Good Neighbors

"Good fences make good neighbors."

I think of that line, everyday when I wake up and walk my stretch of fence in the morning. It's an old line from an old poem, I don't remember it's author or where I found it, probably in school, it seems so salient to my life now.

walking this simple border that cuts through the natural land, I often look out at the miles of trees and green fields. I forget sometimes that bombs ever dropped and the old earth died screaming.

We live here in the forest now, survivors, resolved to deny extinction. We all have responsibilities, some grow crops, some tend livestock, some mend wounds, some maintain weapons, some care for children, some hunt, some watch for danger, some scout and I guard a mile of fence at the edge of our home.

When we sit around the campfire every night, they all look to me, the oldest man they've ever seen. They ask for stories about the world before and I can't help but indulge them. I tell them about skyscrapers and airplanes and their eyes go wide. I tell them about cruise ships and restaurants and how money worked.

Most of the young people are content with stories of unremarkable things, but some always ask, "How did it happen, how did you survive?"

I do my best to spare them the gruesome nightmares of those grizzly years. In the decades since the social order came crumbling down, I've seen the creatures men become when desperation has become their only nourishment.

On certain nights when I have the strength, I tell the story of my only true regret.

As a young man I had been taught that respect for boundaries was paramount, that if I left others alone they would do me the same courtesy. That was a philosophy I carried into the wasteland. I never stole from anyone, I never attacked anyone unprovoked and I never took more than I needed.

I remember it must have been two years after everything crumbled. I was living in a mineshaft leaving only to scavenge for supplies.

One morning I was walking through what had once been a grocery store. walking down isles looking for anything useful, I heard a soft whimper in the middle of the store. With caution I approached the sound.

I found a little girl no more than ten years old, with long black hair and bright blues eyes sitting on the floor curled up against a shelf. I noticed she wore a metal locket in the shape of a heart around her neck that captured a few rays of sunlight.

I kneeled down in front of her and began rummaging in my backpack for something to give her. I could see she was pale and malnourished, she was so thin her cheeks were hollow.

I pulled a plastic bottle of river water out of my pack and held it out to her. She uttered one word.

"Help."

Footsteps approached. I knew I had made a grave mistake. A painful blow to the back of my head and all went black.

I came to minutes later, my hands were tied to an overturned soda machine. once the pain in my head subsided, I looked over to see a man about my age, lacing up my boots with my grandfather's 1911 stuffed in the back of his jeans.

next to him was a boy, maybe fourteen years old sifting through my backpack. I was sick with anger seeing them steal from me. I pulled against my restraints. The two of them were so preoccupied with their spoils they didn't notice I slipped out of my bonds and grabbed a piece of discarded glass from a freezer door.

I grabbed the man by his greasy blonde hair and yanked him on to his feet. I didn't hesitate to put the glass to his throat and slice. He gargled and chocked on his own blood. His little friend was in shock, before he had a chance to do anything, I pulled my grandfathers gun from the blonde man's jeans and fired one of my last rounds into the boys eye. killing him.

I found the little girl still sitting in the same place. She threw her little arms around my neck and cried on my chest, a loud wheezing coming from her tiny lungs.

She told me her name. (which I won't repeat.) She explained that the two were brothers, they had killed her parents and took her hostage. They would use her as bait to lure out other survivors.

My heart ached for that little girl. I shared my food and water with her and brought her back to the mineshaft.

I wish I could say things had gotten better then. I did everything I could to make her comfortable, but the wheezing in her lungs was the symptom of something I couldn't fix. A week later I buried her beneath a maple tree colored with crimson leaves. I made a wooden cross and hung her shiny little locket to mark her grave.

I moved on that day and never looked back.

I carry many shades of horror on my shoulders, I've done unforgivable things in the name of life. Of all my sins I carry only one regret. I had seen those two brothers the winter before killing people for their goods and I did nothing.

"Good fences make good neighbors." I don't think so.