Kamena's Choice

Rutendo’s grimy fingers pried hard against the plastic seams that trapped the mechanical innards of the burned-out food synth. Whoever made these stupid things never meant for them to be repaired or adjusted, he cursed. After a solid twist, and the weight of his good knee applied to the top panel, Rutendo successfully retrieved the prize concealed inside. A full charge pod! Good for at least a month, he thought, if they were careful. He had a good number in hand now. Now all he needed was a food synth unit that had more than three working menu options. But that desire was a vanity. Food and water were a problem solved right now. Much heavier concerns showed no promise of resolution.

Rutendo stumbled out of the house wearily; his dark skin made somewhat lighter by the layer of white ash sullying his face and scraggly beard. Lines of blood and sweat ran in small rivers across his skin, and his right leg pulsed with pain from a wrenched knee. But the real injury was the exhaustion in his eyes and his heart.

Kamena was not responding to him. She had stopped listening. All she had for him was anger and rage, and she poured it out full force whenever he came near. A lifetime ago she was his fiancé. But that life was a smoking ruin now; incinerated in a shockwave of blistering fire. It had spared no one as far as he could tell, except he and Kamena. A year later they were no closer to understanding what had happened or why, and as far as they knew they were the only survivors. Even the wind offered no hope to them as any fresh flow of air was tinged heavily with the smell of burnt plastic.

Rutendo approached a small house on the edge of the village. A field of charred tree carcasses dotted the landscape nearby, and Rutendo noticed small green offshoots springing out of the ruins. At least the trees will make it, he thought to himself.

Rutendo entered the torched dwelling and began picking through the rubble. Crouching down inside what had once been a young girl’s bedroom, Rutendo discovered a small brass necklace. A cross adorned the heart-shaped locket at its end, concealing a small pressure trigger that snapped open at his touch. Was it broken? Rutendo stroked the edge very lightly and was pleased to see blue lines flare along its blackened profile. Inside, a pair of holo images flared to life. He imagined they were pictures from the previous owners; perhaps the parents of the little girl to whom it had belonged.

Rutendo pinched his eyes shut for a moment as he recalled some images of his own; memories of Kamena and he together before the world had burned. Raising the locket, he touched it softly to his forehead. The locket glowed briefly as it made connection with the neuro chip there beneath his skin, and he felt a gentle whirring inside. Opening the locket again, Rutendo held back a tear as he saw Kamena’s face come to life; eyes sparkling with a warmth long forgotten. On the side facing her, was a picture of him; strong, clean, and healthy. Rutendo’s lips broke into an angry smile. They could have this again. They must… but they had to fight for it!

With a silent battle cry raging inside him he set out for home and Kamena. He arrived to find her sitting quietly in the middle of the room. The simple plate of food and water he had brought her last night lay undisturbed beside her. Her eyes twitched restlessly behind her pale eyelids, and he saw tiny movements in the muscles of her face. Her sickly skin hung like rags off her sharp cheekbones; her skin more grey than the ash that coated her face and hair. She was nearing the end.

Rutendo pulled up a chair in front of her and couched his hand to her thin cheeks. He ran his fingers gently through her hair. Resting his hands on her head, he mumbled a silent prayer. “God, please. Please. PLEASE!” Rutendo bowed forward so that his forehead touched hers, connecting their neuro chips. A glimmer of blue light pulsed gently.

A more elaborate gilded cage had never been created, and Rutendo had watched in pain over the course of months as Kamena poured herself into every detail of it. A sea of coloured light graced the marble columns lining the palace corridor. Images of sky and beauty, life and love danced across the long, painted ceiling, and elaborate floral carvings adorned the great doors that guarded the entrance to Kamena’s inner sanctum.

When Rutendo would visit this world, he would often choose to clothe himself as he once was. Today, he kept even the grime under his fingernails. Too much was at stake to play pretend, he thought.

Before even a moment had passed, a tall, handsome, and richly clothed young man burst through the great doors with a pair of guards at his side. His shirt hung open and untucked beneath his embroidered jacket, revealing his well-muscled chest. His hair was tussled and unkempt and he was visibly trying to regain his dignity after an obvious interruption. In his rich and velvety voice, the young man confronted Rutendo.

“The beloved of my heart does not wish to see you. She declares you unwelcome.”

“I have to see her Jamal,” Rutendo replied. “I have something to show her.”

“Her exalted majesty, Kamena is busy with affairs of state that cannot suffer her absence even for a moment. Please respect her wishes and leave us now.” Jamal looked at him coldly, stiffening himself to intervene physically if this interloper would further threaten his love and his queen.

“Ah yes, affairs of state. I am so very sure that is true,” Rutendo remarked savagely. "Jamal, be gone! I will see her!”

