Lemons

Her little hands squeezed the lemons as hard as she could. She could barely get a drop out. “Maybe I'm not strong enough?” She thought to herself and turned to look at the door. Always looking at the door. Waiting ⎼hoping for someone⎼ her mother to come home. But it had been too many days and even though her heart was still broken she had already cried out all of her tears. Even so, she never stopped longing to see her. Wishing she'd open the door, yet no one came. She had eaten all of the crackers and much of the jam that was left in the cupboards. There was still a rather large box of dried raisins and some other items. Being left alone eating snacks left her feeling drained even though she wasn't hungry. She had seen a lot over the past few years. And it seemed to catch up to her. For the last few months she had been having night terrors. And ever so often her hands would tremble. She never knew why.

Today was a bright sunny day. Sunlight poured into the window while she worked. But for her there could never be enough light to quell the darkness she saw with her eyes. A bright day was just as gloomy as a grey day pitched overhead warding off joy. She cut as many lemons as she thought she needed to make some lemonade. It was her first time making it. She never thought it could be so hard. The water tasted funny, but if she added lemons she might be able to drink more of it, after all there were many lemons on many trees outside. Most were still too high for her to grab, but some hung low enough and others she could pick up off the ground. After failing to squeeze enough drops of juice from the dry lemons she gives up on the process and dumps them in instead. Gives it a nice shake and whirl and then leaves out the door she had been glaring at.

Immediately the sun had caught her eyes. She hooded her eyes and gazed about. The earth was dry and there was a little grass. Dirt mostly, and all of these trees lined up in rows. But even she knew that there had not been enough rain. Luckily the hose still worked and she watered some of the trees. The ones she could reach with the hose anyway. But not knowing much about how to take care of trees, let alone a fruit bearing ones, she did not know how much to water them. All she could remember was her mother’s flower garden; bright and colorful. That’s all she knew. So, she spared the tree from watering it too much. And instead watered them too little. She proceeded to grab the hose and pull it with what might she had left and turned the hose on. Watered each tree for about 90 seconds. Before she watered them for 60, but because of her dry lemons she gave them extra time. After her watering she pulled the hose back to the house and this time let it lay. She had been hearing strange things sometimes off in the distance. And would spend hours on the brick wall entrance looking out. She was far away from all of the violence in the cities. As she sat she would sometimes remember the chaos. The people screaming and clamoring to get into stores. And the punctuated blasts, booms and crowds running. People falling over her dad's car scurrying to get away. She remembered the car bouncing higher than she liked. She didn't like what she thought was happening. But she couldn't gather herself to ask her father anything. Especially since his face was very strained. She never knew what happened to him. She woke up one morning and her mother was now driving and her father was not in the car. After seeing some many people die, even before these events, she seemed to not want to hear or inquire about another. Not even her father's. And her mother never uttered a word about it. The world literally seemed to have gone mad, like in the movies. But death smells in real life and people's screams are different. And sick people are slaughtered and not cared for. She now hated movies. If she ever had a chance to see them again that is.

