From the Trenches

Run! The shout shatters the morning silence as the rising sun starts to glitter between the trunks of assorted pine and dogwood trees, sprinkled with southern magnolias. On his feet before his mind is awake, he shakes his aunt, Wilhelmina Dunbar - Mina to him - awake. He whispers loudly, telling her they’ve gotta go - NOW! In the background, tents rustle and survivors shout. People are screaming; some are begging. Fights are breaking out. His aunt is up and at 'em, fast as him. Faster maybe. Grabbing what they can carry, he’s on Mina’s heels, heart racing, as she opens the flap of the tiny two-person survival tent and bursts through. Running. Running for their lives. Running to hold on to some of their already too meager belongings. A man jumps out of nowhere, hits his aunt, knocking her down, and hovers over her. Kes’s blood pressure spikes. Impulsively, he lunges into the guy - a partial tackle, partial bear-hug move. He sits on the man’s chest and pummels this stranger, knuckles splitting, until he’s sure he’s not getting back up. Then, standing, moving quickly, Kes helps his aunt, whose lip is now bloodied, off the ground. Pushing her ahead of him, together they run.

An hour into the run, they slow to a rapid jog. He’s pissed that the tiny camp was raided, that they’ve lost some of their belongings. Oh, his mind is clear now. Unbelievable. Tight in the chest, Kes feels his aunt behind him. He glances back over his shoulder. Concern for his aunt rises in him, unsure what he would do if anything bad happened to her. She’s the only person he has left. He asks how she is and whether she’s okay. “How do you think?” She replies, out of breath. She looks tired and, especially, pale now. Fragile. Kes looks ahead to nothing but tall, thin trees and red clay. It’s gonna be a hot one today, he feels the sweat pouring from him. The humidity here is God-awful.

Another hour and a half in, they’re sticking to the denser parts of the forest, away from the roadway spies. Away from possible looters. Kes is pretty sure his big toe is forcing its way through the right redwing boot on his foot. His feet hurt, and he’s exhausted by the sheer endlessness of the forest. The leaves on the trees are shimmering in the hot, turbulent air. The sun is an evil pixie from children’s stories, flitting around playing tricks. Uncomfortably, Kes shifts; his shirt is sticky, his hair is matted to his forehead, and his thighs are chafing. This has to be hell. Aunt Mina is so pale. Her jogging pace is slowing. He won’t complain, though. This is a lot for her, he knows. Instead, Kes slows his body to meet hers, striding alongside - to keep an eye on her. Worry chews on his guts. Her motions seem off. Her walk. Her breathing. All of it is nagging at him, but this isn’t the time or place to bring it up, or to dwell.

Kes drifts in and out of his own thoughts, often focusing on the smell of the forest around him. The pine and sweet mix of the magnolias ground him. Running this long in this kind of heat is dull and exhausting. Without warning, his aunt screams. Blood-curdling, Kes feels his spine lengthen. He’s immediately at attention, hyperfocusing on the environment. A snake. A copperhead. Directly in front of her, a third of its head and neck puffed up, a few feet away from Aunt Mina. It’s gaping and displaying fangs at his Aunt Mina, warning her to stay back. “Kes…”, her voice is high-pitched, full of caution - shaky. He tells her to back away slowly and make no sudden moves. She begins to do as instructed. It isn’t enough for some reason. The snake’s body coils in on itself, and he knows. Maybe the snake is irritable from the excessive heat, or because they happened upon it so quickly, it's hard to tell. Kes instinctively recognizes the signs, a direct result of spending every summer at his grandparents'. Their property should be about a day away now. It was where his aunt and he were headed. A day away seems like a lifetime from now. Everything blurs for the next several minutes.

***

Aunt Mina is screaming,”Kes! No!” as Kes heaves his body before hers and takes the hit. A single high-speed strike. Fangs punch into his shin just above his boot. Fire explodes from his shin; white-hot venom spreads up and out. This is actual hell. A feral and unhinged scream rips from his throat. Get back. We have to get back. He knows he’s running out of time. His aunt’s eyes meet his; she knows, too. Through it all, Mina is a hurricane, on her feet already, a long V-shaped stick in her hand, pinning the writhing beast. There’s a gleam of a knife, a sick crunch, and the head is gone, the body jerking at her feet. Sweat is pouring down Mina’s cheeks. Kes, in awe, is unsurprised. She was always the one to move when everyone else froze. Immediately she’s behind him, arms hooked under his armpits, and hauling him up… “Sit up!” her voice booms. “Sit up, Kes!” He wills his muscles to listen. Nettles sticking to his palms as he pushes himself upright…

Over the next couple of hours, she gently and repeatedly scolds him to remain calm: an elevated heart rate will make things worse. She helps him tend to and bandage his wound, working tirelessly. He feels the heat on top of the heat, from a fire she’s built; he sees the snake’s skin on the ground as she preps it to cook, like he’s cooking. Dehydration is wearing him out, as the mischievous sun beats down. It’s unbearable agony, and his leg is simultaneously feeling every variety of pain and swelling. It looks like an overfilled pinkish-red colored water balloon hovering over a sewing needle. It may only take a slight touch to burst; he grimaces.

