Message in a Bottle

Hey there. This your first one? There are a few out there, not sure how many. You lose count after a while. Pens aren't that common anymore, ones that work, anyhow. Something to write 'on' is easier to find than something to write 'with', but I guess that was always the case. Even 'before' I had an aversion to pens, or was that the other way around? Was it just me, or does that sound like you, too? Still, with that in mind, I have to tell you that this pen is about done, and I don't have another, so if this message suddenly stops then you know why, and I apologise in advance.

Course I don't know if anyone will find this, or even read it if they did. It's been a long time since I saw anyone,and longer since that I felt safe enough for a bit of face-to-face (and THAT didn't end well). I'm sure you get where I'm coming from. We are all just trying to get to the next day, and I guess avoiding each other increases the chances of that happening, but there has to be something beyond the next day otherwise what's the point? I have seen the violence, had my share of it. We can't carry on hurting each other for the few things each of us has. We shared the world once. We can do it again.

So, if you're reading this and you have something to write with maybe you could jot down some of your thoughts, add them to mine? We can fill a glass with words easier now that we can fill one with water, and we have to learn how to talk to each other again, how to get along. There aren't many of us left since - well, since - and it's not like you can just pick up the phone and call your mom, right? God, I wish I could call my mom.

Excuse me. I have to cry a little. It's okay if you want to, too.

I'm good now. Back to it.

Now, I know what you're thinking: who in their right mind writes a message to nobody? First off, you're not nobody. You're you. It's very important you don't forget that. If we forget who we are then we forget who we were, and we have to hold on to who we were so that we don't forget who we want to be when we get to that place sometime after tomorrow.

I mentioned my mom earlier. She was a high-school teacher, and I got all my enthusiasm for the written word from her, so don't blame me for wanting to write stuff! She could also cook. I know how much of a cliche this is, but her apple pie rocked. I mean, she was like this kitchen ninja, and no matter what she threw together it just worked. Wish I had inherited that from her. Sure could use that talent right now. Her name was Alice.

Pops loved drawing, and he loved buildings. Being an architect was pretty easy for him. Like natural selection. God, he would hate what this world has been reduced to, but he wouldn't dwell on it. He would just get his shit together and go do something about it, like draw up plans for shelters, and whatever. He died before the nukes fell. He was sixty-eight. The Big C took him, but thirty a day will do that. His name was Harry.

I was their only child, maybe because Pops was too busy working and Mom had all the kids she ever needed at school. Doesn't mean they didn't love me. Don't think that. I got all the hugs and kisses a kid could ask for. I loved them too, though I never told them that often enough. Does anybody? I got this heart-shaped locket for my twenty-first. It's bent and scratched and hardly opens properly, but the pictures of each of them I put inside let me remember what they looked like. I'm lucky I still have it. There have been moments in the past when I nearly lost it. I miss them both so much, but with that locket they're never far away.

I'm Claire (with an 'e', you may have noticed. I'm very proud of that 'e'. I have lost so much already I'm not giving that up as well). I have dirty blonde hair, maybe a little more dirty than I would like, but what's a girl to like, right? Been a few years since I last measured myself. I was 163cm and 64kg, and while I don't think I got shorter I am fairly sure - until recently, at least - I lost some of that weight. Silver linings, and all that. I'm thirty years old. I lived in New York as a journalist when I left home, but Queens doesn't exist any more so I tend to move around a lot.

I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm in a sharing mood and this pen seems to have developed my stubborn streak. I'm pregnant. That may strike you as as a dumb-ass move, considering, and I admit it wasn't on the top of my 'Things to do when the world comes to an end' list. But it happened (and I won't go into details), and I am, so I'm dealing with it. Anyway, isn't it a good thing? I mean, we have to start to rebuild the human race sometime, right?

I remember my mom telling me there isn't an instruction manual for kids. Even if there was, now that books have gone the way of the dodo I wouldn't be able to buy a copy. Since I'm down to carving lines on a piece of wood to mark the days I don't know for sure how long I have before I give birth. It has started to hurt, inside I mean, and I think that's normal. Not like there are any doctors, or antenatal classes, or anyone, to ask about it. There's no blood at least, and I feel my baby move from time to time, so I'm not worried about it too much. I won't know until the day whether it's a boy or a girl, obviously. I am firmly in Camp Pink, by the way. What do you think? Make a bet with yourself, promise yourself a treat if you're right. I mean, you have fifty/fifty chance. They're good odds.

Talking of promises, how about this: if I promise to write it down and leave another message with what happens, will you promise to pray my baby comes out normal? Please? I just want my baby to have the right number of fingers and toes, and everything where it should be. So far, the movies have been mostly wrong about what happens: no endless supply of ammo; no giant mutant insects eating people; but it freaks me out to think that maybe this is the thing they get right.

I haven't decided on a name yet, so by all means leave your suggestion where you found my bottle. I hope I'll get chance to go back to where I've been, check out if what I left behind is still there.

So, if you see a scruffy, long-haired lass out there with a big ol' belly, please don't shoot me. I don't have a gun, just Pop's old bowie knife. I don't want your stuff. I wont' take your food. I'm not a threat. I'm just trying to get through to the next day and hopefully discover what happens sometime after tomorrow.

Look at that. The pen made it. Maybe we all will.