I found something...

This future that I imagined as a child no longer exists even in a daydream.The pages were slogged together in and around the locket. I recognized other pages scattered on the floor. Probably torn to make it smaller more easily portable. I had time to kill and needed to start a small fire, I managed to lite it and set the pages out so I could peel them away, why? Because as I write this with the knowledge that I will leave it behind for the other wondering souls who pass through here, I find hopefulness in these precious written memories. It allows me to believe that there is hope to find like-minded and devoted people. Nothing is perfect. Because we as humans are not perfect. These supply runs/rescue missions are my hope for the future. I'll get back to this before I leave. I have managed to pull apart the 20 odd pages. I am taking this locket for what it meant to Ann. I will give excerpts and a summary at the same time. This a true love story, meaning she blathers on for five pages about how the perfect date included lunch by a lake near one of the power plants. How she took her shoes off to walk in the grass. I wonder what that would feel like. To have fresh-cut grass underfoot not that we, as a species can't get back there, but hey what ya gonna do. I think I am gonna stay here for a bit. May add two days to my trip but bedding down in a still-standing house with a bed is more appealing than a sleeping bag and survival covering in the rain. Plus, the last thing anyone needs now is an issue with some sort of sickness. I am also staying because I owe Ann to re-document the story of this necklace. I know I came off harsh, but from what I can make out of it between the missing words and overlapping text it seems Ann believed this locket was magical. She believed that this locket showed up only when true love was afoot. I am a Sherlock Holmes girl. I found a copy that I lost when I fell in the river, that is a whole different barrel of fish, maybe at my next stop, I will let that one out. This world that I wander through needs magic. The magic of hope. Which even though it is double-bladed is still a powerful thing. So there's the date and Ann "wanted sign from the universe." I wonder if that's like me looking at the birds to decided if I need to take shelter from the weather. Some of the stuff she talks about seems so out of place, but the world was different. Ann states that after lunch she took the time to talk to a little boy who was fascinated with her dog. She said the man she was with "blew her mind" and "his calmness comforted her". I am not sure what she means, I find comfort in a bed that doesn't smell like mold. Apparently, Ann had a rough 10 years, from what I can make out, with relationships. I have never had the time or the interest. I love going book hunting, probably the same reason I leave these in every house I stay in. But, I digress. She had an "awesome sauce," date. Not sure what that means, I know what awesome means but the sauce thing, that is probably Ann's thing. The locket was the man's gift to her the day they moved into a new place together. It is a little fuzzy here and I am improvising some of it. Blurred ink only takes the telling into supposition. After the date, she went with him the next week to a flea market, and it was a second-hand stall that she found the locket. She found it and was drawn into the cuts in the silver, how it opened and allowed a tiny picture inside. She claimed in one sentence that, "she couldn't stop thinking about how or why someone would give it up. When she was talking to the old gentleman who had it for sale he said, " The woman I had this made for left this earth a while ago, I have held onto it hoping to pass it along. It was made out of love, now I know it's time for me to go, so I came here looking to find someone who is in love." The rest is blurry, but I can see why Ann believed in its magic. Especially if what the old man told her was true. The last part I can make out about it, that when disaster struck she lost her love. She was only planning on taking the essentials, which from what I have been told was more like pills and booze, from the few older people I have run across. No one has given a crap about art when the survival of the next and day and night are in question. Maybe too, I am hoping that my coming across this in some wayward cabin will lead me to love. But, that is only a hope. I should really continue on about Ann. She seems like a pretty special lady. This stuff was at least ten yrs old. So that would have put me at 4-5. I don't remember the real beginnings. I do remember the running. The crowds. The panic. No one knew what to do. Then one day I was left behind. Lucky for me, cause a few weeks later I ran across the bodies of the parents who decided they would have a better chance without me. Lucky back then I had my dog. Ann doesn't seem the type to do that. Most do it, now. I have come across so many little corpses in the two years since I joined this group. I realized that it makes sense in this cruel world. Yet, it will never make it okay. Ann, seems like she moved heaven and earth to try to keep things together. The pages that have dried, also show signs of blood. Which means either she was killed by an animal or human. Not that it matters. There are no bones which makes me wonder if this was brought with her stolen stuff and it fell out or wasn't considered valuable. I remember watching money burn in a fire pit with the adults saying that back in the before times that had never seen that much money at one time. My, imagined senerio, has more to with attacked on the road. Ann, had to have some talent to last the first couple of months. I have been told those were the worst. Going from totally connected to not even being able