The Commune

I wake up to the smell of sweat and shit; my faithful alarm clock. You have to be in a deep sleep to block out the noises and the smells of the commune. By the time morning rolls around I never am and so I wake up to the aromas. I get up, I dress, I rinse my face. The bowl of water I use to clean myself is getting brown with dirt; I’ll have to refill it soon. I don’t like going to the edge of camp though and it’s something I try to avoid. A few days without washing won’t kill me. It must be an old ritual of how life was before, wired in me from a time I can’t even remember. Most of the other residents of the commune don’t wash so much, but I refuse to look like a dog in the mud. Maybe it’s my way of scraping together the little dignity I have. I keep my black hair cut short for convenience, and I try to keep a little clean. I don’t keep anything that’s a reminder of life before, probably because I can’t remember shit, and I find that sentimentality hypocritical. We’ve created a terrible life for ourselves all because we wanted to be liberated; we wanted to change the world, change the unequal distribution of wealth. Yet here we are poorer than ever, clinging to the little useless possessions we have, sounds like bullshit to me. That’s only the older generations of us though; they’re the ones that know what happened, the rest of us are in the dark, just like me. I don’t even know my own name.

I throw my boots and jacket on, then check my tent to ensure I’ve left nothing behind. You never know when we will have to move. I open my door, a heavy canvas curtain, to the commune. The first thing that hits you is the smell. Waking up to it is nothing compared to this full throttle slam in the face. Your body reacts immediately. Your gag reflex flairs up, you convulse and your eyes water. I rip some more material off my already denuded pants, and tie it around my face as a makeshift mask. I need it for the dust anyway. I look around, already feeling weak from my body’s effort to vomit up food I never ate. People are everywhere and we avoid eye contact. We push and shove and scream and swear, and we treat each other like the parasites we are. We live on top of each other, barley enough room to breath. I hear my neighbor’s babies cry, I hear my neighbors fight and I hear them, every night, attempting to bring children into a world that doesn’t want them. No wonder I am content with being alone, well mostly. My contact does offer me some warmth on particularly cold nights. I choose to ignore the sweet nothings he whispers in my ear. I even sold the heart shaped locket he gave me. No use for sentimentality in a shit filled swamp.

The commune is a continuously expanding and moving camp. If the commune is a whale, we are barnacles clinging desperately in an attempt to avoid the abyss of the ocean. There is no point in connecting with the people around me, because at any given moment we might need to pack up and move. My neighbors change weekly, sometimes daily and I own what I can carry. Nothing is stationary or stagnant. When we move it is fast and it is muddy. If you can’t keep up you die. You might not die immediately, most get left behind: no resources, no food, no hope. Some get crushed. The camp becomes a stampede of desperate people. It almost happened to me once; I fell and couldn’t get back up. I wouldn’t wish that feeling upon anyone. You dry your lungs out screaming for help as you get crushed into the mud. No one cares and you get ignored, if they stop to help they risk getting crushed too. That’s why no one tries to make friends here, one minute they’re there, the next they’re gone. It’s not worth it. I’ve learnt how to survive since that flirtation with death, I spat the mud from my mouth and hardened up.

I have no family here. Most of the other commune residents are families sticking together, and trying to survive. I am alone in this, except for the little comfort my contact offers me, but that’s irrelevant. I know I had a family once: before. I don’t really remember what life was like before though; I was just a kid. All I remember is this vague nostalgic warmth. Not a lot to go on. Every night the darkness envelops me like a web. It’s cold, my fingers tingle and slowly loose feeling. This is how it is every night. Light is a luxury so you lie here in the cold and you shiver and you don’t sleep. That’s how we live though: like creatures, forever roaming the dark, void of light, only living with the hope of making it to the next meal and surviving the next move. Anyway so it’s dark and we mostly live by the sun, except for the little light we use up in the evenings, and we wait for sleep to come and offer some comfort until the morning. Most nights I can’t afford kerosene. While most residents trade for the purpose of swapping comforts, I trade in information. This means I am always a meal short of full, and the cold is my constant companion, but it is the only way to survive this rat race on my own. I won’t be trampled in the mud again. So I trade my little comforts for information. I have one objective, to be moving and on my feet before the masses. The only thing separating me from an early grave, is to be one step ahead.

