A Life for a Life

Yesterday, I talked a man down from a bridge. I wish I could say it was the first time. Deep down I knew it wouldn't be my last, and with all my heart, I wish I could say I was more successful in those moments. I approached each with hesitancy, asking the same question, hands drawn high, "May I sit with you?" His name was Bill, and he silently gestured an open palm to his side.

He answered my basic queries, his age, where he was from. The rest he showed no interest in through a distant stoicism. I prodded the distressed man. I chipped away at his defenses, even got a smile to crack. After a few hours, he thanked me for showing him kindness—first he'd experienced in a long while—and stepped down. He asked about me, my past. Normally, I ended the conversation here with a smile and a wave. Except that morning, I was at the precipice of achieving my life's goal. A mission that had me see no purpose other than my obsession for its end for decades. A yearning to spill myself took me. So, to Bill, I told my life's story.

I started where it began, back when I was a child. The breaking news bulletins streamed constantly across the bottom of every news channel, even the ones who had previously made money off denying the situation. “We're past the point of no return.” I can still recall the simmering frenzy. Wild eyes everywhere you went, frantic. The air was electric, and it seemed the slightest unchecked spark would ignite a volatile chain reaction. Which, it inevitably did.

They said the first uninhabitable states would be anything below Utah, and my family was a stone's throw away from the Mexican border. At this time, the military still held power and made my childhood home a war zone. Some finally got the closed border they always voted for. Along with the blood of a country desperately fleeing the unstoppable.

We traveled, upwards, me and my parents. From my mother's advice we avoided cities, and it kept us alive. There was no controlling those pushing north, not even in the wilds. But the cities, they were hellscapes that turned themselves over to those willing to do anything to survive. Frightening how quickly law and order dissolves once it's up against a world undone.

The spires of mostly abandoned metropolises silhouetted against prismatic sunsets were fantastical from afar, for a while. It didn’t take long for what was this new world to become the new normal. I had witnessed many as we moved from one stable settlement to another. Always staying on the outskirts. Always ducking our heads at the passing folk until my father confirmed they were friendly, or the way was safe. We did this past my adolescence, steadily working our way north.

See, every single road was now watched, or guarded by locals, but mostly raided. It was not easy weaving our way through the countryside, especially during the ever-elongating summer months. We had to use most of a year to scavenge for food, especially water. Wait until new winter when the weather was temperate enough to also move during the day.

I had seen hardships during these times, sure. But my parents were a shield from the new world. I didn't realize how good they actually were at protecting me until I faced it alone, many years later. Back then, I genuinely thought we were going to make it to the north. It became a reoccurring daydream of legend. I imagined a utopia of people, the world as it once was. I had an aching nostalgia for it but was too young to realize it was gone forever.

Of course, things out in the wilds don't ever go as planned. Injuries and illness will force desperation. My mother took to the latter. Brave she was, begging my father not to take us near that place in Colorado. Most of the new towns on the bottom half of the country built themselves upon the old. They made their own rules, their own attempts at government. Lawless wasn't the word, but it wasn't far off. Outsiders weren't always greeted kindly, much more examined for usefulness, resources, or simply disposed of.

The young man who spotted us creeping closer appeared barely eighteen, and new to his post. My father explained my mother's dire medical needs. I can still hear the cracking voice of the kid-playing-outlaw as he ordered us around. The click of the bolt on his gun. My father was a strong man, quicker than he appeared. At one point in his life, he would've grabbed his slender wrist, wrestled the gun away. The years had weathered the man. What was once as effortless as muscle memory became a struggle.

The gun went off. A single, echoing shot. I don't know if my father heard my cries for him, my pleading before he drifted on. The teenager cursed at himself, at my father. He kept screaming "Why didn't you just listen?!" His pistol aimed to my mother.

"Give me everything you have!" he demanded.

"We have nothing, we're roadies,” my mom had squeezed out through her illness.

Then he caught the glint of the golden, heart-shaped locket around her neck. An heirloom, passed down from each woman of her family. The last relic of our old life. He ripped it off. "I have to bring something back. I'm not killing women or kids, no matter what they say." This felt to me like he was in the middle of a moral debate with himself, rather than talking to us. He turned away, "Go and never come back. They'll have heard the shot. You'll have to leave him."

So, we did.

We left my father, most likely to be burned in a pile of other bodies. A nameless face to them. An entire world to us. My mother worsened overtime. Talked a lot then about cancer running in her family, how it took them all eventually. She made me promise her I would head for the northern border after she left and swear an oath on the road. "Never, ever let this world change who you are.” A day after her command—half-a-year from my father—she was gone.

