World War 4: Sticks and Stones

Ben

On the day of the shooting, I had gone out with Eliza to explore some unpopulated tunnels. Dad used to wonder where I was going and I would tell him, but as soon as he stopped asking, I stopped letting him know that he was leaving. There was such a broken look in his eyes that I could not bear. I loved my dad with my whole world, but I could tell that my stoic nature confused him and it broke my heart to see him confused. Eliza and I turned the corner to hear "Bang!" "Get behind the couch!" I yelled to Eliza. She seemed to not hear me for a second and then it clicked. She did what could only be described as a barrel roll that landed her behind the couch. I had an urge to go face to face with the shooter in bravery, but I knew that sort of bravery was in vain, so I barreled towards the couch that Eliza was populating and I put my entire mass around her as best as I could. This, I knew, would not be in vain. In that very moment, I thought that I was in love and then I realized my age and felt embarrassed for thinking so. In one split second of chaos, I saw my dad take down the shooter. I came out from my hiding spot in a pit of boiling rage. "Give me the gun, dad." I would have let him take the shot if I did not see the weakness in his stature. Somehow thinking that he was all high and mighty, he replied, "No. You will be nothing more than him if you kill him." For a second, I mistook his internal conflict as lunacy. I knew that we were savages. I could not even fathom how he didn't realize it. Almost as if it was my duty, I replied. "We already are nothing more than him." This line was not meant to be a gut punch, but rather to be stated as fact. He for some reason did not see it as so and he became numb with emotion just long enough for me to rip the gun out of his hands and to stare a killer in the face. I did not hesitate to pull the trigger. There was no ammo. My father seemed relieved, while I felt more frustration than I thought that anyone had seen in lifetimes. My father had him imprisoned. The only thing since the incident that my father and I agreed on was that we still needed guns. However, even Rosemary voted for their removal and our opinions were void. 

Now that I was no longer staring death in the face, I took a second to appreciate Eliza. She was beautiful of course, but I had fallen for her kindness. She was undoubtedly broken from the war, but she maintained composure and not only that, she spoke as if she were a poet. She was twelve years old. While to me that felt like an age that stood millennia away, I was still able to appreciate her young wisdom. I wondered if she loved me. Then, I wondered if there was any use for love in our dystopia. If we were to grow and to have children together, the child might be taken and eaten. The thought horrified me, so I stopped thinking about it. Then she walked over to me. "Are you okay dude?" I took a second to process what "okay" meant here. "Yeah, I guess I am. I don't know if it's wrong, but I wish I could have killed him." "There was no reason to. All of us are distressed and broken. That guy just gave in to it. You might know that we're savages in your heart, but that's no reason to act like we are." I took a second to try to understand her reasoning. As much as I loved hearing her soothing, comforting voice, her sentiments often made me angry and perplexed. I could not understand. "He was going to shoot you though." "There was no ammo. He couldn't have killed me if he tried." While this was a fact, it was not comforting. I imagined what it would have been like for me to watch somebody pull the trigger to an empty gun in front of Eliza. I concluded that I would have been traumatized. I sat in silence, sitting now on the couch that we had hid behind. I was slightly distanced from Eliza. After a couple of minutes, she offered her hand to hold. I took it. She scooched closer. I did the same. We were no longer distanced. I was confused as to how she could continue to smell so wonderful after all this time. I then realized that I did not continue to smell wonderful. I blurted out, "I smell bad" and I jumped out of the couch. Without hesitating, she grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. We again shared silence. However, this was not a silence of despair, but rather a silence of contentment that I had not felt in years. 

After our silence, we got up and walked each other back to our rooms. When Eliza got to her room, she found the lifeless, hole-filled body of her brother who was the only other survivor from her family. She told me through soft sobs that she knew that he didn't make it. I decided that she needed some company, so without consulting my dad, I decided to stay with her. I didn't want to move her brother from her bed, so I suggested that I would sleep on the floor and she would take her own bed. Instead, she insisted the opposite. I found myself in the comfort of the bed as she sat on the floor. On one hand, I was happy to have found myself in a bed that smelled like her, but on the other, I hated that she was on the floor. During the night, I heard her soft sobs continue. I understood. She had just lost her brother. At her anguish, I also began to cry. I did everything in my power to stop myself, to remain stoic how I thought that I was supposed to, but I could not. After only about a minute, I got up from the bed and laid down next to Eliza on the floor. She looked over to me and through her sorrow, for even just a moment, she smiled. She had the most beautiful smile that I had ever seen. Her teeth, yellowed by the circumstances, glistened at me as if they were singing a song. I listened to the melody and became swept up in it. Emotions that I didn't even know existed started to wash over me. I was overwhelmed, emasculated, open. Her smile took me to a memory of home. I heard my mom call for dinner. It was my favorite food: chicken French. I sat there at the table, hungry. I had to do everything in my power not to devour it all at once. I gave in and started to eat. When I opened my eyes I found my lips on hers. I tasted every flavor. I found the sourness of sherry and lemon juice. The sweetness of sugar, the faint spiciness of black pepper. But above all, in the most overwhelming of flavors, I tasted peace.

