Umbrae

Don’t mind me.

I drift along the grass behind you, lazily, the the same way leaves find their way downstream in the river next to us. You’re standing on the riverbank, staring at those leaves, and the gulping indents that little fish leave in the river’s surface. A duck quacks somewhere. I rest in the dust of the earth, to which you will return someday. There are little pebbles and insects and dandelion tufts blowing through me. The sun must be quite warm for you- I have never felt it- as it peeks through the clouds like an admirer pretending not to cast their glances. I’m nearly jealous. I couldn’t tell you what I’m jealous of, as I have no way to articulate truly what I haven’t known, but I am very certain that I am in the vicinity of jealous that the sun would shine on you in such a way. At least, I think.

I do know you, though. Your hands are cold, even in the warmth of the afternoon. You have worn this sweater twice before. Dread is calmly clawing its way out of your throat and you have no way to stop it. There is nothing you can do about the world and the end of it. You’re going out for a walk because the silence at home got too loud, so you must quiet it with… Oh, there’s the duck. You can see it now. It’s swimming very contentedly. Even as humanity ends so quietly, waterfowl yet retain their joyous chorus. A crow, hiding in one of the trees, joins in with a grating call.

How long has it been, do you think?

I’m sure you still remember the quiet rumblings of the virus. The easy distance you kept from the news reports, avoiding the nervous conversation with your close ones. You just meandered about your life. There were things to do. It would be fine anyway. Everything usually does turn out fine, and it’s not as though they won’t think of a vaccine. There have been plagues and wars and rumors of both since man first set fearful and fragile foot on the earth.

The ambient terror set into your bones softly, once you noticed the overflowing hospitals. It then seeped out of your bones, into the surrounding tissue, choking you, when images and statistics began flashing on screens casually with the morning news. Your mother asking if you had hand sanitizer in your backpack. The mask that now dangles from your ear, no longer needed, but comforting. The squirrel which climbs down from a nearby tree to greet you, who doesn’t know to fear humans anymore. I suppose there aren’t very many left.

Seven years. That’s how long it’s been. I know you don’t know- you threw your calendar out the window somewhere around year five and the only remains are the staples in the grass outside the window. There aren’t very many other people left. Sometimes, a visitor wanders through your tiny town, but it doesn’t have enough resources to support more than a few people. You’re here. So is Mrs. Grandma Marjorie, but she doesn’t mind the quiet as much as you do, so we try not to bother her more than a few times a week. She needs time for her puzzles.

Bob down at the gas station firmly believes that aliens introduced the virus. I would rather not pay our respects, as he doesn’t clean the floor very often, and his pushpins for the maps strewn about the place litter the floor like tiny caltrops. You also tripped over one of the webs of red strings last time. Someone has been living in your back garden shed, too, but you haven’t noticed them quite yet. I wouldn’t worry about it. They’ll be moving on to a larger city center in a few days. Sooner, if they run into Bob before they run into you.

You lean over and wrench your backpack onto your shoulders. Rather than being filled with textbooks, it harbors a dull multi tool, some food, and carefully packed tomatoes. A ridiculous amount of tomatoes, in fact. There are more in the tote bag next to you. The seeds were a gift from a passing bird, and the plants have been plaguing your garden in innumerable quantity. I suppose you’re going to bring them to Mrs. Grandma. She likes making pasta sauce. Her grandchildren are likely off having grand adventures somewhere, and cannot enjoy the pasta sauce, but we would need to be in a different story for that. You’re just out for a walk.

The earth is soft from the recent rainfall, so you make your way slowly back to the sidewalk before getting any more mud on your shoes. I think your shoes are more mud than shoe at this point. I won’t begrudge it to you. Their soft outline is part of my existence, after all. I walk in tandem next to you. I imagine the pain in your left foot from where you accidentally broke a toe last year, while my gait mirrors yours precisely. My hands swing at my sides the same way yours do. It is as though I could reach out and grab your arm, and truly be with you.

