We suspect you didn’t miss us. We hope so, anyway, given the intended dynamism of the previous few chapters. And yet, as may have been expected, we couldn’t stay away forever.
Consider, if you will, the life of a survivor. By necessity something is different. Steve and Sheila, to take two examples, are not the same Steve and Sheila they once were, and with that in mind one wonders about trajectories. How were they, once? Can we even know? Is it possible to work backwards from the results of trauma to see the breaks and schisms in which the experience of it resulted? We’re not at all sure, given the fractal nature of such things, the fractal nature of all change in a system as complex as the web of life. And yet, through it all, certain things remain the same. Adapt, change the system, or perish outside of it. Most, a preponderance of them in fact, go with the former and don’t even think about it. These are Steve and Sheila, and as they have adapted to survive within the system, which itself has changed, the spiraling nature of their changes goes on in an unquantifiable way.
But what if we told you that Steve had been a software developer, Sheila the President of a mid-sized document security firm? Does that change your opinion of them now, no matter what they are? What if Steve was a murderer and Sheila a hardcore dominatrix? These things filter your expectations in ways we think are irrelevant and limiting. But still you want the information, your brain craves it- opium to an ill-advised Victorian housewife, hidden in a bottle with something else and guzzled under the guise of peace. It is necessary and yet deadly. A fascinating turn of events.
Sheila stared down at the now quarter-filled tub. Viscous red drops of iron-flavored liquid pinged down from her hair and rain in rivulets in the lines of her face. She didn’t notice.
“There’s something out there.”
“It’s wolves. Also it looks like a guy. And a bear?”
“Did you say wolves?”
“Not now Marge-“
“The kids are out there!”
“We know. Get off the line.”
“What do I do?”
“Get the kids-“
“No, about the wolves. Or the guy. Or the bear.”
“Shoot?”
“Which?”
“Any of ‘em!”
The wolves were new. That was a development. As was the presence of a guy and a bear, and Sheila second-to-immediately thought of the humongous beast Steve insisted on keeping. A third of the goat she’d just drained was going to be for that thing. It wasn’t a bear, but it wasn’t small.
“I can’t get a good shot!”
“Get the kids!”
“Hell, Marge, get off the line! Darryl, take Joseph and head on out there. I’ll go-“
“Get the-“
“Yes, Marge, I’m going to get the damn kids! Be careful, Darryl.”
“Will do.”
The radio clicked off again, silence reigning once more in the blood shed. A steady drip, drip, drip reminded Sheila that she’d been doing something and that it had gone badly. She held her hands up, realized they were sheathed in coagulating blood, and with a bored sigh resigned herself to a trip to the water hose. This wasn’t ‘take a shower’ dirty. First, though, the blood, which was starting to smell as it cooled… though that could have been because there was some drying inside her nostrils, she realized.
She moved the tub, now three-quarters full and easier to manage, to the decanting rack and hooked the tube to a spigot at its base. The liquid moved slowly through the yellowing rubber into the collection drum. She pumped the small bellows attached to the drum and the liquid sped up, draining until with a final squelch the tub emptied. She disconnected it, hung it on its rack, and then carried the tub to a large outdoor sink, where she sprayed it down and then positioned it upside down on a rack to dry.
It seems boring, right? Even as our heroine is covered in blood, consider the monotony that got her there. Over the course of millennia this is a much more likely outcome than anything involving a bullet or some vicious virus that ravages a person’s entrails. And yet, and despite its importance in the lives of everyone who eats other than plants, it is undiscussed and deemphasized. Not so, in a world where all the people who do it for you are dead. This, and only this, becomes the subject of your days.
We often wonder how the transition would go. For Sheila the Stockbroker we imagine the transition was a rough one, huddling with Steve the Math Teacher after the first couple of go-rounds. Or maybe Sheila the Flautist was really into the idea, horrifying Steve the Wine Salesman with the absolute and irrepressible joy she got from watching the fluid of life drip from their food while it hung on an improvised hook just outside their house. Either way, at the end of any transition is what’s at the end of all transitions: normality. And so here we are, with Sheila having coated parts of herself in the warm blood of an innocent creature and not even thinking she’ll need a shower. That could be you. Some would argue that will be you, unless you plan on dying.
And if you want to grow crops, you hang onto blood.
“There’s definitely a guy out here.” Whispered this time, as though attempting to hide but not understanding the concept.
Sheila, the bear remembered, perked up.
“I thought you said wolves?”
“Yeah, and a bear and a guy. Read the thread.”
“There are no threads.”
“You know what I meant.”
“And so did you.”
“Well the only wolf I see is dead. Throat ripped out, by the look of it.”
“That’s probably the bear.”
“I know.”
“So where’s the bear?”
“I don’t know.”
“That would concern me.”
“Me too, jackass, so I’m whispering.”
“You think bears can’t hear whispers? I think they have better hearing than us.”
“Well that’s fantastic.”
“What about the guy?”
“This was a good shot on this deer.”
“Huh?”
“Whoever shot this deer put it right through the heads.”
“Would you focus?”
“I am.”
“The guy?”
“He’s crawling away, I’d guess. It’s just his tracks. Hell of a tussle out here, looks to me.”
Sheila stood, frozen, looking like the worst version of a thawing cherry popsicle. It was Steve, Steve and his ridiculous dog, but why? And where? She thought about grabbing her knife, but realized she didn’t know where to go. Still, it probably couldn’t hurt. She continued the immobilizing argument, stuck equidistant from her two sources of interest, with nothing to impede the narrative of doom floating towards her from the metallic little demon she’d really wanted to break.
“So follow it.”
“What if he’s dangerous?”
“He definitely is. Isn’t Joseph out there with you?”
“Yeah.”
“And what’s in your hand?”
“Radio.”
“The other one.”
“Oh. Gun.”
“So you’re dangerous too. Be more dangerous and-“
“Bring in the kids!”
“Damn it, Rachel, I told you to hold her. Quit standing around, Bo, and do your damn job.”
The radio went silent again.
Sheila waited, for one minute, then five, then ten, but it never spoke, didn’t once more crackle to life with news that the guy and his bear had been found, or escaped, or that Bo and Joseph had been killed. She knew the last was wishful thinking and she didn’t exactly know why she wished it, but with a great majority of her heart she did hope for it. She’d learned not to question those sorts of things.
Finally, after what must have been long enough because boredom started to creep in around the edges, she realized she was becoming stiff with the coagulated fluid of life in which she was covered. Another full minute of indecision followed, with Sheila debating the various methods of redress. There was cleanliness out there to be had, certainly, and freedom of movement would be a wonderful thing. Still, the goat was more or less ready to be skinned and butchered. That would be a dirty job, for which she was already dressed. She looked at the sky, noted the sun continuing on its downward arc into daily oblivion, and decided that laundry efficiency dictated she take care of the goat tonight.
She moved to the shed, a plastic hutch with a floor and a lip, that stood next to the house’s back door, pulled out a light, plugged it in, and switched it on. It shone. Good, she thought. That’s working. Choosing the goat meant finishing today, light or no light, and it was just as well. It needed to be finished, needed to be in the freezer and ready. If Steve was dead, she had enough food stored, and it wouldn’t be an issue. But for all she knew, at least for now and into the continuing future, her normal might be the fires and torment of a siege.