Mina—having collected rocks and firewood and cooked the bastard snake—now sits at a diagonal to Kes, to be closer to the fire. Even her sitting is more uneasy than normal. Eyes squinting to focus on her, Kes swears she’s shimmering in the afternoon heat. Mina wipes her hands on her pants and picks up a water bottle. He holds so much love for this person, his only family. He’s lucky to have felt this: a quiet, selfless, and comforting love that doesn’t announce itself as it enters a room, but one everyone is hyper-aware of. A nephew’s love. In his mind, hers, in contrast, is subtle and gentle, yet, in the same vein, loud and protective.

She removes the cap from the water, hands shaking, and lets the bottle dangle behind her, waving it in his face. “Drink,” she says. He grabs the bottle, takes a few sips, and leans back. Reaching forward, Mina uses the forked stick to shuffle the burning red wood around. Flakes of ash float up and around, like tiny spirits. Smoke drifts and wafts. She checks the temperature of the rotisserie snake. “How you feelin’?” She asks. He tells her he feels like death: that he’s thirsty, in unbearable pain, and, somehow, burning hot and freezing cold at the same time.

Safe, for now. The chaos of the morning raiders is a distant memory as they lean back to talk - just talk. After running for an entire year, moments like this are rare - gold in a world sick with lead poisoning. She tells him, voice cracking slightly, that she’s proud of him and loves him, says she’s sick of it all. He agrees, tells her he loves her too. He’s rapidly declining, weaker by the minute. Mary Shelly’s words flow from her lips. He wonders why those words? Those specific words? They interrogate each line together, closely examining its meaning. He asks why? Her answer is simple. Love is the influence of all future creation and success. Hope is all they have left. Exhaustion is crawling through his skin. A sudden urge to write, he asks his aunt to get him his journal. She reaches across her body to retrieve it and hands it over with a smile. Her kiss is a brief warm pressure against his forehead.

He writes:

“August 23, 2030,

Who would’ve thought we’d end up here? Who would’ve thought the world would end so slowly? Our own government turning on us? In league with other authoritarian countries? They dismantled healthcare to kill off the weak and elderly first, deregulated business, which killed off or injured much of the working class, and hand-fed dehumanization to the most hateful of us, holding even our own citizens in concentration camps. A civil war broke out. The civil war led to the country folk cutting the food supplies to the city folk. It only took about 10 years before the hate, the squalor, the suffering, and the filth bred disease. A pandemic’s attempt to wipe the slate clean. To start over, I suppose. None of us recognized what was happening before it was too late. That’s a lie. Some did. Everyone called them crazy. Hysterical. Irrational. Head games were played at levels we never had a chance of reaching. When more folks started waking up, well, it was too late by then. Everyone at that point was sitting around waiting for someone else to fight back, to take the reins. No real leaders emerged. So, here I sit, writing this out for you - if there will be a you in some version of some future. The future seems far off and futile, especially today, but here’s my record. What I witnessed. May it one day, when the timing is right, be found.

From the trenches,

The one and only (Literally and more probable than ever) - Ha! Also, sad face.

Kestrel Harding”

Kes hands the journal back to his aunt. Of course, she reads it. She laughs at the sign-off, a wet, almost-choking, gurgly sound. He’s concerned. She prepares him a bit of the snake and some rice - luckily, the lone survival bag they’d managed to grab had most of what they needed. She practically has to force him to eat and drink through his suffering. He doesn’ t feel right at all. His eyes keep blurring. Nausea is overtaking him in waves. He’s certain she is going to tell him to open wide and make airplane sounds, like when he was a toddler. The thought makes him smile; he can almost see it… As she hand-feeds him, he notices her necklace. Raising a hand up, he touches it, the metal cool against his feverish skin. It feels a little weighty in his weakening hand.

The pendant is heart-shaped and carries an old photo memory, now consumed by time and forgotten; the result of decadence. A football game on Homecoming night. Bright lights. An unusually large crowd - they were on a winning streak that year. It was parents' night. He conjures the memory of her larger-than-life smile as she walked him down that field - the only person who ever cared. And lord was she proud of him. The whole city knew it too. With her, he has never walked alone. He’s losing it and reaches his hand to Mina’s face. She’s completely still. He’s foggy. Everything is blurring into everything else. His leg may burst. His mind is an egg in a frying pan, like the old commercials. His last thought is of flaming venom working its way through his veins and arteries. He drifts out of consciousness.

***

Kestrel wakes up screaming! His fingers and hands sting. No. No, they are burning—burning in the consuming sun. An oversized magnifying glass hangs over him, turning the rays into laser beams and frying his body. He yells violently, for his mom, for Aunt Mina, for anyone. Still shimmering and extremely blurry, he finds her in the corner of his vision with a cloth. Aunt Mina shimmers so much. She is the heat wave reflecting off the southern red clay. His thoughts trailing, focus lost.

