Sheila looked at the radio, sitting silently in the center of the dining table she and Steve had stolen from a mansion in the wealthy neighborhood just to the east. It was slightly too big for the room and absurdly heavy, but it was a perfect dining table and she’d wanted it. So they’d taken it and here it was, taking up all the space in the dining room and holding an old radio while Sheila stared, intensity burning holes in its metaphorical soul.
It made no sound. Hadn’t, in fact, since The Hermit had briefly switched it on to blare static and demonstrate its newly working condition. It didn’t hiss or chirp or click or bleat or any of the other things Sheila hated it for- mostly, she knew, because it was turned off. She wanted to smash it for that, for its potential to shatter the peace she’d survived to find, but somehow now that it came to it the idea of shattering it with her fists, mixing blood with unrecoverable electronic detritus, seemed wantonly destructive and mildly pointless. She sighed. Hadn’t things come to that anyway? Didn’t that make as much sense- real sense, not twisted or resigned sense, but actual, measured, and considered sense? This item in front of her, after all, was a way to be located. It was a literal beacon. She crossed her arms in front of her and placed her forehead on them.
She should have known that would happen with The Hermit. Things had a way of getting serious in a hurry and as she hadn’t been ready to leave she probably shouldn’t have made jokes about illness, no matter how conspiratorial. He was, after all, a survivalist in a Winnebago. Of course he had a story about something called rock plague. It didn’t even matter that she thought he’d invented it all. It was simply acknowledging reality to say that if she’d wanted to hang around longer she shouldn’t have done what she’d done. No matter how crazy it was. And anyway what was crazy? Given all that had happened, had demonstrably occurred, who was she to claim knowledge of an absence of rock plague? She looked up. The radio winked at her, and she backhanded it onto the floor.
We think in terms of the ebb and flow of fact. And that’s what fact does, it ebbs and flows. Fact is simply verifiable, whether true or untrue, and we think people forget this, choosing to believe that fact always means ‘true’, when it doesn’t, and having their world skewed as a result. They aren’t willing to question things presented as fact, or aren’t willing to verify properly, and there you have the slide. It doesn’t help that truth, a slightly more Correct way of looking at things, is relative and its presentation as absolute has made people into zealots or cynics. Or maybe it does help. We’re not here to judge: only to point out that most things aren’t describable with 100% consistency, and that includes the things we take for granted that can’t typically harm us.
Then again, consider the platypus. We can’t explain it any more than you can. But there it is, and always a platypus. Maybe that’s what truth is, facts are. But in that case don’t try to tell us you’re an expert.
The radio squawked as it hit the floor. Sheila winced, regret flooding her body the way it does when one does something stupid out of anger. She waited a moment, giving all the things she assumed were broken time to heal themselves before forcing reality on the situation with her eyes. Then she glanced down. It was still in one piece, which felt like a small miracle. Then again the radio was old, so maybe it was just designed for solidity. Sometimes it was hard to tell. A light beamed at her from the top corner, and she realized the squawk had been a sharp onset of power- the button was depressed too. It seemed the radio had rolled, which was interesting given its be-cornered shape and general heft. She hadn’t tried to hit it all that hard. A throb in her hand made itself quite present and she considered, for a moment, that maybe she actually had.
She slid off her chair into a stoop and gathered the radio, cradling it like a regretfully abused child, and stopped herself from whispering soothing words by remembering that it was electronic equipment. It would break or it would not break, but platitudes weren’t going to do much either way. Then she replaced it on the table, sat back in her seat, and stared at it again.
She found that the power light annoyed her. That was new. A probe into that feeling went silent at the edge, and so she decided to ignore it for a second and concentrate on the decision at hand, which was still what to do with the stupid thing. She knew, of course, that it was a useful tool to have- that someone out there might happen to get a radio station working or some other home-brew broadcast up and running and so from the soggy ashes rebuild a society. It would be mutated, she thought, but then again in a world where most things were that might just feel… normal, in a way that a restructured society modeled on the old world wouldn’t. Of course they might also be trying to build a hellscape of fire-spewing motorcycle caravans somewhere out in whatever passed for a desert these days too, and that might also fit with the established paradigm of what the world was now. The options were limitless, as long as you accepted that for a while people wouldn’t be.
Did she want to deal with that? No. Obviously not. Right? Stray thoughts of becoming the next great leader after directing a coup flitted across her mind, as she leaned from the chair, down to one knee, lifted the radio, and set it back on its perch. It sat there silently, a beacon of nothing, as she took up her vigil once more. But wanting to deal with it and having it to deal with were separate issues, and whatever the case with the former, knowing about any oncoming problems would be useful. The radio would have to stay. Fucking Rob McKenna, she thought, and stood to get herself a glass of milk.
They didn’t bother anymore with trying to refrigerate the stuff. So much came from the barn outside that they threw away most of it whether it was refrigerated or not, and it was difficult to keep a fridge running with the kind of consistency that long-term storage required. But a pitcher on the counter worked fine for a day, unless it was summer, and Sheila wasn’t that kind of psychopath anyway. She poured a glass, filling it with the thick, white fluid and looking over at the collection of foodstuffs they’d gathered to tide them over. While still holding strong- the unintended and unaccounted for abundance of certain livestock items had come as a pleasant surprise in the early days, until things had begun… well, to become what they were- the entire section of milk additives was gone, consequence of said abundance and an unfamiliarity with milk as a primary beverage. But the milk was good, as milk went, and she raised it to her lips for a long, poster-worthy pull.
Three full gulps and a long, refreshing breath later, she belched and moved to a washtub in the corner. The Hermit had asked her to try and clean a shirt covered with what looked like either blood or some very suspicious wine, and while in other days she might have considered reporting it to the police she had that day agreed, since there was very little else out of the ordinary to do. She didn’t know how his huffy exit was going to affect the transaction, but it was still worth a shot to see what she could do to bloodstains with the various concocted remedies she had on hand. Currently it was soaking in lye, which felt dangerous and therefore right.
The liquid inside was a dull pink, which seemed to be a good sign. She poked the shirt with a fire poker she’d stolen from the house with the table, but on another occasion, and watched as it rolled and floated in the liquid. Parts that she was pretty sure had been stained weren’t now, so she felt pretty decently about the lye as a stain remover. How that applied to the rest of things remained to be seen, and she started trying to remember where she’d put her rubber gloves. It occurred to her that she should probably have gotten those out before beginning this process- certainly before having put the lye in the washtub with the water to begin, but as there had been no visible harm there was no immediate foul, and she leaned the poker against a wall before moving into the kitchen. She looked at the radio. The power button glowed like a tiny evil eye in the midst of an infinite darkness.
“Fuck you,” she said, turning her back on it.
“OK, Sean,” the radio replied. “Go ahead and bring the load around back. Clear to approach.”
