Live To Death
I unclipped my Walkman, pressed the open button, pulled my cassette tape out, flipped it over, and reinserted it to play Side A. Without a certain destination, I stumbled outside, and I walked.
And I walked. And... I... walked.
“Be Kind.”
I read the road. Was I a pioneer child? With all the walking? Cuz phooey on that garbage.
Nope. “Keep going!” Grrrr!
Then I flipped my cassette.
Again. One side after another.
Time after time.
Flip. Play. Flip. Play.
Walk. Walk. Walk.
Walk. Some. More.
“I Love BRAINy People!” The road was getting weird. Had a Zombi written that old message, in spray paint? “Can a Zombi even write?”
My Color Guard ‘Toasty Tunes’ played, songs of what used to be real, back home. What used to be relevant. Before going away to college. Huh, college. Not the only new thing. A new town, a new state, a new populace. Even a new habitat.
High feckin desert.
And that other new thing.
An entire Zombi A-pop-collapse.
Fall-awk-alaugh.
Snarl-attack.
ZombpocOlips.
There. Nailed it.
I continued the walking. Staggering. Whatever. Both. Until I just couldn’t. Slumping down to asphalt, which I had wished to do for hours, days- what felt like forever- I felt the heat of it deep into my jeans. My skin. I was terribly low, in posture, yeh, but also my glucose felt dangerous. But in truth- would it matter so much?
I lifted my left hand, palm out, shaky, slowly wrapped my thumb in to my palm, and tapped my other fingers down to touch it. Then back up and back down, signing my distress. Hoping someone would see it. Understand me. Help.
I sighed out a crackly breath from my too dry mouth. Body. Feeling oh so very close to not caring anymore. Just letting go. Quitting trying.
It could be so easy.
Yet…
Ugh. I rose, standing, tilting, but upright.
“Be Brave!”
Reading the road as it greeted me.
Seemingly. I glanced around me, there was no one else. Not even anyone staggering nearby.
“We Make A Great Pear!”
“Whaa?”
Why was the road trying so hard to cheer me onward? And flirt…? And why was it doing it in vibrant chalks? Or was it spray paint? I bent over to rub my finger through a large flourished letter.
I unbent, slowly, stiff and so terribly achey. My finger was covered in a dusty residue. Vivid pear-green. Like a yummy, juicy pear that I wished I could eat so badly I nearly licked my finger.
But it wasn’t juice.
Or even an apple.
Or delicious apple juice.
Like a juice boss. Or a jug.
Wait.
Something was wrong.
So horribly wrong.
Feeling frustrated, abandoned and still alone, no matter what the toad said, I walked it in a weaving path, uncertain where I was meant to arrive. Road. Said. Not toad. I couldn’t go back to where I had been. That place...
That gone was home. Ergh. Uhhh, what I meant to say was- that home... was gone.
But I had no where else...
“Don’t give up!”
Nowhere else to go.
“Keep Trying!”
Then... where was I trying to arrive?
“I believe in YOU!”
Trying so hard to get to?
What really awaited me up the molten hill of a deserted neighborhood which, when the light faded, would be cloaked beneath a deep, dark sky?
Death.
That’s what.
“Sades-“
“Yeah?”
“Keep walking.”
“Why? What does it even matter? I could stop here and just live to death.”
“Huh? Live to death? That isn’t a thing. But come on! It matters. You. Matter. Keep Walking.”
“Why does it matter?”
“It has always mattered.“
“I-“
“You have always mattered.”
“It feels differently now. Nothing matters anymore. No one matters.
“You matter. Even if you talk to yourself, far too much.”
“Well-“
“Yes?”
“Who are you to judge?”
“Uhhhh...”
“Yeah? What?”
“You got me there.”
“I knew I would.”
“But-“
“Uh huh?”
“We have to walk to tether ourselves to now. To here. To what matters.”
“What matters? I am alone. I am lonely. I am almost gone. No one will notice. There is absolutely no one... to notice.”
“I will notice.”
“Sure. Sure you will, but you’ve forgotten one thing?”
“What’s that?”
“I am you!”
“Oh...right.”
“I think we need to find shelter, water and a big ole snack. Maybe some chips… Sades?!”
“Shhh! Quiet, will you?” I peered toward the hill at the top of the street. As Depeche Mode played in my ears, seeming way too slow from my memory of it filling the air while my toes danced over cool blades of a distant, grassy paradise, some... thing moved in my peripheral. Not a rabbit. Not a coyote. Not an airplane. “Hmm.” I could see a two foot wide, white dome moving closer. “Something’s coming!”
“I think it’s a tiny building.” I claimed, feeling quite certain.
“Keep quiet you.”
“Well that’s not gonna happen.”
“Oh, right. Well then- get ready to run.”
“I don’t run run. I only jazz-run!” I felt I needed reminding.
“Look, listen to me. This is imperative. Are you listening?”
“Always. Always am.”
“Color guard can’t save us now.”
“But-“
“We don’t even have a flag or a sabre! It’s just our hands and feet and our eyeballs here on this sad, dry wasteland of a neighborhood full of homes which are much too big! And built on basically sand!”
I gulped dry throat and sandy tongue, hoping for some spit. “No one is coming to save us.”
“Right. Got it.”
“But that tiny building might try to hurt us.”
“So, what do we do, Sades?”
“We do what we always do.”
“Which is?”
“We stand our ground. We don’t feckin FADE!”
“Right. Okay. No fading.”
“Until it’s our choice. Not the white dome’s choice.”
“Yeah, never theirs.”
“Here we go, it’s getting closer.”
“I love you, Sades.”
“I know.”
“Did you seriously just Star Wars me?”
“I have a really bad feeling about this. Okay?”
“Wow. And again. I feel like I hardly know you.”
“Maybe you never did. Besides, at least I only pre-dissed you. Before they got hold of our stars from far, farther away and the wars in them. They is punks.”
Blink. Blink. “True. Oh my! The tiny white dome is sprouting legs. That’s strange. Buildings don’t usually walk. Do they, Sades?”
“No. Hardly ever.”
“Never.”
I shrugged, mystified. “Probably never. That I know.”
“Hmph. I feel like... just maybe,”
“Yeah? Go on?” I quietly urged myself.
“That maybe... I don’t know anything.”
