Remembrance
The rumble of gunfire in the damaged dark hauled Georgia from her sleep and dropped her into a disturbance. She shook in horror at the dilapidated buildings, the decrepit town, her destructed world. She silently shook her gaunt family, who lay beside her disorderly in the dirt, screaming for a response from their limp bodies.
Georgia jolted back into consciousness, with a sickening feeling in her stomach. ‘How many times will I have this same dream?’ she thought.
She sat up in her worn clothes and listened to the distant birds. She pushed her fingers into the dirt and felt the wet grass between her fingers. Lemon coloured light burst through the clouds and hung over her, overpowering the distant horizon.
Jack was staring at her worryingly. She tried to be nonchalant.
“’You okay?” Georgia asked him, leaning back on one arm.
“You were twitching and talking in your sleep,” he said.
“It’s just bad dreams. I’m sure you get them too,” Georgia replied, trying to brush it off like it was nothing.
But the memories of that particular day had tortured her nightly since she’d been taken. She remembered that day all too vividly. Over time, nausea had worsened, the tremors, the stereophonic screams. They had already exiled their country, and dispensed people via interment trains, disposing of the evidence. And now, they were all that was left; them and the “uppers”.
“Sometimes I relive the day I was taken, over and over,” he said quietly and reached to rest his hand on her leg.
“Sympathy doesn’t suit you,” Georgia snapped.
This was not the time to be bonding over our unfortunate situations, especially when neither of them had eaten or spoke to anyone other than each other for days.
“We still need to find a town. That’s our best option.” He clasped his palm with Georgia’s and pulled her up to a stand. He walked away from her, beginning to plot their path, knowing she would willingly follow this time.
Jack’s steps slowed down while he relived the memory of being pulled from his beloved home and family. He concealed his upset by wiping the evidence away with a dirty sleeve. There was no point in inviting her to snap at him again. Georgia peered at him, and he awaited grief. But instead, she held back from her usual sarcastic commentary, knowing he needed to break out some emotion privately. Pretending not to have seen him cry, they continued toward the cottage.
The area itself could have once been beautiful, containing large trees that used to grow fruit, now as grey and bleak as any other in the decaying world. It was a vast dullness, shaped by decades of destitution. It was odd to think that the government feared lowers, as scattered, divided and leaderless as they were. Surely, they deemed them incapable of revolt. How they portrayed such a sense of anarchy while maintaining a level of order was remarkable.
The pair found the smell of the cottage before the building itself. Death’s hot odour had become as much a part of the building as the four walls and roof that formed it. It seeped between, behind, and under everything. Deaths of lowers had been increasing and they supposed it was only a matter of time before they came across lowers who’d been attacked in their own homes. And they further supposed it was only a matter of time until it affected them too. Still, they huddled inside quickly, as it nonetheless provided refuge from the icy breath of night. They soon came across the bodies, two large and one of around four feet, which had been positioned at their family dinner table as though they’d died naturally, but the bullet holes in their faces triggered no questions. Suddenly, the cottage resembled more of a casket, than a safe-haven. Rug sacks sat slumped beside the table legs, where the family had bundled their scarce belongings of a now-alien world and had clearly planned to get away. Georgia’s spine rattled with trauma.
“It would have been incredibly dangerous, Georgia, especially with a child. They’d have had to run from uppers, from and criminals.”
“I know, I know,” Georgia replied. “They’d have died either way, but it doesn’t make it feel any better.”
Jack started to rummage through the rug sacks, as well as the close-by cupboards.
Georgia was outraged.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“We need food”
“They’re dead, Jack.” She paused and looked around their home. “They were like us.”
“And we will be too if we don’t feed ourselves.” He looked over at the bodies, now soul-less mounds of spoiled flesh. “…I don’t think they’ll miss any of it.”
Georgia nodded reluctantly but didn’t assist in scavenging. She instead watched Jack coldly as he stuffed several tins of food, bags of bread and blankets into the available rug sacks.
No comments:
Post a Comment