There was no power so even if she wanted to pass the time with some form of entertainment she couldn't. And playing alone lost its appeal very quickly. So, she sat at the gate looking out as far as she could see and she would listen. And in the wind she could hear things sometimes, like the wind was carrying what was going on from the rest of the world across the plain to her ears. Sometimes there were screams and other times explosions and every now and then a low inaudible conversation. Those made her perk up the most. but they often ended in a deep disturbing silence, like their life was snuffed out in the middle of it. Being alone, granted her too much time to think so when she was tired of hearing the voices in the wind and the ones she granted herself she would curl up in bed and sleep. One night she was woken up by her typical night terror and ran downstairs panting. Looking around opening cupboards and the oven door any door as if she were letting the imprisoned free. She laid back down shortly after and fell back to sleep. When she came too a second time she had not remembered how she had gotten there. And seeing all of the cabinets and doors open she was puzzled and thought someone was in the house. She ran outside a few yards to get a good look at the house. But as she was checking for intruders a light deep in the distance was flashing. It was red then blue then it went dark and came back again white and blue and red. She ran over to the brick wall at the entrance and looked over. Observing the patterns she could not discern anything. But looked back at the house remembering there might be someone lurking about. When she turned back to the light display it flashed a heavy white. and went black again. She could feel something coming. And a strong gust of wind pushed her back onto her butt in the dirt. And for a few moments air whipped about and a thunderous sound roared in her ears. And before she could recover her senses the lights in the house were all on. She could even hear some of the appliances active from outside. She was hesitant, but heard a voice, “It’s alright.” At least she thought she heard a voice. It was gone as quickly as she thought it spoke. Still, entering after all of this was too much. She didn't feel safe. But shortly after she felt a drop of water on her hand and then another. It began to rain and heavily. She rushed inside already soaking wet and immediately began turning off the noisy appliances. Until she got to her phone. It was lit with a full battery. She tried picking it up but her hands began shaking again and she dropped it. "Damn it!" She exclaimed. reaching over to pick up the phone more carefully this time. It wasn't broken. And there were many messages pouring in. It kept dinging over and over again. Before she could open the messaging app a video window appeared on the screen and a suited man she did not know was sitting at a desk. He had some papers in his hands and he looked hard at the camera and started to speak. "We have been saved." A short pause and he continued. "An intelligence of some kind has saved us from total destruction. We know we are not alone..." His mouth continued to speak but went silent. And several tall flashes of light flickered next to him. and then the room seemed to be distrubed by a strong wind with papers flying everywhere and the man trying to get up. He seemed to be reaching for something and suddenly the transmission ended. "Saved..." The girl said to herself. She remembered the messages and tried to get the screen back to normal but the frozen video wouldn't recede. "My mother." she said contemplatively. "She left me this phone. Those must be her messages." She grabbed some of the leftover dry goods and placed them on the counter. She looked at the raisins and made a face, like it would be the last thing she would eat. But there were a few cans of corn, a can of beans, and a few bags of potato chips. She gathered some extra clothes and stuffed them in her backpack. She walked over to the wall just behind the door and grabbed a set of keys hanging. She had to untangle a necklace that was wrapped around the keys. At the end was a heart shaped locket. She opened it and inside was a picture of her mother and father. One face on each side. She began to cry. Her emotions weighed on her until she was kneeling on the floor. She felt like she was going to implode from the pain. She missed them so much and she was so lonely. Whenever she tried to get to her feet her emotions would weaken her resolve as the tears flooded out with sighs and cries and with trembling hands she wiped them away. Eventually, the strain of pain that visited her lessened. At least enough for her to forge out in hope of meeting her mother again. She put what food items she could fit in the bag, grabbed the bags of chips and walked out the door carefully placing her cell phone in her pocket. She didn't even bother to turn off the lights and walked off the property through the brick gate and down toward the light show she had seen. She was both frightened and apprehensive, but she thought she needed to know if her mother was still alive.

***

"What's this? Another one."

"Yes, it looks....oh no, this ones a child."

"These bastards just suck us dry, even the children! Look at her, the poor thing. Damn. Damn it!"

"Sir. examining the body, it looks like they left some blood in her. She's not dry."

"A girl huh? Get her into the truck and start the cybortization. Give her the nanoX type."

"Sir?"

"Don't stare, just do what the fuck I tell you."

"Yes, sir."

"Take her belongings and see if we can find any info about who she was. The brain accepts the programming easier if we can make the objectives relatable."

"Sir, we have a bag full of clothes, she must have been traveling... and we have a cell phone." The woman soldier held the cell phone strangely in her hands. Her commanding officer seemed to be giving her orders, but she could not hear them. "Ally!...My Allly." She cried softly as a single tear traversed her cheek. "Stop the program! This girl...is, she's my daughter!"

"I am sorry Corporal, but we are at war for our survival. Every last dead body we can recover needs to be filled with Anti-sangre Dipthrobile for those greedy vampire bastards to feed on. I am sorry. I hope we will be able to recover our humanity. One day...if we ever had such a thing."

She looked sadly at her daughter as they reconstituted her body. Walking up to caress her face tears streamed down hers. And without warning Ally’s eyes met her mother’s. And without knowing how or why she heard the word “Lemons”, as if Ally spoke them.