Gone, and Nearly Forgotten

I still remember the first day I saw her, the Old Woman digging through the wrecked house across the broken street from me. I was surprised to see someone of her age out on their own; most elderly people either lived in the compounds scattered across the ravaged country or did not live very long. The world was no longer kind to the elderly and infirm, the EVENT saw to that, half the world population died in the first week, millions more died the following months who knows how many survived now. The Old Woman was probably in her mid-twenties when it happened. I watched her continue to dig through the house. Part of me wanted to go over and see what she was looking for, to see if I could help, but the cautious part of my mind warned me to stay away, she could be bait, sick, insane. I did nothing, just stood there, and watched. She seemed to become more frantic as she dug through the wreckage, then the yelling started. “NO NO NO! it’s not here! This… this has to be it! where is it!?”. she collapsed on the ground and started to sob, my heart twinged, and I almost rushed over to help. I turned around and walked away, you cannot afford sympathy anymore.

The second day I saw her at another ruined house, once again searching for something. I wondered when she had last eaten, or even slept. I thought about the stash of food I had found the other day beneath a small shed on the outskirts of the town, I had enough, I could afford some sympathy. My mind made up I pulled a can of re-fried beans from my bag, opened it, and left it where she would eventually see it before I moved along today’s route. I was only a block away before the screaming began again. “NO! I cannot find it! I can’t forget, I can’t!”. I closed my eyes and kept walking. There was already many people suffering in the world, what was one more.

The third day I saw her at yet another house. I cannot figure out how I keep running into this woman on every route I take, the town is big enough to make it suspicious. This time I stopped and sat down on a rusted-out car to watch her. The pattern repeated itself: searching followed by wailing and sobbing. This time I stayed to watch where she went after, but she went nowhere. the sobbing eventually quieted down and stopped as she either died or fell asleep. I walked over to the edge of the house and left another tin of re-fried beans by the door; this close I could see her chest rise and fall, asleep.

I did not see her on the fourth day. Surprisingly, I felt a twinge of sorrow. I missed her, maybe I wanted to help her.

I met her again on the fifth day, and I was happy to see her, but this time was different. She was not searching through a house this time; she was standing at the door to one of the few houses that had escaped destruction. She stood there staring at the door, as if terrified of what was on the other side. I stood watching her for a long while, until my heart won over my head. I took a deep breath and walked over to her. “Ma’am, do you need help?” my heart was pounding but I had already committed. She slowly turned to look at me, her eyes were the brightest green, and said “my husband… I can’t find him, I need to find him, I can’t forget him”. My heart twinged in sympathy; the poor woman must be out of her mind, but I cannot just leave her. “Is he in here?” I said, motioning towards the house. She shook her head. “I… I don’t know, how can I not know?”. I stepped around her and tried the door, locked. “let’s find out then” I said, before leaning back and busting the door open with a well-placed kick. She rushed past me and, with surprising swiftness, went up the worn stairs that were to the left of the doorway.

I followed her up and found her crying again, I sighed as I prepared to deal with this. I followed the sound down a hallway and into what would have been a lovey bedroom before it had fallen into disrepair. I found her kneeling on the floor and cradling what looked to be a locket. it was heart shaped and seemed to be made from silver, though it was difficult to tell from the amount of tarnish. I was surprised that it was still here, there was a delicate chain that ran through a ring at the top of the heart and there was an emerald set into the middle of the heart. I knelt next to the woman in the rubble of the crumbling house and gently put an arm over her shoulders. She turned to look at me with tears in her eyes. “I found him, I almost forgot him but now I will never forget him, see?” she opened the locket, it was surprisingly easy to open, and showed me what was inside. Inside was a pair of enameled pictures, they were worn and a little dirty, but I could still make out the details. One picture was of a woman, with brilliant green eyes, wearing a white dress with a veil on her head. The other picture was of a man wearing a suit, he was passingly handsome. His black hair was parted on the right, clean shaven, and had deep brown eyes.

I looked at the old woman and gave her a small smile before asking “what was his name?”. She chocked back a sob before replying “I don’t remember.. I know he was my husband, my love, but I… I don’t remember his name”. she sat there and wept silently. I stayed with her and went back over the past few days, she was forgetting. There was talk of this condition from the older people, a disease that ravaged the mind,

I stood up and walked out into the hallway, giving her some privacy to weep and be with her husband. I heard the weeping turn to shaking breaths and the shaking breaths to silence. My heart skipped a beat and I quickly returned to the room; she was dead. I walked over and crouched down next to her body. She wanted to find her husband and die next to him. I could not leave her body to be picked over by scavengers, not after everything I had experienced with her. I grabbed the locket, picked her up as gently as I could, and walked downstairs and out of the house. I grabbed the folding shovel from my pack and began digging a grave for this poor soul. As I dug, I thought back on the past few days; she was at a new house each day because she couldn’t remember her actual house, how long had she been alone, how long had she been searching. These thoughts, and similar, filled my mind as I dug a grave deep enough for her. I softly laid her body down in the grave. I took the tarnished heart-shaped locket, rubbed as much of the tarnish off as I could, and put it around her neck before filling it back in. I stood over her grave for a long time, covered in sweat and dirt. I had no words to say, nothing to offer for this poor woman.

I am not sure how long I stood there. the setting sun in front of me snapped me out of my trance, dark soon, I needed to get back to my camp. I stowed away my shovel and turned my back on the house and grave, maybe the world was ready for sympathy again.

The End