If there is a power void it will always get filled, that’s been the case for the commune anyway. We are all just residents trying to survive the camp, but it’s human nature to take advantage, and so, I do. All day I trade to stay alive. The commune runs on a trade system and most residents make goods to trade. My current neighbor repairs shoes and trades them for dinner and kerosene. This is how it generally works, and it’s how you stay comfortable, but it’s not how you stay alive. At any minute the commune could move, my neighbor would attempt to quickly pack his materials that he uses to repair shoes. He views this as his means of survival, the only way he eats and lives, is his ability to repair shoes. If he doesn’t pack in time, move in time, he dies. We are animals on this earth and we will crush you if you get in the way. So I don’t trade in material goods anymore, I trade in information. The kind of information that ensures I stay a step ahead. I keep an eye on the residents of the camp and I report what I find to another member in the commune who trades like I do, in return he informs me when the camp is going to move. There must be a whole bunch of us trading information on the activities of our neighbors, but I don’t loose sleep over it, these are the people that would happily trample me alive. I don’t know who would give a shit about what the poorest dregs of the world get up to anyway.

I make my way around the commune, trading little bits of information here and there. I still need to eat. I work on credit most of the time. Traders give me bits and pieces in return for the promise I’ll tell them when I have information on a move. Everyone knows what I trade in they just don’t realize I sell them out to do it. I approach my favorite trader, an old lady, someone who really needs to know when a move is going to happen. ‘Morning Martha’, I say.

‘Morning love, any news for me today, or do you enjoy bleeding me dry for sweet fuck all in return?

’ ‘No news of a move, at least not yet. I’ll see what I can find out. Besides bleeding you dry is the highlight of my day.’

‘That attitude ain’t gonna get you shit girl, but you look after me, I look after you. Here’s your porridge.’

I take the porridge and thank Martha. She’s a mean old bat, but she’s one of the only people I admire here. I eat my porridge as I walk, the smell of the commune is almost enough to stop me, and turn my stomach again. The hunger wins every time though and I manage to scoff down the glue-like substance. Martha’s porridge is runny and sticky, yet it also manages to taste foul as well. She burns the shit out of it every single time, a talented woman that one. I ditch my bowl, I need to get on with my day and begin my real trading.

I wait at our usual spot, my contact is late. This isn’t a good sign. He is never late. There’s never reason to be. What the hell is going on? If the commune is about to be on the move, he would have told me. I trust him, at least that much. We are each other’s best chance of staying alive. He knows it and so do I. No point in waiting around, I have to find him. I break off at a run. Dust seeps into my eyes as I push people and tents out of my way. Running is never really an option in the commune, there’s just stuff everywhere. I stumble over people on the ground, I crash into people’s stalls, foods spills and abuse gets flung around like there’s no tomorrow. But there might not be, if I don’t get to my tent, find my contact and figure out what the hell is going on. I’m starting to puff too hard, airs getting caught in my lungs, mingling with kerosene fumes. I kneel over and cough. I haven’t had any water today, and I’ve only had porridge in the last 24 hours. I need to take it easy, but none of that will matter if the commune is going to move. The commune is the only safety I know, you think I’d choose to live in sweat and shit otherwise? No. I’m not going to risk getting crushed again, I promised myself I’d never feel that way again; suffocating as you drown in people. There’s no alternative either. If the camp moves, but you don’t, you get left in this barren wasteland. The land we are on produces nothing but death and dust. I think I’d rather a quick death than being outcast from the commune, alone on the land. No one really knows what’s out there.

I make it to my tent, lungs heaving in my chest. I tear my canvas curtain to the side, and there he is leaning on my bed.

‘What the fuck are doing’ I yell at him.

‘Waiting in bed for you, like always’.

‘Are you kidding, what’s wrong with you? I thought we were on the move, why weren’t you at the usual meeting spot?’

‘Shit! All right, calm down. I wasn’t there because I thought I was followed. The conversation we’re about to have is meant for our ears only.’

‘Well this better be bloody good because I just’ –

He cuts me off, ‘listen; there’s more out there.’

‘Yeah, more what? Dessert, dust, and death?’

‘There’s more of us out there. We aren’t the only commune.’