Waver

Swirly gray clouds moved inch by inch across the colorless sky, you could only really tell they moved at all if you were perfectly still, straining your eyes towards the heavens. It was a simple thing, but it was worth remembering that nature continues to move as if nothing had happened. There was flagrant defiance in the slow moving clouds, whispers of arrogance in the full grey sky that teased at rain. There would be no rain, but the sky wanted you to remember, in its own cruel way it wanted you to hope.

Hope was the newest addition to the four-letter word family, only used in extreme cases, as a slur for the wide-eyed and soon to be dead. If you had hope, you looked to the future, instead of surviving in the present. Maybe I have hope, maybe I do not; it’s not the kind of thing you share with a stranger, and we’ve only just met.

I hate meeting new people, especially here in a shattered world, where it’s a snap decision between kill or be killed. I don’t suppose we can really even call you people, you’re not one of us, not one of them. I am not sure what you would even like to be called? I am not even sure you are all the way here; you strike me as a thing that wavers. Waver elsewhere.

The trudge uphill is unsettling, feet slipping into shallow graves, the hopeful that had fallen on the journey before me. Moving forward was the only mantra I had, chanting it softly fills the deafening silence, the crushing stillness, the complete abandon. Forward, today that means uphill, towards the beacon of light that streams from heaven to earth. I call it Scotty, and I when I get there I will see if it will beam me up.

Surely, that is not the way to get to heaven, but I have to think it’s better than surviving here. Exactly what is here, where is here, well that is subjective. Before here I was nowhere, wavering like you I am sure. One day I opened my eyes and saw the clouds, with their taunting fullness and lying swirls. I woke up here, and here is where I have been. My world is a hazy memory that softens around the edges with every moment I spend awake. This broken, devastated world is where I live now, where I will continue to move forward.

Sometimes I’ve seen others, you learn to avoid them. They’re not like me, grayscale and surviving, advancing. Some are giant masses with faces that do not match, cobbled together in nightmares. They chase, always chase, and so if you see one, fall. They are too fast to outrun. Others are hopeful, whispering, tugging, always wanting to come alongside, pulling at you to go any direction but onward.

At the top of the hill now, the view is not disappointing. Do you see the miles, the distance, the wideness of the world? Those shapes that move slowly, like watercolor dripping, are the others. I am stillness itself, shallow breaths like an overheated puppy. The world from here has not ended, only paused, waiting for the shutter, the click, permission to move again.

If I keep going forward, down the hill, across the muddy roadway, and over the stone wall, I can reach Scotty in a few hours. It is tortuous, how close I feel but how far I still have to go. You should stay here, on top of the world, taking in the stillness, watchful of the drips. You could waver here, halfway between the coarse brown grass and the wispy ashen sky. It’s just a suggestion.

Down is easier, faster, sliding, skidding, tripping, feet so caked with cold ground that they barely mind the gravel of the roadway. Down is blinding, the wide world narrows and now I can see only the box of the valley I have arrived in. Do you miss the mountain? Do you miss the wideness of the world? I miss the stillness, and the silence.

Here on the valley floor there is turbulence, the air crackles with it. Maybe we should have both stayed on the mountain. The slow, understated roar of silence is breaking with pitches of erratic frequency. I wonder… if you could hear anything as you waver. I would want you to hear this, to know that the sounds worse the silence are the timbres of music that you cannot quite catch.

We are over the wall and Scotty is incandescent, booming with sounds, the light wrapped around and around itself in an eerie sort of dance. A slow, steady beep, do you hear it? It reverberates in my chest and around my ribs. It beeps, I beat, I beat, it beeps. I know the truth of the nightmare now, the barren wasteland without rules or order, the dystopia of distress; I know why you waver.

You cannot come with me, even as I feel your plea in the sweat beading on my fingertips. You will have to stay, to wait, to wake up. When you do the sky will seem full with promises of rain, and for a brief moment, you will have hope. Snatch it, hold it, hide it. Here in my locket is where I have kept mine alive. It isn’t much to leave, a heart shaped locket and a four letter word, but don’t forget we’re practically strangers-you could have wavered elsewhere.

Alright Scotty, you know what to do.