In Her Hips, I see Revolutions

Like a monk with prayer beads, her absentminded fingers rolled the tiny links of her small silver chain. Wrapped around her palm the necklace had become as much of a fixture as her fingers since she last saw her. The soles of her boots shifted inky ash and dust as she took a seat on the frame of a blown out window, high above the hollow city.

How long had it been since they sat together? How long had she ventured forth alone, how much longer would her water sustain her? None, could she answer. The chain ran on and on through the folds of her fingers. She thought of her again, and their matching heart lockets. She thought of their shared disbelief, the turns they took in comforting each other, the warmth they shared under those cold nights where they swore stars sat just out of sight. She remembered the lifeless look her frozen icy eyes had, staring into the heavens when she woke beside her. Her head resting on her chest, the halt of her soothing rhythmic breathing setting off a screaming subconscious alarm shattering her peaceful dream.

She hadn’t needed to look at the opened locket, or search for the missing arsenic to know the choice that had been made. A choice chosen after their first night of true safety and security in an uncountable amount of time. Resting by a clean stream they had prayed for and sought since this had all happened. No, she knew. After they had bathed, after they had rejoiced, and fallen asleep hopeful, she made her choice. And now, she, was left alone.

It wasn’t an act of cowardice or surrender, she knew that, rather a misguided choice to savour a small victory against the months of hell that had followed since the change. A finale on a high note. They’d spoken often of doing such. Sparing themselves from the never ending days of haunting, endless questions. Why? Why them, what happened, and worst of all, what now?

She sat with the body for days, until the stink of rotting skin became too repulsive, too overbearing. There wasn’t any sentiment in the choice to stay so much as slow reluctance to move away from the promises of the stream. The corpse had attracted flies and maggots before any animals to potentially catch- if there were still any animals. She wondered how long she could go on fasting, it had been so long since the desperation to eat had passed, she couldn’t imagine a flavour beyond stale water.

The stream had tasted like hope the first night. The morning after it tasted as foul as the found water above toilet tanks had, a bleak survival technique she had remembered her from elementary school. Her back ached from carrying the excess bottles and gear now that she roamed alone. Each sip made the load lighter and her anxiety stronger.

There was as much hope ahead as there were people left, and the last person she had been aware of was decomposing in the unwavering heat. Yet that faint melody, that call to adventure still echoed across the plains, reverberating between buildings, and sparse suburbs. Something.

She raised her tinted goggles and tried to rub the dust outlines away from her eyes, trying to place where they’d found the poison those months ago. She could remember the conversation, the uncertainty with what exactly they had uncovered, aside from the glaring level of toxicity marked by worn stickers of skulls and crossbones. They spoke of old spy movies and the character's emergency pilled rings and false teeth. She remembered the thrill of a real, quick, painless exit. But something always nagged. She wished they’d spoke more. No, she wished she’d spoke more. How she knew that that certainty was an inevitability. How despite the darkness, despite the pain, the unknown still called to her. She thought they felt the same. She missed the way her fingers threaded through her’s like the chain did now.

She brushed at the sweaty ash painting her skin, and wondered what she looked like. The count of days had been fruitless ages ago and more irrelevant now. Curling in a ball she focused on remembering her reflection, their blurred reflection, in that fabled slow stream. Her head raised to the sherbet orange sky, as blurred and hazy as her mind and memory, and stood leaning out the high window over impossible heights. Her soiled, burnt arm reached to the wind, the locket swinging like a pendulum.

Back and forth like her indecision, beyond exhaustion from the weight wearing her heart on her sleeve, she raised her hand. The hand reached back and cocked behind her head as she prepared to swing away her artifact, swing away her only chance of a merciful escape. Her arm shoot like a bolt but her grip held fast before the links raced out of her palm

No.

She pulled back and broke her heart open, ready to finally abandon the poison sitting inside. The locket's lock clicked open to nothing save for the first glimpse of her green determined eyes since there were mirrors. The reflection cut back from the empty shining case. She had made a choice she’d never really had. She stood staring, watching unfelt tears form and roll, before easing herself back to the floor inside. Her bag was no lighter but her heart was.

“Always forwards, never backwards,” she spoke out loud, surprising herself with the sound of her own voice. “Always forwards, never backwards,” she repeated the new mantra, speaking up now, if only for her ears and self. She repeated, and stepped with conviction, knowing she would continue only until she could not. She repeated again.