He feels her dusting his hands and arms with the cloth. That’s senseless. No. Something is wrong. Through hazy eyes, he tries to lift his head a little to see. Ugh. Fire ants. He hates fire ants. Woozy, from pain, begs her to get them off of him. He tries to move his body to help. To his surprise, he can’t. He’s heavy and sluggish. So heavy. Kes begs his aunt to please help him. Fading. That’s what was happening to him. A fading in and out, maybe of death. He slips once more from this reality. On his way out, he glimpses hazy vultures kettling above.

Kes is conscious again and, through bleary eyes, spots his aunt Mina running and yelling at carrion birds. Black vultures, maybe. He hears her voice yelling get out of here, you disgusting things! Go on! Get out of here! It’s kind of funny to him. He mumbles to himself, pride in his chest, something about how no one messes with Wilhelmina. No one. He breathes out a low chuckle. Coughs. He’s able, this time, however, to prop himself up, taking it slow. Bit by bit. Once he feels safe sitting up, he shoves forward into a three-legged crawling position.

Large and small rocks surround him; he picks one up and moves it. Eyes opening and closing, picks up another. Dizzy in the head, Kes pauses a moment, clamping his eyes until the dizziness passes. Eyes open once more, glassy and lidded. He moves another rock. Vomits. He hoists a larger stone, delirious and barely aware of anything—no clue what he’s doing. His eyes close again for a few seconds. They snap open, unfocused. Aunt Mina is directly in his face. Boy, does she look muzzy and exasperated. She fires off a series of questions. What are you doing with that? It’s too heavy, Kes. Put it down. Where are you even finding these? He keeps on, feeling feverish and mad, until he vomits and passes out.

Hours after nightfall, Kes is cotton-brained and dimly aware of his surroundings. His eyes briefly find the sooty black sky, pin-pricked with stars. Fitting for a bug like him, to be trapped in a jar, holes for oxygen poked in the lid. At the whims of a God, he thinks in his fugue state. A distant sound catches his attention. A baby is crying. Loudly. His eyes dilate. He thinks he should get up. There’s a baby crying. It needs help. Someone should help. Someone should do something. Then, a hand on his chest, over his heart. Holding him down. Shhh, he hears her say. The voice is delayed—almost her, but not quite. Then, the feeling of her hands cupping his face. It’s just a bobcat in the distance, she explains. Groaning, he tries to lift his head. It weighs too much. His head droops backward and lolls as he drifts away from the stars, haunted by the sounds of a crying baby, trapped in this inhumane jar with him.

Sometime around 2AM, Kes, semi-lucid, awakens and finds his waterproof survival journal has been moved closer. It’s lying on one of the larger stones beside him. He’d written in it at some point, although he has no recollection of it. In his delirium, time is a slinky climbing down an endless flight of stairs to the boy he was - impatiently waiting at the bottom to carry it up to the man he is becoming and start again. Barely capable, Kes, with modifications, manages to read the visible excerpt from the journal entry, set aglow in the firelight. She was already hurt before the snake. She never said. He struggles to process these words. He can’t understand. Instead, he just keeps stacking the rocks, a conical shape forming as he continues on.

As the day breaks, so does Kestrel’s brain fog. The venom isn’t hugging his mind so tightly after 24 hours. Kestrel, on his stomach and face in the dirt, forces himself into a sitting position. Sunlight creeps through the trunks of these old pines, and suddenly it feels judgmental and overbearing. One abnormally wide sunbeam highlights an oval rock formation. Squinting through aching eyes, Kes, unwittingly, brings both hands to his chest, finding his aunt’s pendant, kept warm against his flushed chest, over his heart. He has no memory of taking it, no memory of wrapping it around his own neck. Flashbacks of the homecoming field possess him: her smile in those stadium lights, walking arm in arm, and her pride in him. Tears are now streaming down his face, wild eyes searching all around for her.

But he knows he won’t find her. Deep down, he knows. His eyes land on the rock formation. The journal words blink into his mind again. She was already hurt before the snake. Irreversibly injured. He knew. He couldn’t face it. Kestrel stands, sloth-like. Rising with intention on wobbly legs, still roiling with nausea and pain, he limps to the formation. Kes looks down. At the base of the Cairn is his open journal. A different page, reflecting a simple handwritten note from Aunt Mina. The sum of it all. Understanding and grief wash over him. A small sob climbs up and out of his chest as the words soak into him.

“Everything must have a beginning… and that beginning must be linked to something that went before.” — Mary Shelley.

He picks up the journal, runs his fingertips over the words. His tears rain down upon the ink; the pages absorb his grief. She’s gone. A new start. A new creation influenced by love, sacrifice, and hope. He slings the go bag over his shoulder, wipes his snot, and limps away—alone.