draft.

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room.

Lo's fingertips cantered across the keyboard to execute the sentence. Upon reaching the end of the text, her ring finger slammed the last key down, and she snapped up her palm as though declaring an oath. Through narrowed eyes, she peered at the echo of the typewriter's clack made solid, black: a period at terminal velocity, a silent collision and its splattered aftermath.

"Does…does that work?" she asked in a croaking voice.

Ji didn't answer, allowing the silence to simmer and billow between them—smoke rolling over one of the old suburban lawns. Sometimes smoke carried with it the scent of hot dogs and burgers, a neighborhood cookout, paper plates laden with summertime; sometimes things just smoldered.

Lo sat in a simple plastic chair at the table, the only table, in the only thing that could be rightfully termed a dwelling, for miles around—maybe anywhere. She and Ji hadn't gone outside to look for any other townhomes left standing, nor would they. She and Ji would sit, and they would write. Under the phantasmal glow of an old LED lamp, they would put fingers to keys and ink to paper.

He could barely see her in the lamplight. The halogen streetlamp of the outside-before, now domesticated and rendered docile in the form of the LED, stared weakly into the ruin of the basement. The charcoal drawing shadow-shape of Lo's dark shoulders and long neck started to shift in the seat and turn to face him, slowly; the thundercloud of TV static kinky hair rotated with her. With heavy-lidded eyes, she looked down at the rags bundled about his feet. The skinny, pale stems of his calves jutted from the ratty blanket drawn tight around his shoulders. Her gaze traveled up the shapeless bulk of him, past the wayward root-clumps of patchy beard tumbling out from his chin, and into his black eyes glinting in the scattered white light.

Ji sighed, a heaving, snuffling, old man's sigh, as much a wheeze as an exhalation.

"No, Lo. I don't think that works," he rumbled softly.

"Goddammit," she whispered, covering her face with her hands.

"Remember what we talked about," he pressed on with a nod. "Passive voice weakens the text. Not 'was unknown to her.' 'The outside world eluded her.' 'She glimpsed the outside world through the window in his room, not quite knowing the things she saw.' Active verbs describe action. Passive verbs—"

"—'describe states,'" she finished the sentence flatly. "I know, Ji. I remember."

Her gaze drifted to the crumpled-up balls of paper at the opposite end of the table—like scribbles over the heads of Charlie Brown and his friends, wads of frustration where words should be.

"I just…I don't get it, Ji," she muttered hollowly. "I can speak. I know how to form a sentence. I can carry on a conversation. Why won't that translate to words on a page?"

Ji shrugged his blanket as much as his shoulders.

"We say a lot of things that're unnecessary, Lo," he mused. "Frankly, I think we use a lot of fluff, a lot of throwaway phrases, to give the people around us—and ourselves—a little extra time to think.

"The thing is, now…."

He looked at the shadows around them: the bits of splintered wood in the fireplace, the houseplants that had long since withered into husks, the lumps of wax and burned wicks strewn about them.

"...well, now, we have nothing but time to think."

Lo groaned.

"I know I'm the one who asked you for writing tips," she grumbled, cheek slumped into her palm, "and I know we've had this talk before, but you're dead set on carving our words in stone?"

"I am," affirmed Ji. "I want the things we have to say to stand the test of time—to last thousands of years, if at all possible. If some…archaeologist, I guess, ever digs this basement out of the rubble, who knows when that'll be—or who?

"As for what we have to say, we only have so much stone down here to work with. I know it's tough, I do. But we have to make every word count. We have to know with the steadfastness of that very stone what we want to say."

Lo nodded.

"You're right. Thank you for that, Ji."

"Glad you're still with me, Lo. Now. Think of that future explorer, that Indiana Jones from year three-thousand-whatever. What do you want to say to him?"

Lo took a deep breath, floated her fingers over the keys, and typed.

By the time she'd finished, the red sun had begun to emerge through the haze beyond the little hopper window. The rust-colored rays of light crept past the crack in the door to Ji's room, inching their way up the chair where he sat at the table opposite Lo, stroking his beard.

She released the catch and snatched the paper from the typewriter, eyes flashing over the lines of text. She handed the paper to Ji, hand steady.

He took it from her gently, giving a little nod, and read her words slowly, eyes fixed on the page.

Ji looked up at Lo and smiled; a small smile, a rare smile.

"Let's get to work."