exposure

The rain had fallen earlier in the night and the smell of it still lingered in the air. The weeds and brush still damp, clung to her pant legs like the arms of the dead reaching out to her to pull her down.

The early morning was her favourite time - to walk and let her imagination go wild, before the others woke up and she felt she had to conform to fit in. In the still moment she inhaled the sweet smell of the earth, mixed with the fragrance of the rain and the new spring wildflowers. This was her favourite time of the year. She feared less at this time of the year. She knew what to expect and knew the dangers ahead.

In the winter, she never knew when the next storm was coming, how long it would last, if they would be able to hunt game, or if she would die a slow death of starvation before the thaws. She hated the feeling of so many layers on her, weighing her down and making it hard for her to move. That was what winter meant to her - the inability to be free.

Now with the breeze on her cheek and the sun on her brow, she was free to wander and feel the warmth of the world on her skin. She had read about how people used to believe in something called “God” - she had read it in a bible she once found in an old church. To her, if she had a “God” it would be the feeling of warmth on her body. That to her was all she needed to know about a God and the existence of something bigger than herself. Something so beautiful, so scrumptious to experience, could only have come from something divine.

She paused and looked down, slightly withdrawn. Although it was past the thaw, she was still not totally free. She wondered if she would ever be completely free to feel the warmth and the sunshine on the skin of her legs. She hadn’t seen her feet or her calves since she peeled off the layers of winter into the simpler and lighter layers of spring. Then she donned boots and pants, then said goodbye to those unfamiliar body parts with the application of several layers of duct tape.

It was survival. It is what needed to be done. She understood it, and she resented the world she lived in for taking away the freedom she so passionately and viscerally yearned for. The others never understood her when she talked about such things. Her fantastical ideas of a world where she could wear what she wanted, do what she wanted when she wanted to.

She never felt like she belonged in the band. There had been others who had joined after she had and were fully immersed, but not her. She was always on the outside of the campfire, looking in on the others. She knew they would never quite understand her, and she would never be able to fully give up her obsession of a better world.

Her gaze was still cast downwards when she came out of her reverie. She wondered what this place once was. The weeds had grown through the asphalt, so it was difficult to make out the size and shape of how it once was. If she had to guess, it might have been a parking lot. Funny, she thought, how they needed all this space to park ‘cars’ in. She continued to walk aimlessly among the weeds and wildflowers. Wishing she could run her hands through them to feel their touch against her skin, but even she knew better than to do that. For all her imagination, she was also at her core a pragmatist.

Who were the people who came here in cars? What did they do? What was so important for them to come here? The buildings had long since lost their signage or any indication of what they used to be. Most had fallen down in a lost city of ruins. She looked to her left and imagined that the building was once a five and dime and people came there in their cars to buy ice cream sodas. Wait… No. That wouldn’t have worked. She tilted her head and did the math, five and dimes existed way before the first infestation came along. She thought back and realized that her math was off by at least 100 years. It was probably a ‘make your own wine’ store. Knowing them.

She never recalled the people of the first infestation kindly. She looked back on their attempts to control the infestations as useless and their behaviour as naive. If only they had actually done something about it and not shrugged it off as unimportant… Just then, there was a crunch beneath her foot. She looked down once again only to see that she had stepped on a bone. An old, very fragile and brittle bone. A bone belonging to one of them. She eased her foot up and saw a glimmer. She knew not to put her hand down towards the earth, but something called to her. She squatted down quickly and scooped up the shiny object. The scaphoid and trapezium bones broke away as she stood up. It was a bracelet with several charms. She looked down once again at the bones. She could barely make out the entire body which was covered in grasses, weeds and moss. This was once a young girl, probably no older than she was.

Who was she? Why did she die here? Where was her family? What was she doing here alone? Why did she have to die? Why didn’t they do something to try and save everyone? Why did this young girl have to die at all?

She had so many questions. They flew through her brain. She wished so badly that the skeleton could talk to her and give her answers. “I’m sorry I stepped on you,” she said to the skeleton, hoping it would come back to life to answer her questions. Her face became forlorn, knowing she would never get the answers, knowing she would never know another girl this age in her lifetime and she would always be lonely.

