Unexpected Warmth

It’s cold.

That’s all I can think of as I huddle against the metal wall of the dumpster in which I am hiding. I can hear the crackling of my fire in the barrel just outside the bin, warm enough to melt the snow in a perfect circle around it. I desperately want to stand next to it, to thaw out my fingers and my feet but above the sound of the fire burning through the little fuel I had, I can hear their voices.

The men are loud - that alone would have let me know who they were, if I hadn’t seen their jet black uniforms through the cracked seams of the dumpster. Their cleanliness gave it away, too - only one kind of person walked through the Scottsdale favela of New Phoenix without being covered in dirt and smelling like last year’s unwashed laundry.

Enforcers. The brutal henchmen of the Archon Security Corporation. Archon was “randomly” selected 8 years ago to handle regulation enforcement by the governor - a governor who just happened to be the brother-in-law of Archon’s CFO. Archon used the massive amount of money that was being funneled to them by the government to hire 15,000 more Enforcers and equip them with tech that even the military can’t afford. They have the firepower to invade most nations. They’d probably win, too.

Instead, they invaded our streets and cracked down on us. Hard. To them, there is no such thing as a minor violation. Every single rule was enforced to the harsh extreme. I’ve seen jaywalkers dragged into unmarked vans, shoplifters executed and people beaten into a coma just for speaking too loudly. No one dared to protest this, after the first and only protest against these injustices was used by Archon as free target practice.

It’s cold. I don’t know how long I can stay inside this freezing tub. My tattered clothes offer no insulation against the frozen metal siding, and the fingers that my gloves don’t cover are turning purple. I don’t dare get out, not while the Enforcers are still around. Lighting a fire inside the city is against the regs, and after what they did to Allen when they caught him by his fire I can’t risk being caught.

Careful not to make any noise from my movement, I put my hands inside my shirt to warm them. What I feel there - or rather, what I don’t feel there makes my heart skip a beat. I turn my head to look through the cracked seam of the dumpster again, at the tempting fire and the area around it. There, sitting on the ground next to where I had been sitting a few minutes before was my most prized possession. The Enforcers were stepping around it and hadn’t noticed it yet. A new coldness fills me from the inside out as I begin to fear that they will find it and take it from me. I give myself a small comfort by reminding myself that they are too busy looking for me to see such a valuable laying in the half melted snow.

“Come on out, asshole!” One of them calls, his voice tinged with the slight static sound of the amplifier in his helmet magnifying his voice to carry and echo through the alley. He faces away from me when he does so, not knowing where I am but suspecting, accurately, that I am still nearby. The rest of his squad is standing by my fire. I guess even heavily armed thugs get cold once the thermometer goes negative. They sweep their heads around, looking in corners and at the cracked walls around us.

Finally, after about 6 minutes of warming themself by my dying flames they ready themselves to continue on their patrol. “Captain,” one of them calls, grabbing the attention of their leader. “Are we going to keep this burning?”

“No,” the captain replied, her voice carrying the same static as her subordinate, “All of you resume your patrol, I’ll douse it with snow then catch up with you.”

“Yes, ma’am.” They all gave their acknowledgement and began to head to the end of the alley and out of my view. The captain waits a couple of seconds before she turns to the fire. She stares at it for a moment, on the opposite side of the flaming barrel from me. I can see the flames reflecting in her mirrored visor, the dancing light throwing darker shadows on her already hidden features.

My heart stops again as she turns her head and looks directly at my prized item. She takes two steps towards it before picking it up. She turns it over in her hands, feeling the weight of it before opening it up. She stares at the inside for a few seconds before closing it back up.

“You should take better care of this,” she says, before looking directly at the cold dumpster. “Someone could steal it.” With that, she throws it into the opened door of the bin to land inside by my feet. She then turns and walks out of the alley after her men.

Once I can no longer hear the crunching of the snow beneath her boots, I grab my prize and jump out of the dumpster, running to the flames. She did not put out my fire like she said, though I don’t know why she would have left it going. Still, I am grateful as the heat returns the color to my fingers and cheeks.

I look over the item I almost lost today. It has a silver chain, the post-war cheap synthetic stuff. On the chain is a heart-shaped locket, allegedly made out of some of the last pre-war untainted silver. Engraved on the locket is an “A” for my name. Once my fingers are warm enough to work again, I open the locket. Inside on the right is a picture of my family, from back when I had one. The smiles on my husband’s and child’s face mirror my own, when we had something to be happy about. On the left side is a message from my husband, one of the last messages he gave me before…

The message was simple, and small to fit inside the locket door. All it said was “Autumn, though we may fall we will grow again.”

I look around at my surroundings. The dirty dumpster, the cracked walls of the favela housing, the snow covered street and the dirty, hopeless people who live there. The people like me. I look back down at the locket, at the words inside again before I close it and put the chain around my neck.

“I hope you’re right.” I say out loud, my fingertips resting on the locket as it settles on my chest. “Because I could really use some growth about now”

As I reflect on the message, it doesn’t feel so cold anymore.