To lay here in comfort was defiance, nothing more, and nothing less. Laying atop a mattress, I worked myself up to justify my needed rest, my body rigid beneath the blankets, and without ceremony, the fatigue was pushed from my mind. I’d ruined my peace, and so I stood to dress myself.

In the night, or perhaps the small hours of the morning, my clothes had been returned to me, neatly folded, though not as tight or compact as was my habit. My feet grazed carpet, perhaps the only dingy part of the space, as I approached the laundry.

I overslept, and the fact generated a humor within me. A mirror above a bureau caught me with a rare smile. I detested the sight, allowed for my face to become neutral, for my eyes to travel the length of my scarred, hairy, thin and naked body. It was much better clothed, so I obliged my own sense of distaste and slipped into what they provided, sighing at the feel of new socks and underwear, which it appears they’d supplied in lieu of my personal ones.

I would dirty them soon enough, dispatching my concern over the observation of feeling alien within my well worn clothing. A rap at the door came as I finished the rather slow readying of myself.

“You may enter,” I said, feeling kingly for a moment, and silly when I noted my reflection once again. I was an archivist and journeyman, only here because of stronger men and women.

The door swung open with nary a squeak, and in came a brown person with lunch, and behind him another brown woman in somewhat fine attire, a standard suit from days long gone. It wasn’t a woman’s suit, but someone had altered it for her, and she cut a figure indeed.

The food, on a tray, was placed upon the mussed bed, and the man quickly left. The woman stayed behind.

“Please eat.” She requested.

“I believe my stomach is reeling from the events of last night,” was my response. “It is foreign to eat so much for myself and the men who came with me.”

“Even where you traveled from?” She spoke this as she walked to the bed and sat, so prim, all angles in her svelte suit. I followed her, taking my place beside my food, looking down at it with a curiosity I struggled to hide. “It is good. That is cactus. Nopales. I’m sure you know what the rest is.”

“I do, thank you.”

“Try it.” She must’ve noticed a reluctance in me. Cactus? But, as I’ve mentioned, there isn’t much I’ve been picky about when it came to sustenance. So I pinched a small amount between my fingertips and pushed it into my mouth, and was delighted at the flavor. I scooped more up in my right hand, shoveled it between my jaws, which prompted her to snag a metal piece off the tray and show it to me. It was a spoon.

“Pardon.” I uttered between my teeth and chewed food.

“Nothing to apologize for,” she smoothly set the piece down, and I continued to eat in the way I’d grown accustomed to. “My name is Isabella. I oversee food and water rationing. My team and I grow and develop sources for our continued lifestyle. This is within and without the walls we’ve built.”

“You travel out there?”

“I have, yes. To know what I am proposing to our leadership, when we raise a campaign to clear an area and subsequently fortify it. We’ve pushed into the L.A. River in both directions, have set up clean water depots at compass points in a generous circumference outside the walls, and have managed to do this without very many casualties. But there have been casualties.”

Her posture slipped, and she recomposed herself swiftly, but it was moment enough. I saw her pain at this fact. My mouth gaped, and fortunately, it was empty of cactus.

“What?”

“You feel bad for the loss of your people. You know what’s out there. The bodies have been piling high for a long time. It is only bodies out there--”

“We value life here.” She interrupted and she meant it.

“I value life as well, Isabella.”

“We have built something to protect, and when that system fails, it is only right for us to feel it. If we became immune to that…” She couldn’t finish, couldn’t fathom the thought, though this was the way of life I was familiar with, represented in my community off the coast of Marina Del Rey. I would not try to convince her that her ideology was infantile, not aligned with the times. Out of intrigue, I asked her more.

“Do you have burial practices here?” Back to eating, though the plate was nearly clean. So much for abundant food being foreign to me.

“Yes.”

“How many of you die per day?”

“None, most of the time--”

“None!” Now it was my turn to be enveloped in an uncomfortable feeling. With a stable population, there must be untold cost! How many mouths was this community providing for, how much crime were they inundated with?

“None.” A smile crept into her face, and I knew, of this, she was proud. And I somehow knew she had answered all the questions swirling through my head. None. “I’ve come to you for two purposes. If you are finished, it is a beautiful day, and sitting beneath the porch might be a worthwhile experience for you. As we talk.” I bit my tongue, an instinct to correct her bubbling within me. We would sit on the porch, not beneath it. So long as I knew that, I suppose.

We stood together and exited the room, her leading.

The day was beautiful, and I’d not enjoyed it for a moment, having spent as much time as I could treating my bed like a womb. We sat, and she allowed me a moment to observe this wondrous situation. The dogs lazing in the shade of a tree within the confines of the fence, looking at me to give them permission to play again. And beyond the grass, and sidewalk, and into the street, no one.