to pickup radio signals. What a change. Anyway, so suddenly everything is shut off anything with a computer and this society was barely on it's feet from a pandemic. How catoic it must have been. Great masses of people with only their neighbors and immediate vacinity having constant contact. Campers and preppers being inendated with requests for help. I have listened to the elders, most say unless you had some sense there was 100% mortality rate with that. The amazing amounts of ways to die are astounding. Oh, I should probably tell you at one point I also had a statistics book that gave the percentages on the ways people died. It made for some interesting reading. So, back to it, she was attacked one because she was a woman, and two she had something someone wanted. Out of three people you see, two will be okay, and out of three you see there were probably about 20. In this after time we learned to be exetentual weary. So she is attacked and she died, they bring the stuff here and it falls outta the bags they were searching. I need to say Ann must have been pretty amazing, the doodles on the paper are intricate. Plus the way she uses so much time describing their first date. I wonder what that feels like, not just the grass thing I mentioned earlier. I am talking about having a table where someone else is cooking and someone else is cleaning and the only things required is basically paper. My mind gets blown whenever I think about it. There is no food catching, no idea of the seasons. I love going through grocery stores. Letting my imagination run wild. Plus to have one person who chose you out others not just because your available, now sadly sometimes that is the best you can do. To have options. Totally mind-blowing.I can also tell you from the writing she liked to live in her head. I lived with an English teacher for a while she taught me how to write. When I am calm and relaxed the writing is always beautiful. Not, like hers of course, she could equally write fast, full of emotion, and it would still be beautiful. Mine, well, when my feelings are involved and I have strong feelings it is a hot mess. I know in my gut Belinda and Ann would have been great friends. Ann, well she believed no matter what there was always a silver lining. I know this because taking the time to wrap the necklace with it's silver heart charm in some ripped out pages and rolled together for space is a hard yet hopeful thing to do. There has to be hope even when being desperate. Belinda was like that. At first I stuck with her cause I was little and she gave me food. She called me Stray. I didn't know what that meant at the time. As she slowly won my trust and I started to become curious about why she was always with a book. She was my first teacher and friend. Ann, well she will be my friend from beyond. Why because she has reminded me that magic is more about faith than actual circumstances. So even now I sit in a room with no broken windows and no leaky roof, where if I hadn't found the locket I would be scrambling to locate shelter. With no holes in the walls, I am protected. Just as Belinda protected me. So I have made a friend and with the help of my literary teacher I hope to do Ann justice by saying she is my friend. Being that means that I see her with red hair, like mine. I believe she was fisty till her last breath was drawn. I pray whoever finds this understands that I know magic is real. I have read about it. The lights, the cold boxes, things I see all the time, but they are dead. No life to them. I envy the world Ann came from that I know existed but I don't remember. Yet, we will share the magic of this locket. The magic of love. I see the night recideing through the skylight. I have to get going. But, before I leave, I tell you love is what brought me here. It was and is what is driving us forward, not just as spieces but as independent individuals too. So if this is ever found by some. Know that you are the magic. But, I am digressing...I choose Ann to be my friend because although I called her bathering about how she went on for five pages. I can tell you could feel her love for him. She talks about the touch of his hand as they ate. The way she was torn between going to get her phone for pictures and just enjoying it. She chose to embrace the moment. Left the phone alone and they pointed the different clouds out to one another. She talks about how the cloud had lightning within it. That must have been a sight because she talked about the sun shining off the water. I felt that with my imagination I could almost touch the moment. The way Belinda thought her how to see the words, to associate with pictures. How even now I pay attention to words. She said this out loud. Drawing her eyes to the window. She waited. Turning off her small flash light. "Damn" she thought or said. If asked she could not know or said. Once her eyes ajusted to the dark. She moved quietly to the window. Somewhere to the right she thought she saw a light. But then it went dark. Her heartbeat is all she registered. Putting her arms up and regulating her breathing brought her a state of calm. Once she calmed she toned into he house and listened. She heard the creaking of the floorboards. The eves sighing. The wind swaying the trees. She waited. Sudden an adult on the eardrums. Living by herself in the road she became early on very adept at tuning her senses outward. She knew what she heard was a either an animal, but in head she had already started to rewind the tapes in her memory, no there was no evidence of an animal in here. Part of the reason she chose this place. So, she does what any decent supply runner does when things get dicey it's time to bounce like Belinda used to say to her. She forgot the journal she grabbed her bag and was out of the door and slowly