Down Here

The Glow looks like a giant button in the sky.

Like something you could just reach out and push to reset this whole thing.

I cover it with my thumb until it disappears behind my flesh and nail. It makes me feel powerful. Until my arm tires. Then the Glow wins. Again.

No matter. I need the light. And the energy. Don’t want to be weak when the Blaze comes up in the morning.

I need to dig. But it’s quiet. And it’s never quiet.

I stare at it too long. I think.

It floats like a pendant left loose around the neck of a long-dead woman. I feel the same way now as I did then. Cement in my shoes. Fixated on the shiny object. Unsure whether to leave it in place and her in peace. Or thieve the heart-shaped locket for bargain.

Sometimes you look at a thing of value and just know it’s going to cost you more than it’s worth.

I want to peek inside this locket in the sky. If I could just see inside the damn thing, maybe I could understand why they left.

Fuck it.

I know why they left. Look at this place. Look at the people left in this place. I just want to know who left. The healthy. The wealthy. The cowards that abandoned us because one way or another they could afford a one-way trip. I wonder how they’re spending all their money up there.

Whatever that means.

Some of these assholes down here think I’m wrong about everything. They say there’s no one up there. That the Glow’s more than another world.

They think it’s a god.

They want to believe it real bad, too. But at some point, you have to look around and say—with a straight face—“God?”

If it is a god, it’s not ours.

I got a hold of some Lincoln Logs once. Fifteen years old. I remember because it was a birthday gift (we continue the tradition but wildly guesstimate) and had no fucking clue what to do with these sticks outside of making a fire.

The box had pictures and words on it I couldn't read, but sure shit I put them sons a bitches together. I did it. Took the time to draw up how they might fit together in the grand scheme of my miniature cabin replica. And at no point while building, creating, rearranging the world I built for those Logs—while playing god—did I ever think about destroying them.

About making them suffer.

Some of us have made a concession down here. They agree we don’t deserve to suffer, but then kneel at the altar of the perpetrator. Religiously.

If there was a god watching over this place, I imagine that kind of praise would only reinforce its cruelty.

I suppose, for some, living in a world without a god is hard. But pretending that you do is always gonna be harder. I should stop with that kinda talk.

People don’t think too highly of it down here. Which makes ‘em not think too highly of me. They push back a lot. Threaten me. A lot.

It’s not their demurral that bothers me. It’s that it deepens our de-evolution.

A lot.

I’ve been bleeding for six days now. Anything past seven and you start to worry. We don’t live long anymore. I'm one of the oldest people I know down here. Twenty-two next month, actually.

I smeared mud on the wound, but right now the puss doesn’t look like it’s playing well with the Earth. Fire clay usually makes a hell of a salve. But not tonight. Without the beer, I’d be in considerably more pain.

Which reminds me...

I’m a little drunk.

You would be too if your best dog tried to rip your tricep in half.

Not that I blame her. She’s hungry.

We’re all hungry.

We’ve never not been hungry.

I just wish she could have understood me better. Know that, I know, she wasn’t in the wrong. That she wasn’t doing anything anyone would hold against her. That what I really wanted to do was just reset. To get on the same page.

Not kill her.

The grave I’m digging is wide enough for two dogs. Knee-deep in the ground already, part of me wonders whether or not I'm making space. Before my subconscious can chime in, I’m reminded of the Glow again.

Not in the sky, nor behind my thumb. But this time in the blade of my tool. Mocking me. Always at its brightest when you're at your darkest.

Most of her coat is covered now. She looks at peace down there. Part of me wants to lay beside her.

Only...

… who the fuck would I get to come and shovel dirt on us.

If you want something done, bury it yourself.