She turned her attention to the bracelet in her hand. It was foolhardy to have bent down in the way she did to pick it up. She scolded herself for being so reckless and of course, for allowing the others in the band to be right about her naivete - she didn’t like to be made wrong. She held the bracelet over and noticed one of the charms was much larger than the others. She used her thumb to flake off the caked earth that clung to the surface and discovered it was a heart shaped locket. Stubbornly she used her nails to try and pry it open, but it just wouldn’t budge. Her nails were soft and weak from malnutrition.

A mechanic’s shop was approximately 80 strides away through the meadow. It’s where she had once found a roll of used duct tape to wrap her pant legs and other useful tools she had needed to survive.

Treading delicately through the crumbled asphalt meadow toward the shop, she was careful to spot any ticks that could potentially mean the end of her life. After the rats, they were the second infestation. They were tiny little things, no larger than the head of a nail. They loved hiding in the meadows and living creatures were not what they once were 20 years ago, let alone at the beginning of the infestation almost 300 years ago. The ticks were desperate now, without the hordes of rats and mice from the first infestation to live off of. They would be able to smell her. The world was a rather quiet place compared to what she would have imagined it to have been 300 years ago. There were no longer rats, mice, squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, raccoons, deer - not even cats and dogs were left. The birds still sang their songs in a cacophony each morning, growing quiet in the heat of day and striking their song up again in the evening.

As she entered the shop, it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. She rummaged through the drawers, like old friends. What are these again? Screwdrivers, I think… she turned them over, inspecting them in her hands before placing them back in the drawer. She found what she was looking for, the multi-tool pocket knife. It was well worn on the edges, as though it had been used as a worry stone by its previous owner. She stepped back out into the sunlight to feel its warmth on her skin. She knew exactly which piece on the penknife to pull out to get the small blade she needed. It gleamed in the sunlight, like a cat stretching after a long nap, happy to once more be out and about.

She walked back toward the skeleton, she wanted to be close to it while she opened the locket. She felt close to this girl, wanting her to become her friend. She wondered what her name had been and if they would have been friends in another lifetime.

Her foot touched the edge of the skeleton’s mandible bone. She used the sharp blade to pry open the locket like shucking an oyster. It relented with a pop, she was able to see the form inside quite clearly preserved despite the years.

At first, she thought her eyes were playing a trick on her. Delirium from lack of food or water. She was staring at an image of herself. She had stared at her reflection long enough in the cistern at camp to recognize herself. She looked over the image, willing it to change, then staring at the skull by her foot. Is this me? How could this body possibly be me?

Closing her eyes, she remembered sunshine and a full skirt. She was too old for skipping, but she decided to skip and twirl in the lot of her father’s workshop anyway. Soon he would be taking her home and he had promised her ice cream - she felt so giddy with anticipation for the end of his workday. It had been unusually hot that summer which made the rats scamper along the asphalt running from one bit of shade to the next. They were everywhere. Orla continued to twirl, getting her skirt to billow up and feel the breeze upon her legs. Just then, she felt a sharp pain on her foot. She had stepped on a rat’s tail, causing it to bite her. Ow! That little stinker! Oh.... That hurts! She fell to the ground holding her foot which immediately began to swell. She called out “Dad!,” fighting back the tears of hurt and shock from the bite. The rat had scampered off to the edge of the building, watching her. “Dad” she cried out again, her voice hoarse and breaking up. Panic started to set in as she realized her lungs were constricting and she was unable to take in deep breaths of air “Dad!!!” she tried once again in a faint croak. The rat came back up towards Orla sniffing her left shoulder. She wanted to swat it away but she was on her back gasping for air. By the time more rats were on top of her, taking bites of her flesh, she was convulsing. The last thing she remembered was being weighed down by the vermin, unable to move.

Orla. My name is Orla! Her eyes flew wide open. Finally she had all the answers, as she fell to her knees sobbing into the damp weeds as they embraced her body once again. Now she was finally free.