The Wisdom of Men

I’ve never known the world the way it is in books. What was it like when so few people died that they had celebrations and buried them in the ground? Did they just dig a big hole and shove ‘em in there? As the oldest man alive, I know my turn is coming soon. I’ll be another bag of bones rotting wherever I perish. But at twelve years old, I wish I had as much of a chance as the dead did before my time. As far as I know, it’s just me and my little brother. My mom left a week ago and we haven’t seen her since. She told me the story of the end of organized civilization often, so I’d always be alert to danger.

Fifty years before I was born, a huge army of cybercriminals threatened to set every animal on the planet loose unless the zookeepers agreed to have them transported back to their natural habitats. When their threats weren’t taken seriously, they fulfilled their promise. They couldn’t stop them. Angry lions ran from their enclosures. The workers were overwhelmed and could barely get tranquilizers ready before they were taken down by the beasts they kept locked up. After the zoo animals, they started letting people’s pets loose from their yards. It was chaos. Mom said even when the lions had full bellies the elephants trampled people in the streets. Gates and fences were for zombie movies. Animals that were free for the first time knew no boundaries. People who dared to go outside feared the walk to their car. Those who made it to their car often didn’t make it home. The snake population got so out of hand that rats became endangered. Rapid diet changes were confusing for the animals who had such a limited diet before. They began cannibalizing each other when they couldn’t get to humans, and humans began cannibalizing when they got too desperate for just a morsel of food. You can’t trust anyone.

At one point people stopped moving bodies. The predators smelled the blood on them, and it made them vulnerable to attacks. When I was born, there were 500 of us left. Maybe there are more people somewhere, but I don’t know. I just know I have to take care of Gabriel the best I can. He stays inside while I go hunting. Sometimes I get lucky, and we find carcasses of animals just picked at. Sometimes I have to go further into town and catch something myself. Today was a town day.

I stepped into our beat-up Jeep and noticed something hanging from the rearview mirror. It was our family’s locket. A bubbly heart shaped case draped around a cheap chain doesn’t look like much, but inside is the chance at instant freedom. Mom kept three cyanide pills. She told us if we were ever hunted down by man or animal that we should take them before we fell prey. Opening it, I realized the case now had two pills. Mom had planned on leaving us.

With tears running down my face I cranked the vehicle and started to drive. The neighborhood tiger watched lazily from a porch down the street. Raja hadn’t ever bothered us, and we didn’t bother him. I decided to find suburbs to raid cupboards. We lived in what was once a poor part of town, when poor was still a thing. Finding food was hard because if no animals were around, we had to go into houses with no idea what could be behind the door. I went with mom because I was the oldest. Gabriel spent a lot of time alone. He always had access to food from what we brought home and salt cured. Mom had wanted to take her last venture out alone. She said I needed to play with Gabriel and that he was lonely. Like I said, you can’t trust anyone, not even your own family.

A few dogs ran up to the car and jumped at it as I drove past. They looked thin and hungry. This was normally a sign that there wasn’t much prey around. Since the dogs were still alive in their weakened state, there must not be too many predators either. I noted the turns I had taken since I left home and pulled into the driveway of a large home with broken windows. Looking around carefully, I stepped out and walked to the front door. I was unsurprised that it was unlocked. What was surprising was the smell. Freshly decomposing bodies of two men were right in the foyer. They were about two years younger than me. Their internal organs were completely carved out, as if with a knife. I knew I needed to leave but there were multiple cans of beans on the countertop, and I couldn’t bring myself to go home empty-handed. Grabbing the cans, I ran back to the Jeep. It took three attempts to start, but I was fortunate it did. A large man of about my age ran from the top of the stairs towards the vehicle. I peeled out in the wrong direction to throw him off having any sense of directions back to my house. I had encountered my first cannibal. The cans had to have been bait.

Gabriel was grateful for the beans and scarfed his ration down quickly. I didn’t tell him what I had seen, but I brought the locket inside and explained what the “magic pills” were and that we could only take them if we were caught. He agreed. Gabriel hated medicine anyway. The only kind he’d ever had was expired cough syrup stolen from abandoned drug stores.

“Bubba, when is Mommy coming back?” Gabriel had puppy dog eyes and I didn’t have the heart to tell him she was gone. “Gabie, it doesn’t matter. All we need is each other. Remember when Dad passed away? We were fine then, and we’re fine now.” I thought back to when Mom found out she was pregnant with Gabriel. I was so angry. How irresponsible could you be to bring another child into a world like this? But now, I realized how bad we needed him. Gabriel was everything good in the world. I had to protect him with all that I had in me. Soon he would be a man, too. I just wasn’t ready to face that.

I could see from outside the window that the man from earlier had found our Jeep. He made it about three houses down before Raja got him. With full bellies and nothing to fear, we slept peacefully. The world’s problems could wait until tomorrow.