A gentle sun, drifting clouds, a breeze that brought with it a caress and a scent of cooking food, and oranges, of all things. Somewhere children played and laughed. Jealousy erupted in me. Indignation with it. I pushed the flash of emotion away, but could not hide the source from myself, and melted into tears.

Her hand was on my bowed back, gently rubbing back and forth, before I could comprehend what was happening. She allowed me this, kneeling at my side as I tucked my head low, almost hurting myself with the flexibility of the maneuver. I sniffled, and moaned, and bit at my own lips with clenched teeth, and I knew completely what it was I was fighting within me.

I lifted my head to look into her soft eyes and pity was there, wetting her own cheeks. I resumed my former position, knees collapsed outwards, head nearly to my thighs, one arm dangling, the other cradling my skull, and I continued to sob. Was I broken?

“Enough.” I whispered, far too silent for her to catch, but she must’ve felt a sudden rigidness in my spine, because she stood, straightened her jacket, and returned to her seat. That did not end whatever bout of grief this was, only allowed me the slightest privacy in which to experience it. Even the dogs had come near, the pathetic beasts, with brethren I’d dined on once upon a time not too long ago.

I raised myself, vertebra by vertebra, not as a show of drama, but because the strength had been sapped from my very soul. Finally, my head balanced and posture regained, I sighed, wiped the remnants from my face of whatever had just occurred, and placed my palms on my thighs.

My eyes roved once again to the street where two agile youth improvised a sword fight with branches, danced down the street, the entire neighborhood their arena. The sound of clacks of wood on wood faded as they disappeared somewhere, in bouts of laughter and activity.

“How did you do it? I must know.” My voice wavered, some tinge of pain still present enough to reveal itself aloud and in this way.

“We did it. We’re doing it. Not me.” She said, low enough that I might not have caught it, but did. Stronger now. “You have today, and you have tomorrow, and I’m afraid you won’t gather the information you need in that duration before you depart. But I can get what I need to know from you right now.”

“What is it? What have you sought me for?” I was bitter, but earnest, and the mix crept into my voice this time. Maybe it was because she had catalyzed my earlier fit of mood.

“Have you been north of Chinatown?”

“No. We arrived from the south.”

“I had figured that.” Her disappointment was slight, and then gone.

“What’s that way?” I pried. Perhaps I could do something with the information to help her.

“There is the stadium, and a swathe of land that we could use. I’ve been deliberating a scout into that area and since you’ve been outside already...It doesn’t change much. We would’ve had to send a team anyway.”

“What was your second request of me?” A silence built between us. The words faded in the air like I’d never spoken them. She was deliberating, and I took the opportunity to pat my thigh, summoning one of the dogs to me, where he rested his head upon my leg and let me place a hand on him.

“You can name him.” She said.

“Why would I do that?” I responded, ignored her eyes on me.

“He deserves a name.”

“He will die one day.”

“What does that matter? “ She spat, aggrieved in some way.

“What is the importance of naming things destined for what we are destined for. Perhaps worse. You are extending your boundaries north because you do not possess enough for all that you’ve built. If that is unsuccessful, you will be eating Jonesy here, served up on nice little trays for all the little girls and boys to feast on, chopped up so they can’t recognize what it is they are licking their fingers over.”

Another silence, and this one welcome. I would not apologize for speaking the truth, and I knew she would not ask me to. We came from different worlds. It was easier this way, to see a body in a suit, a slab of meat wrapped in fur, future killers garbed in the armor that is child’s flesh.

“Jonesy is a good name. Jonesy.” She called out gently, and the dog responded with a curious tilt of its head. “My second request is that you and your group escort some of ours north of Chinatown and survey the area. When that is done, they will return here, you will gain another batch of information on your journey, and you will have helped us to sustain ourselves.”

Isabella stood, dusted her butt off, strode down the walkway, and never looked back, even as she left me with parting words. “Think about it. And Jonesy is free to go with you.” Out of the fence, and up the street she went, and left me with Jonesy and the other dog.

I sat beneath the patio, confused by what all had just occurred, and recognizing that perhaps, though massive numbers of humans have died, their politics continued on with those left behind. Risk our lives? For this? I suppose there were worse things to wager such stakes on. I would bring the request to Arnold, of both the quest and of Jonesy. Knowing him, he would only desire the latter for our travels.

“Hey Jonesy.” I said, and he stared into me, brown, forgiving, expectant eyes parsing my memories and my character, and accepting me still.