Fringe

His mama had raised him on the outskirts of humanity. She had told him many times about the hurts she had suffered from the people that she had known. That’s why they had been safe the day the earthshake, the Big One, the Quake of All Quakes had finally happened. They had been looking for reclaimed treasures at the West Contra Costa Sanitary Landfill when the first little tremors hit, but nothing really prepared them for the Big One when it happened.

He had been little, his mama had said everyday how proud she was of her little man. Even at 7 years old he was smart and just knew when he saw things that could be turned from trash into treasure. His mama called him Jaysen, and she was the center of his world.

When the earthshake happened, everything changed. It was kind of like the lights had been turned out, but they never turned back on. His mama said that they had fallen into the crack in the world, and that they would just make the most of it, because really, you couldn’t count on anyone to save you. He guessed that was true, because he had been here a long time, both with mama, and more recently, all by himself; he hadn’t seen any other people since mama’s spirit had gone to the Ever After.

Light was a Very Important Thing to Jaysen. When you live in near total darkness, even though your other senses got better, it just wasn’t the same. There were many times he struggled to keep the Rules. Only use the Light when you are foraging or reading mama said. The rest of the time, be a part of the world you live in. Jaysen got scared sometimes though, and when he was scared, the Light somehow made it all better. For this reason, he was very good at reading. If reading gave him Light, he would be the best reader ever.

You would be surprised how many books found their way to the bottom of the crack, and he was proud of his library. Whenever he foraged, he was glad to find food, but his heart skipped a beat when he found a new book.

This was the way of his life on the day he found the little black book.

His mama’s part of their sleeping space had always been a place he just didn’t go to. She had always told him that privacy was a human right, because he loved her; he never went into her private space. She had left him to go to the Ever After though. He had agonized over whether it would still break the rule to go into her private space for so long that hair was growing on his chin before he decided it was time to clean out her space.

That was when he found the Little Black Book. The book was hidden beneath the bed that mama had slept on until she went to Ever After. When he saw it, his heart did that familiar double thump. Hidden with the book were a lot of green papers with numbers and the faces of people that he had never seen. That wasn’t really saying much though. While he knew that there were probably other people somewhere, the only face he really remembered was mama’s.

Gleefully, he took his new treasures into the fire room, and carefully lit one of the Lights from the fire pit. With awe verging on reverence, he looked at the little black book. It didn’t have a colorful cover like the rest of his books. It was just a slightly shiny cover that was a bit scuffed, and almost felt like the skin around mama’s eyes. The little creases around mama’s eyes were what she had called her laugh lines. She told him that when you laughed hard enough for long enough, your face gave you those to help you hold on to the memories of the good times. While he hadn’t had a whole lot of reasons to laugh and store good memories since mama left, he checked his face everyday to see if he had been gifted. One day, he hoped to have beautiful laugh lines just like mama’s. Hoping that maybe this book would give him a reason to laugh, he opened the cover.

The first thing he saw was his name. Written by his mama, it simply said, “For my dearest son Jaysen. Even in the darkness, you are my light”. He took a moment just to breathe as his heart clenched tightly within his chest. As he read the pages she had written, he paused frequently to clear tear filmed eyes.

The little black book was filled with memories. When she knew that it was close to time for her to leave to go to the Ever After, she had started writing down everything she thought would help him to survive and help him remember how much she loved him. Enclosed in those pages, was her last messages to him.

He took his time reading the book. Many pages were stories of things they had done together, like the first time he had found his own mushroom foods. One page was a drawing she had made of the two of them. In the drawing she was teaching him how to fish. A couple of the pages were maps of the places they had explored while foraging. One page was a letter she had written to him to remind him that she would always love him, watch over him, and be near. That one had brought precious tears from his eyes, because he missed her so very much. On the final page, she told him that she was sorry she had had to leave him before she could get him back to the Upper World. She explained that she had been scared to try when he was little, and that when she had gotten sick, she knew she wouldn’t make it. She told him that as bad as the Upper World had sometimes been to her, the sun, and flowers, and even some of the people made. It worth the pain. Lastly, she wrote that it was time for him to leave this place and get back to the Upper World.

Jaysen was both excited and scared, but what mama said was what he did. That was in the Rules, too. She had told him what to pack to bring with him on his journey, and had told him to make sure to bring the green papers, too. She called them “money” and said they would help him on his journey. Although she never said how they would help him, they smelled just like her, so he probably would have taken them anyway. As he packed, one of the green monies fell into the fire. He tried to grab it out quickly, but before he could snag it, it erupted into flames. It burned really well, and as it did, the smell of his mama became stronger before fading away.

There were a lot of these papers, and as Jaysen packed them, he decided that mama must have made these for him so he could carry her with him on his journey. He decided then and there that he would limit himself to only burning five of them each cycle. He hoped they would last until he made it into the Light. He would always follow mama’s Rules...even if she was only there in smell and spirit.