counter, folded the sack neatly and put it in one of the cupboards along with a stack just like it, shut the cupboard door, sat down at the kitchen table, put her head down on her arms, and proceeded to sob. Hunter’s small hand reached out, paused for a moment above his mother’s mousy, drooping locks, and withdrew. He knew that she needed to fall within for a while.
It was always the same, day after day after day, at least during the week. The weekend afternoons were spent at the community center or the church, each of which were experiencing rapidly-dwindling populations as the war machine cranked into full production. It stripped away entire demographics at a time. First, the young men had gone, then the young women, then layers of society in increasingly-older strata were sent to the stars to fight a war that no one truly understood.
Hunter walked to the living room, in shadows as it was, faint bands of grayish light falling on the floor and somehow dying there, coughing little last breaths on the plain charcoal utility of the carpet. He sat in one of those bands of light, not bothering to turn on the radio or the television. Both technologies had for the most part been abandoned, and they were much too poor to upgrade to silver.
The sobs of Helen Windham were not loud anymore; she had lost her passion long ago, about the time of the Birth. When things fell apart, when the orders had finally come through and the one man she had ever loved was sent to the stars to fight a war for a creature at the center of the planet... She had broken.
Each day it was an exquisite agony to walk by the compound, to see that horrid little girl and her angel staring at them through the fence. Each day she wanted to throw herself against the shield that she knew surrounded the compound and end her life, but she was always brought back to reality by the feel of the little hand in her own, the hand of the little boy who was now her only friend and family left. So she always dragged him past that awful place, and she knew that sometimes the little girl waved at her son, and she knew that sometimes her son waved back. It broke her heart to see that interaction, but she knew that the little girl probably had no idea that she was the last child born of humanity, and that it was her fault that the world was dying.
Hunter sat cross-legged on the floor, leaned to one side to see down the hallway, where his mother still sat in the kitchen, face now covered by weary hands. He pulled his one prized possession from underneath the couch: Honeybear Brown, tattered and one-eyed and abused by five years of love. Hunter knew that he was now the man of the family, had been for a year now, but he just couldn’t give up Honeybear. He grasped the stuffed animal tightly and rocked back, forth, back, finding more comfort in that mindless act than he had been offered from his mother in the year since Papa left.
He heard it in the sky then, another transport, shot into the sky from the same giant trebuchet tube across the ocean that had launched his father off to war. The sonic boom came, shook the picture frame on the wall, set the heavy curtains to swaying at the window, causing the lines of light to shift, leaving him in darkness and then light, darkness and then light. Mommy began sobbing again in the kitchen. There were always reminders, always something to bring those emotions back to the fragile, raw surface.
Hunter Windham held Honeybear as tightly as he could, and wondered when he would be called off to war.
Don’t cry, Mommy. Don’t—
—cry, Lily. Please don’t cry.”
The child was shaking in her embrace, and there was absolutely nothing that the angel who was Nan could do about it. She had known for years that this day would come, that finally Lily would leave this compound forever and ascend to her future. Mr. Pierce sat across the table from her, looking around the room, trying to find something interesting upon which to fix his
It was always the same, day after day after day, at least during the week. The weekend afternoons were spent at the community center or the church, each of which were experiencing rapidly-dwindling populations as the war machine cranked into full production. It stripped away entire demographics at a time. First, the young men had gone, then the young women, then layers of society in increasingly-older strata were sent to the stars to fight a war that no one truly understood.
Hunter walked to the living room, in shadows as it was, faint bands of grayish light falling on the floor and somehow dying there, coughing little last breaths on the plain charcoal utility of the carpet. He sat in one of those bands of light, not bothering to turn on the radio or the television. Both technologies had for the most part been abandoned, and they were much too poor to upgrade to silver.
The sobs of Helen Windham were not loud anymore; she had lost her passion long ago, about the time of the Birth. When things fell apart, when the orders had finally come through and the one man she had ever loved was sent to the stars to fight a war for a creature at the center of the planet... She had broken.
Each day it was an exquisite agony to walk by the compound, to see that horrid little girl and her angel staring at them through the fence. Each day she wanted to throw herself against the shield that she knew surrounded the compound and end her life, but she was always brought back to reality by the feel of the little hand in her own, the hand of the little boy who was now her only friend and family left. So she always dragged him past that awful place, and she knew that sometimes the little girl waved at her son, and she knew that sometimes her son waved back. It broke her heart to see that interaction, but she knew that the little girl probably had no idea that she was the last child born of humanity, and that it was her fault that the world was dying.
Hunter sat cross-legged on the floor, leaned to one side to see down the hallway, where his mother still sat in the kitchen, face now covered by weary hands. He pulled his one prized possession from underneath the couch: Honeybear Brown, tattered and one-eyed and abused by five years of love. Hunter knew that he was now the man of the family, had been for a year now, but he just couldn’t give up Honeybear. He grasped the stuffed animal tightly and rocked back, forth, back, finding more comfort in that mindless act than he had been offered from his mother in the year since Papa left.
He heard it in the sky then, another transport, shot into the sky from the same giant trebuchet tube across the ocean that had launched his father off to war. The sonic boom came, shook the picture frame on the wall, set the heavy curtains to swaying at the window, causing the lines of light to shift, leaving him in darkness and then light, darkness and then light. Mommy began sobbing again in the kitchen. There were always reminders, always something to bring those emotions back to the fragile, raw surface.
Hunter Windham held Honeybear as tightly as he could, and wondered when he would be called off to war.
Don’t cry, Mommy. Don’t—
—cry, Lily. Please don’t cry.”
The child was shaking in her embrace, and there was absolutely nothing that the angel who was Nan could do about it. She had known for years that this day would come, that finally Lily would leave this compound forever and ascend to her future. Mr. Pierce sat across the table from her, looking around the room, trying to find something interesting upon which to fix his
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