With this reprimand, Jamal and the two guards at his side vanished. The open door now stood before him. Taking a moment to muster his courage, Rutendo stepped through into the enormous royal chamber beyond.

“I said, NO!” Kamena’s voice caused the whole room to shake and tremble. Her courtiers and advisers very quickly chose to be somewhere else, melting into adjoining rooms and antechambers.

“Kamena, I need to talk to you. Please, come with me. We need to get out of this for a moment. You have not eaten. Besides, I’ve found something, and I want to show it to you.”

“Listen to me,” she growled. “Not. Now. Leave me alone.” Kamena turned her back to the massive map table at the centre of the room. “This is my world. I don’t want to go back there.”

Rutendo softened his voice and his posture. “But Kamena, this world isn’t real! It’s a game you should have stopped playing a long time ago! It’s only real in your mind. Your body will die unless you care for it in real life. Please, come back with me.”

“That world… the real world is gone! Don’t you get it?” Kamena’s eyes were black with anger and her voice lashed out with tongues of flame. “Why would I go back there? There is nothing. My family and my friends are gone. That world is empty. There is only darkness and pain and struggle and anguish. This world makes me feel full and in control. And if you cannot understand that, then you should just go away.” Through clenched teeth she spat out, “Go away. I’m staying here.”

His eyes welling with tears, Rutendo whispered: “If you stay here, you will die.”

“Then let me die.” She shot back.

“Kamena… I love you. Do you remember me? Do you remember us? Please try. Remember how we used to go fishing at your brother’s place?”

“It’s gone.” Kamena retorted.

“My family loved you so much. My sister called you the kindest and most loving person she had ever met. Your smile and your music brought us so much warmth and sunshine and joy to our house!”

“Gone, too.” Kamena dismissed.

“And me… You rescued me.” Rutendo implored her. “You dug for hours to pull me out of that collapsed building. We promised then we would never give up on each other. I cannot give up on you now. Please let me pull you out.”

“For what? Haven’t you been listening? There is nothing left out there! What are we to do? Spend our lives eating from that garbled food synthesizer that somehow still works? Picking through the dump for little things that give us warm feelings about the past? Going from place to place for months looking for other survivors? Where is the future for us there? Is there one? IS THERE?!?”

Rutendo stayed silent. Several minutes passed before he spoke again.

“Kamena, you are right about all of this, and yet you are also wrong. We have lost everything …except each other. We don’t know that anything will ever get better. Perhaps the sun will be clouded by ash for another twenty or thirty years. We do not know. We don’t know that we will ever find other survivors to share life with. Can we have kids? Could we build a family together in this desolate place? I don’t know that either.”

Rutendo paused again, tears filling his eyes.

“But this I know. I love you, and I have no future apart from you. I cannot give up on you. I can’t walk away. I can’t stay here and watch you die.”

“Then leave me!” Kamena whispered, her own eyes clouded by tears. “I’m not strong enough to make it. If you can’t watch, just walk away.”

Rutendo again waited in silence.

“You know, the trees are coming back,” he said. I saw little green shoots growing from the stumps and logs. They don’t look very strong right now, but they will be. They’re going to make it. And somehow they are finding enough sunlight through all the ash and soot in the sky to grow.”

Kamena’s face looked tired under her royal gown.

Rutendo approached her gently and took her hand. “We can do this. You and me. I found a locket today and I put our pictures inside it.” Summoning a likeness of the locket with his mind, he opened it for her.

Kamena’s gaze rested on the picture of her face. It was a face full of joy and warmth; coloured by the sun. Kamena allowed a few whispers of that memory to return. “But this isn’t who I am anymore,” she whispered. “That’s not me.”

“It is you.” Rutendo implored her. “It is who you once were. The person you are is of course changed now, but this is still you. This is the ‘you’ that I still see, and I know that I will see again once we have had time to heal. But I know that I will never look or feel like I do in that picture again, in that moment, unless you are there beside me. I know that. I am begging you to choose life for the both of us.”

Silence stretched on for what seemed like an eternity as Kamena considered her choice. With a last tired glance at the Rutendo’s gentle pleading eyes, Kamena released her illusion, surrendering to the only real thing they had left; Kamena and Rutendo holding each other in the pain and sadness of a broken world.

Rutendo held his forehead next to hers for a little longer. After a time, he gathered her frail frame into his lap and held her there; rocking her back and forth as the tears flowed freely between them. The sobbing continued a long time, until Kamena at last reached for the remnants of the cold meal that sat on the table beside them. She ate slowly and quietly. And Rutendo held her close. A whisper broke from his lips. “Thank you.”