we all fall down

we all fall down (we don't all have something to rise for

By: The ADHD Accountant – Krid

The ruins were good, and bad. They were good because they had endured. They provided shelter and structure even after all of this time and, for many, reminded them of the good old days. They were bad because they were a beacon for the less benign, and because they really didn’t know when they would fail.

Shelter, one of the basic, and essential needs in the foothills of a mountain range that used to be called the Rocky Mountains in a place once spoken of in awe; California. Now, now it was just part of the world that was easily habitable. There was lots of wild plants that were edible, game as common, and the weather in the habitable range. Rarely freezing, rarely scorching hot.

The ruins had once been a stable. Home to the horses that now roamed freely, wild. Stone, strong and well insulated without a lot of fancier building materials it was designed to shelter from the hot, the cold, the snow, the rain, and the wind. Worn down by time it stood as a bulwark, and enduring sign of what had been lost.

It hadn’t been global warming. It hadn’t been a disease. No one went crazy and started shooting nukes. One day the Earth shifted. Globally. Earthquakes shook most of the planet. Tsunamis surged out of the seas. And the world… wasn’t what it had been anymore. So many cities flooded. Huge chunks of the planet fell into ocean. Nothing was the same anymore.

The survivors, the few who lived through the disaster, had very little idea what happened. And, in the days and weeks that followed had little time to consider. Medical aid disappeared quickly. Food and supplies did as well. Crime ran rampant as many gave in to fear and baser instincts. Those communities that had fared moderately well were often attacked. In the next ten years the world population went from over 7 billion globally to less than 50 million. And then slid lower.

Books were burned for warmth, or lost to damage; mouldering on the shelves. If the shelves weren’t also burned. Things broke and there was nothing left to fix or replace them. People lost the skills to do so - if they had ever had them. Children grew up with even less.

Years unmarked by witnesses who cared about more than the passing of the seasons, while fewer and few people passed through. One of the last was an old man stooped low by malnutrition, time and injuries that no one had the ability to heal anymore. It had been a long time since he had seen another person. Longer since he had companionship. Love.

Wearing tattered rags and an assortment of hides, some fresh and some rancid, he had few belongings that had survived over the years. Only one was a treasure. Only one really mattered. Memory aged by decades and a lifetime of trials had a few bright spots. As things got harder and harder, his body weaker and weaker, he clung to those memories. One was a story from his mother. The other was her.

She was gone now. Taken. Lost. His failure, though not his fault. But his mothers story remained. About a candle in the window. A promise after a long journey of hearth and home. Both of those were foreign concepts now. Meaningless in his life. Not his dreams. His dreams were filled with phantoms that were better than anything he had ever seen. Anything he had ever experienced. Coming upon the ruins his mind, tormented, grasped onto that bittersweet blend of memory and fantasy he forced his body to climb, shedding the dross of his life as he climbed higher and higher.

Ignoring the pain in his joints, ignoring the cuts, the scrapes, the coolness of the night he turned his will to one task. One last effort to make sense of the senseless. Higher and higher. The tallest window of the ruins. At the top, with trembling hands and heaving chest the wizened figure took from a rudimentary pouch, made of scraps of hide and tied around his neck with sinew, a golden chain and locket in the shape of a heart.

The chain was tarnished and dirty, but the locket, grimy along the sides, was smooth and polished in the front where tears and breath and caresses had smoothed and polished over the years. Carefully, gently, even as his body betrayed him, his feverish mind was consumed with his self-imposed penance. Seeking salvation. Praying.

Gasping he managed to close the clasp at last. The chain now secured to the frame. The golden locket glinting in the light of the harsh sun and he was overcome with the vision of a candle in the window. His vision darkened and he finally felt free. No more pain, no more despair. Just a sense of falling into the light.

Flying to her. Her and the child he never got to meet.

Flying to the candle in the window...

<< END SONG: SARAH MCLACHLAN – ANGEL >>