The black asphalt is hot and prickly when you make it back to the road. You walk directly down the center, sometimes balancing on the yellow line like a game. This particular road is heading east, and it’s still early morning, so I trail behind you now. It is as though I am a balloon that a child grows emotionally attached to. I refuse to pop. Well, rather, I can’t. I don’t know if the act of my refusal is what keeps me from popping. Maybe it’s just physics. You were a history major in college, so I have accompanied you to incredibly few math-related lectures. Your degree doesn’t do much for you now, other than keep you company with the stories of those who have gone before you. Their worlds ended too. They struggled through famine, trenches, countless horrors, even as you trudge through your own within the domesticity of your tortured soul. Dramatic, isn’t it? Don’t mind me. They kept living their lives too, you know. You were just lucky enough to live. There is still honor in the way you are choosing to do it.

There are cobbled stones lining the path to Mrs. Grandma’s front door. They are cracked, and you have great concern for the elder woman and the cane she seldom uses. You hear her singing at the top of her lungs in her own garden, likely growing herbs which she will simmer into tea and press into your hand with scolding care next time you are sick. The cold edges of the morning remind you that winter is still nestled just under the horizon, perhaps playing with the moon like a cat in a thick coat of white fur. You duck under the unruly trellis of wisteria that frames the cobblestone wall you helped her put up four or so years ago, when you had just been informed that your university was closing and had nothing else to do. I follow you up the slightly rotted porch steps, which only give enough to be ignored. You plop the tomatoes on the table next to her white door. Fingerprints still dot the glass, and there are scuff marks decorating it. You wonder about the story that tells. Your backpack is off now, and you stack even more tomatoes on top of the tote bag. You consider leaving a note, but paper is difficult to come by. She’ll know they’re for her.

Back down the steps we go, and back onto the road to continue wandering. I would like to tell you that we’re adventuring. Perhaps adventuring is too strong a word. There is too much anticipated plot when it comes to adventuring, character development and the like. You’re fine as you are.

You avoid the cracks and potholes in the asphalt for the most part. We stop to inspect a specific pot hole, which has filled up with water. There’s a frog in it. He seems like a happy fellow. In ages past, you would have scooped him up and hustled him over to the bushes on the other side of the road. Now you don’t have to worry about more than the occasional bicycle. Those don’t pose much of a threat. The road has been empty of the usual minivans and tractors and trailers for a while now. You see deer sometimes. They have eyes like golden apples, with sweetness and gentle edges behind them.

There is a library down the street. The doors have mismatched hinges, one of the windows is boarded up, and three of the metal letters which make up the sign have been carried off by time or thieves or a group of surprisingly strong crows. The interior is in a similar state, with dilapidated chairs and beanbags. The shelves near the broken window are worse for wear. Those books got an unhealthy dose of rain before you could rummage through the hardware store and board it up, and most have been reduced to sopping bricks of paper and ink. You wander through the aisles. I fade in and out of presence as you pass through sunbeams, dust motes settling in our wake.

The library is too small to have a children’s literature section more than two rows wide, but that is where the skylight shines down upon the books and the primary colored-carpet. You stand directly in the middle of it. Beatrix Potter and Narnia books line the shelf behind you, a short one, only as tall as one thinks a child should be able to reach. Blanched patterns in the wood and carpet remind you of all the places the sun has been, and will continue to be, whether or not we continue noticing it. You briefly consider asking the sun to be again. Jealousy, real this time, knots itself into my spine. It is very unpleasant. I don’t really have a spine, so having feelings there is a very bad omen. It feels like dread and rejection cast their lots and came to a draw. You only consider it briefly, though, as mentioned. I settle back down into the dust and comforting smell of old books. You’re sitting on the floor now, letting the sun warm your back. I’m sitting in front of you, too, splashed down like someone knocking over a glass of water. This would be a very bad place for a glass of water.

“Hello?”

I’m sorry?

“Hello!”

Who are you talking to?

“Hi! It’s you!”

There’s no one else here, what-

“You, friend,” My arm follows yours as you hold out your hand to me, “I’m talking to you.”