I woke up on the floor. She was there next to me. She asked me if I would like to help her prepare a funeral for her brother. I agreed. While there was nowhere that we could bury him, we found a box just barely big enough to put him in to say our last goodbyes. I barely knew her brother, but even then, we both found ourselves sobbing during our little procession. In the afternoon about a week later, I heard the faint purr of a megaphone. I heard a siren come from it. I decided that the news would probably be important if they were using a megaphone to deliver it. I grabbed Eliza's attention and headed towards the source of the noise. eventually, we finally started hearing sentences rather than just sirens. "Folks. I have some news." this was my dad's voice, which piqued my interest even more. I listened intently. "Society's" and then there was a pause filled by light sighing heard through the megaphone. "Society's dead. We lost. I'm sorry." He seemed very distraught by a fact that all of us already knew. Even if society was habitable outside in some parts of America, our area was covered in radiation. Still, I felt for the guy. As a part of the council, he had too much on his plate. I immediately felt regret as I realized that I had not checked up on him in over a week. For all he knew, I could be dead. He fell to his knees in defeat as he began to weep. He wept not as a man, but as an infant. He screamed in terror through each available breath. I felt as though I could not console a man this broken, so I began to leave, but Eliza was already rushing to his aid, so as to not disappoint her, I went to him as well. I don't recall exactly what she said to my father, but I do recall that it, once again was poetry. After a minute of putting her gentle hand on my father's shoulder, she helped him to his feet. He stood triumphantly for a second until he fell once more in a daze. I was for a second frustrated at my father's lack of strength, but then I realized that he was not crying, for he was not breathing at all. "Medic! God please I need a medic!" A man who seemed to know what he was doing rushed to my aid and started compressions on his chest. We didn't have an AED, the medic told me, so if compressions didn't work, he was gone. And so he was. 

My heart burst wide open at the thought of losing my father. He was all that I had left, even if I had abandoned him. But only for a moment did I feel sad. Seconds after a wave of sadness came a wave of anger. I should have been there. I realized that I had abandoned him not because he was too weak, but because I was. These were not thoughts that I wanted to have as a ten year old child, but my brain and my heart gave me no choice. I punched myself hard in the thigh to the point that Eliza had to hold me back. I was bloody and bruised and angry and fatherless. I now knew what my father felt. The ghost of his broken emotions possessed me as if it were my birthright. I had to exorcise the ghost from my body by holding Eliza in my arms. I could not be alone if I had her. I made the choice to abandon my father, now I must go on as if it were the right choice. After all, it was my duty to remain stoic. 

We went back to our room. She rubbed my shoulder. "Ya know, it's okay to cry sometimes." I didn't respond. I sat there emotionless. I turned my bright red head towards her. I told her that I didn't want to hear her voice right now, that I wanted her next to me, but that I wanted silence. She understood. After about half-an-hour of silence I finally spoke. "What now?" I said. She seemed taken aback for only a second and then responded. "I guess we live long enough for our lineage to survive." She was right. Again, I didn't respond because I didn't want to admit that I wouldn't be able to be the hero.  Instead, I leaned on her shoulder and felt her warmth and smelled her skin that still smelled as luxurious as hope. I pulled my head off of her shoulder for just a moment to kiss her on the cheek. I leaned back to rest on her shoulder once more, but on the descent she grabbed my face and kissed my lips. The euphoria felt everlasting. Quietly she whispered, "I love you." I felt faint, dizzy. I had an unbearable headache of a certain pain that I had never felt before. I realized that that pain was actually joy, so I welcomed it. I asked her why she loved me. I did not care why she loved me as much as I wanted to hear her beautiful poetry. she spoke almost as if she had a response planned. "I love you because you came to me with hope even after losing everything. You came to me embracing your childness and your delicateness and in such a way that cared that I would not lose mine. I love you because your mind wanders into the stars and becomes unaware of reality. You are a dreamer, Ben. I cannot thank you enough. I cannot love you enough." At her voice, my eyes were open, but I could not see. It was only me and the moment. I latched on to her in a type of hug that I had felt only once before. I had become who I was supposed to be for the first time since the beginning: a child. I knew right then that there was no one else for me. In a quite lackluster manner, rather than explain my feelings, I simply held on to her warmth and whispered, "I love you too."