but silently working her way down the hallway. Moving painfully slow she heal- toed it back to the sliding glass doors. She is about to slide it open when simultaneously two things happened. One was a bird hit the door and a cat jumped out of the closet. She almost shot the cat and broke the door in her fear. Once again she had to wait for her heartbeat to stop hammering in her head, and after she was able to reassure her uneasiness. And making sure she now had two points of egress. She sat back down. "I feel twenty years older." She thinks as she picks up the pen and paper. If your reading this you too must wonder about things especially since you must read cursive. I find it, ironic that the Constitution is written in Cursive, from I have been told. Belinda told me that the use of cursive began to die out as phones took over. Everything was emojis. Some sort of pictures. This amuses me because we went from drawing pictures on cave walls to keeping vast tomes of knowledge printed on paper, having a library at the disposal and go back to essential pictures. Seems like a backward slide. She could feel the distain in the looks Belinda cast about the room when she spoke of it. She smiled absentmindedly no one and nothing. Then she heard something on the porch she almost thought it was the cat, when the little shit softly mewed from the bed. She knew she was no longer alone. She grabbed her weapon, everything else slipped away and what remained seemed to move in slow motion. At least this time she had her nerves under control. She unconsciously avoided every noise going down the hall. She was behind the door as it swung open. She waited for the thing to enter the room and basically pistol-whipped him. "Fuck!!! Who! What are you?" Did she say bending toward him? It jumped too soon, almost like her hitting it knocked it off balance. She was happy to know it was a guy, not some of the wildlife that has bred itself into existence. He was attempting to stand up. She went to knock him down again. "Wait!" He said lifting his hands. I know you're alone. Chill!" She went instinctively to hit him again when he blurted, My name is Dorian, at least I think it is. Most people just call me Dork." She said nothing, strategically and deciding whether or not to just knock him out and take anything of value and leave. "I was sent to find you. The merger between the coops has been approved and we are supposed to have a rep from each side so everything is above board." Still barely an eyebrow raise. She still held her baton at the ready. "If what he says is true", she scrunched up her face. " When was this decided?" she quietly whispered. "It's been a few weeks back!" "Plus, you're hard to track." He quietly said the last part. "Okay, any new parameters on the mission? How much more supplies will we need to find. I have the only scratch the surface of this area. Have they sent others to what I gave them already?" Stopping abruptly peering at him. "Well, you see, I am to bring you back. Or send you back. It's up to me. You are wanted back for the move." "Before you bite my face off, I just finished doing it and it sucked but it was worth it." Before, she could say anything he pulled out an envelope. "This is yours." Instantly she knew who had written this letter. She was confused and heartbroken all over. She turned away opening the letter. In perfect handwriting, it said, " I have already left you. I am buried where I asked. You have fulfilled your commitment as a daughter. It is time to move on. I have sent this the long way around. The person who had this has kept it for a while. He promised to wait until the sting has left and sweetness has been ushered in. The universe never turns against us. Nor does it neglect us. It is time to move on. Let it all go. The land island. It will do what land does. Know I will love you from the vail as much as I loved you in life. Without realizing it, she had brought the paper up to her nose, even after all these years she could smell the perfume on it. The one, in all her scavenger, hunts she has never found. She had no idea how long she stood there, mute and lost in memories. Some she considered cringe-worthy some heartwarming and some heartbreaking. The smell of cooking food brought her back around. She finally looked at this "Dork, huh?" She grunted, "So what are you doing here besides digging up ghosts." She tried to sound non-bitchy and it was a total failure. She rolled her eyes at herself. As she sat down, her mouth watered. She reached in her backpack and pulled out a soda. "Is that why they call you Pepsi?" He asked in an over-eager way. "It was because that was the first cursive word I learned how to write, back before I lost her." I said this waving the envelope to emphasize. "They gave me a map of the area that you had taken, it has been quite a job keeping up with you, do your job very well, with minimal trace." I just looked at his face over the fire. Suddenly, I understood what Ann meant by the magic of the locket. Maybe or conceivably I have been eating all my life to meet a Mr. Right Now. I will pass this all on later. I will pass through these walls again. I promise it to Belinda and Ann. Right now, I am more concerned about how much magic is in this little locket has left in it. If I was guided here. That letter from Belinda sat sewn in an extra piece of cloth in a plastic bag over her heart. It gave her peace and "I will be damned if I will let this piece of her vanish." She said to her reflection. With Dork making grunting noises indicating his impatience. I winked at myself. With a bounce in my step, giving much more than I intended. He grabbed for my hand and we walked out. With the other, I sent a prayer out to both Ann and Belinda, thanking them for the tangible proof that love conquers all.I