An explosion rocked Sheila awake.
Truth be told, the idea of a totally quiet life after people was always something of a lie given that all things make noise and lots of the noisiest are the things directly replaced by people. Her life had been full, for quite some time, of doubled mating calls reverberating from twin throats and the ceaseless cawing from great swarms of newly flightless birds and the clucking of hideous monstrosities demanding she come take their eggs away.
But there wasn’t much in the way of explosions and in her unaccustomed wakeful state, this being the time when she would have typically been fighting to go back to sleep and her red-tinged dreams of a questionable childhood, she had to acknowledge that she preferred the former new state of things to this new new one. Say what you will about an unholy beast, at least it felt pastoral.
Curious, she slid upright and put her feet on the floor, finding her slippers in the same place they were every morning. She stretched and yawned, stood and rubbed her eyes, and ambled. These things, alert or not, were nonnegotiable on behalf of her body and she, being of an age, had decided against striking in order to demand a better deal.
When she arrived in the living room, she found Steve at the window, fully dressed, drinking something hot, and staring into the distance. He turned as she creaked in, and moved to make her a cup of her own. Mint tea, turned out, and she marveled at the freshness of it as she moved to the window to see if she might share. She might.
There was a hole in the woods ahead of them. Where once they had looked out over nothing but their lawn stretching to a line of trees that extended back to the road, now they could see a pockmarked wasteland that stretched into the great beyond. Debris still hung in the air from its creation. She did not appreciate it and, looking at Steve, was quite certain he did not either.
“The fuck?” She asked.
“Dunno,” he replied, sipping his tea. “It was woods and then it wasn’t. Guessing the transition woke you.” She nodded and leaned her head on his shoulder. He winced and she removed it, glancing to see if there was anything obvious someone with access needed to do. The dressing seemed fine, as far as she could tell. It wasn’t oozing out through his shirt or anything at least.
“How is it?” She asked.
“Shit,” he replied. She nodded and looked out the window. The haze had begun to settle.
“Why are you awake?” She asked.
“Shoulder hurt,” he replied, sipping his tea with a placidity either half of their cow might be induced to jealousy over.
“Where’s the dog?”
“I’d just let him out.”
“And?”
Steve shrugged. Damn it, Sheila thought. Today might, conceivably, be worse than yeaterday. That had not been the plan when she’d blown the guy’s head off. The plan had been that that would stop the slide. We still don’t know what this is, she told herself. Maybe this used to be a mine field and we’ve just been lucky so far and now we just have a nice, clear vista and our very own…battlefield recreation. Maybe that’s all this is. She regripped her tea, dropped a forceful nod, and decided to
commit to that idea as hard as she was physically able.
“Probably just… old mines,” she said aloud. Steve looked at her, infinte questions on his face. She looked ahead, defiant.
“I should go look for him,” Steve said, and, setting his tea down, walked outside.
What, we wonder, would you do in this situation? As Steve or Sheila, take your pick, because they’re both absolutely fucked and in a way it’s completely the other’s fault. This may all seem a bit capricious and arbitrary- why even ask you, you’re not them. And yet we ask you to consider the larger implications of these people’s actions.
Committing to the bit is admirable. There’s a lot to be said for it and quite often it in itself will get you through unscathed. But consider the stakes. There’s a difference between telling the new member of your friend circle that Dave is a concert pianist and gambling with your existence after you may have murdered a member of a militia that was specifically seeking you.
And being loyal is fantastic, but blind loyalty has a different name and sycophancy is how you wind up hoping your dog didn’t end up part of the post-bombing detritus and that your partner is somehow, against all odds, right that you’ve been living next to a field of land mines that have only now and coincidentally gone off.
And that’s all wrapped up in sunk costs anyway, because the likelihood of survival plummeted with the onset of dawn and the decisions made prior to it. So we return to the riddle: yes, perhaps Steve and Sheila are not showing the requisite urgency in your eyes but remember the circumstances, the entrenched lead-in to all of this, and then answer the question ‘What would you do?’
Because we think it’s ‘Walk outside and look for your dog’.
Sheila watched Steve amble across the dusty grass. He leaned down to pick something up and a surge of rage coursed through her. He straightened up, holding a large branch, and she realized her fist was clenched. Dumb to get that worked up over a land-mined branch, she thought, clinging and quite aware. Steve crouched and she caught her breath. Then, frustrated at reacting to every movement with absolutely zero context, she walked to the door, put on a coat that could have belonged to anyone and didn’t fit her properly, and marched outside.
The dog sat, stone and attention, so close to the door that she almost tripped over it while stepping through. Fucking thing. Fucking Steve. I better go look for the dog but then find it immediately and afterwards wander forward looking wistful. She kept going, following Steve, who continued to crouch and look through the gap in the trees. Probably thinking about all the wood we’ve lost, she said, intending to be sarcastic but realizing afterwards that it could well be true. It was a lot of wood. Then again, there was a lot of it around. She scanned the vista and realized that essentially all the green she could see was undergirded by timber and came around to the conclusion that if Steve was doing that then he was an idiot. A few steps later she pulled up and stopped beside him.
“There’s a lot of wood gone now.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Huh?” He looked up at her, mild surprise in his face, which she found annoying.
“You’re an idiot. Look how much wood there still is.” He turned.
“Lot of people down there, staring up at us… through all the missing wood,” he said, and she followed his gaze down the slope, where she now noticed the mass of similarly-dressed, be-trucker-hatted, bearded, and denimed individuals standing at the bottom. One of them was holding a small box with wires running out of it, the rest of them appeared to be holding weapons of differing persuasions, and all of them were holding their gaze at more or less the precise spot where Steve and Sheila perched.
“The guns!” She whispered, and turned to run back into the house. Steve grabbed her wrist, and she stopped in time to see him realized he’d done it with his left arm and wince.
“I’m not sure,” he said, panting a little, “That that’s a good idea this time. Or that it was a good idea the first time.” Sheila, furious, ripped her arm away.
“So, what is a good idea then? Just letting them come up here like that?” She pointed, and to be fair to all involved it was at a considerably valid threat.
“I’m not sure,” Steve said. “I just think the trunk isn’t one.”
“Well until you come up with something I’m going to get a gun.”
“And then they’re going to firebomb us with nanodrones.”
“What?”
“It’s just-“
“That part’s coming anyway,” Rob said, stepping out of the undisturbed woodline to their right. The dog bounded up to him and Sheila’s spatial awareness rebelled at all the sudden changes. Anger kicked in, if for no other reason than thar her soul demanded a reaction and could find no other in its frenzied reach. She was offended that all these people and a dog had intruded so egregiously on her space and time.
“The fuck are any of you talking about?” Rob, taking care to remain between the trees and the people below, stepped forward until he was on plane with Steve and Sheila. When he stopped, the dog stopped, and sat staring in the direction of the dangerous hillbillies that had blown up the now-empty patch of oxygen generation.
“You have to run,” he said quietly. Sheila had to strain to listen. Steve looked down at the ground and kicked a clump of dirt. “You might get away. But there’s no more staying and alive.”