The closer I came to my destination, the more the stories grew about the north. Functional governments, thriving communities, citizens working for the collective. When I made it—alone—I found in reality it was all just another barricade to keep the world below from the one above. Turns out, people tried flooding into Canada at the start of it all, too. Our former allies did as we did to those below us. It wasn't until places like Washington, Northern Idaho, Montana, most of the boundary states, all united to become a front, and Canada funded the war effort.

I wanted no part of being forced into a military uniform, into a fake call-of-duty, to slaughter my own countrymen who simply sought a better life. Even if it meant a ticket into Canada and beyond. I failed to keep my mother's last wish of survival. I didn’t even bury my father. I repeated these failures for years that somehow, some way, my parents would have found a way through. All of us living peacefully off the undying northern lands. Fond memories contorted into anguish. It festered. My dream life was stolen from me, and I craved justice in a world absent of it.

I traveled south.

Years it took me to get north, years it took to go back. When navigating nature and humans, one is unavoidable. With patience, though, I could steer clear from the worst of the two. When I made it back to the settlement in Colorado, asking about a man with a heart-shaped locket, no one had heard of him. No one except a rundown barkeep, behind a rundown bar. Said he once knew a man by my description; a face carved into my memory. He left long ago, toward Utah, apparently. Mountains upon mountains between me and him, which meant plenty of small villages strewn throughout, surviving in the dwindling snowcaps. Said he most likely holed himself up, that I'd never find him. I endured many summers, but I succeeded.

Which brings me to yesterday, back with Bill. At this point he interrupted my story. With a heavy hand, he pointed between two mountains. "His name is Jacob, and as you know he lives right up there." Bill stood, as did I. He squared himself to me, “I can tell there's no stopping you. I'm too old to try. Just know that man has done no wrong to no one 'round here."

The hike split the two peaks, twisting up the north end of one. Easily spotted traps along the trail hindered my progress a bit, but nothing I hadn't seen on the road a thousand times. I smelled the fire before I saw the smoke pluming from the cabin's chimney. Like a hawk, I waited close outside in the brush to listen for any movement. Nearly half-an-hour, nothing. Until a recognizable, methodical shuffle was followed by incoherent mumbles. With light, nearly silent steps, I crept through the door. And there he was. Napping deeply on an old, tattered couch. My rage boiled. Decades worth. How could he just sleep so peacefully after his transgressions? How could he just ignore his past?!

Even in his slumber he recognized the distinct pull and click of a cocking revolver. He jolted upright. A true survivor, he reached for a desk next to him through reflex, but my barrel between his eyes snatched his attention.

He examined me at length, "I guess you're not here to rob me."

"Settlement outside Colorado Springs, there was a man with a wife...and a kid."

He bowed his head, "I know who you are. Suppose I had this comin'." From under his shirt, the locket dangled, "Please, will you walk me into the woods? Far from here?"

"You think I'm stupi—"

A soft voice from far down the trail hit us both, "Daddy! Daddy! We're home and we brought your favorite!"

His eyes welled. "Please," he whispered low, "we can go out through the back, just not here. Please?"

"Why would you bring a kid into this world?!" I hissed.

"We found her! Just, please!"

My jaw ached. My gun hand trembled, "Give me the locket." He did so promptly. "You have ten minutes. Go out, send them away, say your goodbyes, and meet me out back. Or I'm coming back in."

Jacob swallowed hard. He wiped his eyes, "Thank you."

After it all, I stumbled in a daze on the hike back down, reflecting my life's mistakes. I found myself peering over at a familiar sight. I teetered from the edge of the nearby bridge, over the dried, barren riverbed, where the rocks were no longer eroded by water but with wind and sand. A single step away to my journey's end. Finally. And of course, there strolled up Bill.

"I figured I'd find you back here. So, it's done?"

I remained fixated on the jagged boulders below.

"I see you got your locket. You mind?" He reached for the little heart and unlatched it. His face turned to confusion. "I don't recognize..."

"You wouldn't. He never replaced the photos." A gust whirled up dirt that stuck to my wet cheeks.

"Hmm. And Jacob?" He asked.

"I imagine he's eating dinner with his family right about now."

Relief escaped on Bill's exhale, "May I sit with you?"

I gestured an open palm to my side as I slumped down, "I'm so tired, Bill."

He clasped the locket around my neck, "You know, you were wrong. About your story yesterday. You said you failed her, your Ma." His arm fell around my shoulder, and I leaned into him. "Well, not today."