Gray

I’m a fucking hypocrite. Writhing and weeping in the dirt over memories. Simple and stupid like holding her hand leaving the parking lot of a county fair. I waver back to the present and I’m rubbing the locket around my neck. A silver heart, old, wearing brass on its edges.

I stand. Wipe the tears from my eyes and earth from my lips. Clear my throat. Coming back to the reality of my camp among the cool pines. Battered orange tent under thick foliage and a dug, smokeless fire pit. Not a cloud in the morning sky.

I can feel my scowl again. Always a scowl. Always a disgust at the noise you can’t hear but can feel. The noise that brought us all here. Idiocy. Hubris. You’d think that with everyone gone, it’d be quieter. Instead, we wallow in the aftermath like a crash of symbols that never fades, those of us left.

I pull the silver revolver from my waistband. Catch a sharp glint in my eye that makes me blink, turns me away from the sun, and leaves a momentary splotch in my vision. I release the cylinder, shake four bullets into my hand. Count them four. Count them again. Four. Check the chamber free.

I stick it under my chin. Pull the trigger. Breathe out, and lower the gun. Feel my vision pulse with each of my heart like standing up too fast with a headache, only this is warm and cozy. I spit. Reload the revolver and snap it closed with a flick. Back into the waistband.

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Descents into the city always make my teeth ache and chatter. Goggles over the eyes and a P95 or better for fires and unknown pollutants. Grey windbreaker and backpack, hatchet in the loop, because they blend with the concrete and towering edifices. I stick close to the walls, looking over my shoulder. Always. I haven’t seen anyone in months, but I never know.

There’s a duality in the empty streets and their weathering debris. Eerie and on edge because I expect movement, but a blessing because with little places to hide, it’s easier to see - at least, that’s what I tell myself.

I approach the marble face of the public library. Step through the shattered glass of the doors to the lobby. Saunter my way to the directory like a menu. Irony would be learning virology with no means to exercise it. Day late and a dollar short. No. Today I’m just looking for a reason, and a substitute for friends.

Books and their yellowing paper litter the stairs on my way to the third floor where broad glass windows, some smashed white or cracked, reveal a panoramic view of the street below, and large shelves remain knocked over or leaning on one another with their books strewn about on pale, marble flooring. Senseless. It’s a chainsaw to the head.

I find myself sitting cross-legged among a mess of books on the floor, turning them over in my hands, opening their covers, flipping pages and reading a paragraph here or a paragraph there. Crime and Punishment. The Rebel. Tortilla Flat. The Great Gatsby. The last two to wash down like juice. Each into my backpack.

I stand at the windows now, watching the tableau of asphalt and glinting, abandoned industry. Turn and my eye catches the overturned racks of DVDs, where my memory always catches movie theaters. Catches comfy red recliners and cinematic awe. Catches popcorn and laughter. Beneath PPE I can feel my face has softened. I blink back to the racks. There’s that noise again.

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Leaving the city is like running up basement stairs with the lights off. Pull the string and sprint to slam the door behind you. Only now shutting the door is taking the long way home. It’s changing my gait, sometimes barefoot, and darting across fallen trees and rocks. It’s pushing grass and foliage down with sticks and brush in false directions. Walking backwards scanning the surrounding thicket. It’s a knife in your sleeping bag and a gun under your pillow.

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At camp I drop the backpack and pull the hatchet. Venture back out into the deep thicket. Stop at a swale that bows the bases of trees, and check the guitar string snare. Find nothing but mangled wire and flies buzzing on the entrails leading into the foliage and out of sight. Bobcats. Idiot.

By the heat of the fire I eat nothing and drink pine needle tea. I can smell myself and I stink and I don’t read a single page. It’s dark out and a half moon.

When I’ve had enough, I snuff the fire with soil and strip down to my underwear in the pallid moonlight. Gather my clothes and backpack, take them into the tent, and drag brush to conceal the front. I climb into my sleeping bag where the hilt of my knife greets my thigh with a chill, and stick the revolver under my sweat stained pillow. I rub my locket. I cry.

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I jolt awake. There’s a large figure over me. Sunken cheeks and jaundiced eyes like a ghoul. He stops. Hand and weight pressing on the zipper side of my bag so my hands are trapped. Eye contact. I’m peeing myself. Fucking idiot.

He stabs through the down and it’s like a punch to the belly. I buck and roll to the left with the hips, jamming my hands free, but he grips with his legs and rides me to my back. Stabs again as I reach for the revolver with my right, but I can’t find it. No, I can’t feel my arm anymore. I feel a tug in my shoulder blade and my chest leaves the ground. The knife’s stuck. He’s peeling me back by the hilt. Right arm limp. Left arm searching for the gun. Reaching.

I jolt forward and find purchase; finger on the trigger. Chain and locket catching hard, slicing my neck and rattling my brain and vision. His knuckles dig against my skull, pulling my hair and watering my eyes. His boot presses against my back. I can’t see anything but the orange fabric of the ceiling. Throw my left hand over its shoulder. Can’t breathe. Fire the gun. No change. Knuckles and boot. Fire the gun. My vision is black.

Quiet.