Only a Memory

A camera is all I carry.

A thing of art is only a thing of burden.

There hadn't been time to grab anything else.

We hadn't stopped for three weeks.

And now we is only I…

I don't know what possessed me to grab the stupid thing.

I would have smashed it against the charred remains of the land days ago, but I still hold it loosely.

It's mine, but I should have grabbed a loaf of bread.

I might not be I if I had grabbed anything else…

The camera has its own cadence as we walk, and I cannot help but feel that it is doing it on purpose.

I don't know where we are, but there is something familiar about the landscape.

Though, for as long as we had been walking, nothing seems to have altered.

I could have walked in endless circles and I would have been none the wiser.

Nothing remains the same, but this landscape is never changing.

The sky was stained sooty grey; always shadowed--never broken despite the suns best efforts.

It was desperate to pierce the clouds.

Like a mother seeking their lost child.

I don't know why I say so.

I close my eyes to the treacherous clouds and imagine the sun on my face.

It was summer not long ago.

It still is, I think.

I can feel the warmth in my mind, but it is stolen by my next step.

I shake my head.

There are so many things I would say to the sun if I could see it.

Now that there is none, I miss the blazing heat of the humid summer.

I would profess my love for her, and the moon, the stars, the Earth...

Oh well.

It's not like the stars can answer.

It's not like the sun can listen..

It's not like the Earth can speak…

Maybe it did once.

Maybe we should have listened.

Maybe...

Now there isn't even a breeze to make the silence bearable.

I'm going to die out here.

It's sobering, but not unexpected.

There is nothing else living.

I wonder if it will be the fumes or starvation that kills me.

Or thirst, I rub my hand over my throat.

There had been a river two days back that I had drank from, but the waters only made me sick.

I hadn't been able to take any with me, and I hadn't found anything since.

I remember my last meal.

I think I do, at least...

Always just when I think I can taste the wine on my tongue, all I am greeted with is ash.

I'd give anything to taste again.

But all I seem to be able to give is one foot in front of the other, and that has gotten me nothing.

There are no roads anymore. No quaint houses along the paths that led to nowhere.

No power lines, fences, or horses.

Only the jagged, sprawling hills of ash.

What beauty there used to be.

Now the thought of a wildflower brings a tear to my eye.

I will never see one again.

I will never see anything again.

The days had been colder than ever for summer.

Is it still summer?

I'm not dead yet, so I'll assume so.

How am I still living?

I don't know.

I asked the wind once.

But I haven't felt a breeze since then, and it's been days at least...

I may never feel the wind again.

I can't bring myself to care.

Steam rises off of the bogs.

I don't know what created the sickly yellow fog, but it glowed.

So faintly, to taunt the vision. Illusions to cause mis-step.

This may have been a marshland at one point. I can almost hear the bullfrogs and the herons.

I'd be lucky to make it out alive now.

There had been no one else to hear stories of these lands from--no survivors to tell horrible tales.

But I can see them in my mind.

The screams. Desperate, and falling on the silent mockery of the barren waste.

Maybe there is nobody else.

I've seen nothing to prove otherwise.

I can't remember the last time I spoke.

I don't know if I can bring myself to try.

I don't know if I can at all.

Hunger.

I now know the meaning of the word.

It aches so hollowly that I feel I am made of glass.

One misstep and I will shatter.

Such fate might be merciful.

There is nothing to eat.

Nothing to forage.

Nothing to catch.

And the cleanest water I can find will not sustain me for much longer.

Just the thought of it makes me retch.

If only the air would kill me.

It looks like it might rain…

As I've said for the past three days.

I know it will not.

But there is nothing else to hope for.

Even if the rain were acid it would be merciful.

Death would be merciful.

I could have let myself drown in the marshes.

I'm sure I wouldn't be the first.

Certainly not the last.

But I can't.

I won't.

But I can't think of that now, because if I do, I will cry.

I suppose it doesn't matter.

There's no one to hear, regardless.

I can no longer stand, so I fall.

For a while, I don't want to move.

I don't think I can.

There's no point in trying.

I'm going to die here.

It's been so long…

Hasn't it?

My camera strap is still on my wrist.

I hope it isn't broken.

Why?

There is something just out of my reach.

I can't bring my eyes to focus.

I inhale deeply, painfully.

And drag myself closer.

I can't feel my fingers.

But I bring my hand closer, closed tightly on a handful of mud and soot.

I don't remember having the energy to sit up, but I propped myself heavily on a pile of steaming mud.

Ash poofed around me, but it quickly settled.

And for a moment, I closed my eyes.

It is grey out.

And the world is cast in hazy white.

It is fog, or surely I am dying.

I hope that I am.

I know that I am.

My camera rests in my lap and, though I can't raise my head to see, my hand is still clenched around the mud.

My arm is heavier than anything I have ever lifted, and I have to rest it on my chest.

I can't breathe.

So it rests in my lap with my camera.

I muster what strength I have, and sit up.

My skull must have been shattered.

Everything is made of lead, and nausea strangles me though I have only my stomach left to heave.

Maybe it will get caught in my throat and choke me.

I'd use my own intestines as a noose.

But there's nothing to hang myself from.

A laugh escapes me, and the silence that follows is enough to sap away whatever dregs of my soul remain.

The sound echoed numbly in my mind.

It still does.

And it will haunt me long after I am dead.

The mud takes a moment to slide off my hand.

It's a locket.

I pull it stiffly out of the mud. The chain is tangled beyond fixing, but the locket remains clasped.

I cannot make out the details of it. I have not seen clearly for…

I cannot remember how long.

But the longer I stare at it, the longer I cannot resist.

It takes a moment of fidgeting with the clasp to open it, and when I do, I have to bring it very close to see clearly.

Now that I have it before me, the locket--which I thought to have been shaped like a teardrop--opened into a heart shape with two neatly placed photos.

There is a man on one side, and a woman on the other. It looks as if the photos were part of one, as they were looking at each other.

For a moment I think they are lovers, but the locket is not overtly romantic, and the mischievous glimmer in the woman's eye could have easily made them siblings.

For a moment, my vision fades from the locket and I am alone in the wasteland.

And I let myself cry..

At one point I screamed.

So loudly that the dead earth trembled.

And then I silently wept.

When I look back at the locket, the man and woman are still smiling. They look kind.

I wonder who they are.

Then I wonder who took the photo.

I wish I could know them.

But now they were nothing more than memories.

Someone else's memories.

At least they may be remembered.

I cannot help the tears that flow from me, but I am glad for them.

My strength is waning.

My life is fading.

I feel light as I pick up my camera and wipe the lens.

I am amazed it has any charge left.

5%

I take a photo of the locket, and hold it up to the sun. Then I take a photo of the man and woman before closing the locket again.

It is getting dark…

No.

My eyes are growing heavy.

I hold the camera out and point it at myself.

And I allow myself to smile.

After the camera clicks, I fall back into the mud.

It's as if I'm in slow motion.

It is a broken smile, I'm sure.

Cracked, hollow, and cold...

And then I realize that I have forgotten what I look like.

I know what I looked like.

Healthy... Happy…

I can only imagine what I look like now.

But I will settle for the brighter memories of happier times.

I do not have the strength to let the locket go, nor my camera.

So we lay there and watched the poisonous clouds fight the sun.

Maybe there are more survivors… I think, a final moment of clarity.

And if there is, at least they will know me with a smile.