We Have to Eat

We Have to Eat

It was still the four of us when we came to the Settlement. We hadn’t found anything naturally edible in the months since the Blast. There was nothing left—no animals, no vegetation, nothing. We fed ourselves on the increasingly scarce canned and packaged foodstuffs we found wandering around from one abandoned town to another. The last day I saw my mother and younger brother, we hadn’t eaten in almost five days, the longest we’d ever gone.

The Settlement was and is an abandoned, burned out old town the Group calls home. It’s not exactly a high-class suburban community, what with the constant smell of burned flesh and the raining ash that never ceases. But on the brighter side of things--if there even is one of those anymore-- it provides shelter from the wind and lightning storms, it’s a hollow reflection of the way things used to be, and, according to Andrew, it was as good a place as any to start over.

Andrew is the Group’s founder and leader, and the first day I met him was the first day we came to the town. My mother had been quiet all morning, and my father was rigid. His face was hard, his jaw was clenched, and something—I didn’t know what-- had gone from his eyes. Andrew came to meet us in the road. He looked at us suspiciously, even warily, though I didn’t know why. We had nothing but ourselves, our thin, emaciated bodies propped up by the wind, and he was surrounded by four men with big guns. My father spoke first.

“I was wondering if you’d be willing to make a deal,” he said.

“Depends on the deal,” replied Andrew, as he eyed us all in turn. He looked on my mother and brother seemingly dispassionately, yet his lip slightly curled. I realized then that they both seemed much thinner and weaker than my father and me. When Andrew’s eyes came to me, his interest perked, and he studied me for a long, unpleasant moment.

“Is there anywhere we can talk in private?” my father interrupted. Though his body was tense, more liable to break than to bend, his voice was shaking.

Andrew nodded. He turned to walk back into one of the buildings. My father looked at my mother, his eyes suddenly pleading, willing her own to meet them. But she wouldn’t.

“There’s no other way,” she answered, staring at the nothing in front of her. Standing there, she looked like a much older woman. Her voice was cracked and harsh as if she had spent most of her life with a cigarette between her lips. This was not my beautiful, caring mother, who had filled our home with laughter, who had somehow managed a smile through all the chaos. No, this was not my mother-- I had never seen this woman.

My father turned away in a silence so oppressive I swear I could hear him screaming, and he followed Andrew into what I would eventually call the Group House, where the Group’s most important business is discussed. Two of the armed men followed while the others stayed to guard us. If I had known, I would’ve said something, anything to my mother. If I had known, I would’ve told my brother how much I loved him despite all my teasing and bullying. If I had known, I would’ve turned and run and never looked back.

When my father came out, he called to me. I took a few steps toward him but then stopped. The road was suddenly empty, and I felt exposed and vulnerable, confused and alone. A dry breeze blew dust and ash into my stinging eyes. I don’t remember where I was looking; my eyes saw nothing. Then I felt my mother step up behind me. I turned and looked into her eyes and saw the flicker of her old self-- kindness, understanding, even a sad kind of hope. She reached into the pocket of the coat she was wearing and pulled out a small package, wrapped in brown paper.

“For later,” she said, handing it to me. My father called again, this time angrily, violently. Whatever choice I may have had was gone-- I turned and went to him obediently and quickly, and he led me into the Group House. I didn’t think to look back again.

*

I’ve learned a lot in my time in the Settlement-- for instance, the particulars of the deal my father made with Andrew. I’ve learned that Dad was seen as a source of food and more protection for the Settlement. He was a well-built man and had some experience with a gun. I’ve learned that, though in a different way, I was also seen as a source of food, as were my mother and brother. But their contribution was immediate and short-lived, whereas I was more of a long-term investment. I’ve also learned why there are few children here and even less of the elderly. Only a select few of the children born in the Settlement are allowed to mature, and the Shakes take everybody older than fifty.

We had to adapt to our new way of life pretty quickly, but sometimes I still think about how we used to be. I miss my brother’s goofy laugh and his blind innocence in the face of a world crumbling down around him. Even on that day, as we stood in the road, alone and helpless, he knew no fear, only hunger. I miss my father’s easiness, his calm and his open eyes. Now his face is hard and immovable, and his eyes are blank. He has changed since we came here; I guess I have too.

But what I really miss is my mother. Not the one who stood in the middle of the road that day, grim and defeated. My real mother-- the optimist, the idealist, somehow holding onto a hope no one else could see, even while the world was crumbling down around us.

*

I celebrated my fifteenth birthday in the Settlement. A girl turning fifteen is a big deal here. We throw a big party and call it a Coming of Age Celebration. It’s the celebration of a girl becoming a woman. It’s the moment when the benefits are reaped from the Group’s investment in her.

I remember my Coming of Age Celebration in bits and pieces. The memories of that night flash through my brain blinkingly. The women had given me a new dress, sewn from hand and made from worn pieces of old fabric. The gift surprised and confused me. These were the same women who had always scared me, had looked at me with an angry bitterness I didn’t understand. But the way they treated me had changed in the few weeks before my birthday, the hatred in their faces softening to a shadow of sad pity.

“You’re one of us now,” one of them said to me as she fitted me into my new dress. Before she left me, she leaned down to kiss my forehead. The gesture was distantly familiar, and I looked up expectantly, hoping to see a reassuring smile, hoping she would tell me everything would be ok. But there was no smile, no encouraging words, no sad kind of hope.

The party started at dark and was held outside the Group House. There were pots of stew boiling on the sidewalk and a bonfire in the middle of the road. Around this, members of the Group sang and danced to the drumming beat made by others holding old trash cans and plastic boxes. A little way up from the bonfire was the stage, made of old pieces of dried out wood from buildings no longer standing; it slanted a little to the left. It was usually used for town announcements, but that night, it presented me to the crowd. An hour after the party had started, I stood up there in between my father and Andrew who was giving a speech.

“As all of you know, the Coming of Age Celebration is one of our most important traditions. It is a time to celebrate the hard times we have come through as well as to recognize the sacrifices that have been necessary in order to survive. So, with that said, please join me in welcoming Lily as a full member of our Group and in hopes she will prove worthy of our time and care.”

With Andrew’s final words, my father turned me toward him. His hands grasped my shoulders and pulled me hard into his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice harsh and broken. He held me for just a moment, then pushed me away roughly and left, never meeting my eyes or even looking at me at all. I stared after him dumbly, knowing what would be expected of me by the end of the night and wanting, needing him to come back, to help me through it. But he couldn’t. Andrew spoke over my shoulder.

“Get down there and enjoy yourself,” he said. The drumming and singing had started back up, and people were dancing around the fire again. He nodded to someone in the crowd, and one of the younger men, about three or four years older than me, helped me off the stage and walked me over to the circle of dancers. The beat of the drums pulsed through my body, and I became one with the Group. There was nothing outside of the dance—all was sweating bodies, sing-song chants, and stamping feet. I threw my head back, closed my eyes, and gave myself up to it all. The man I had walked to the fire with stayed close by my side all night, his hands frequently on my body, protectively and not unpleasant. Every so often, he would smile down into my face in the way that my mother used to, and I would forget my fear of what was to come. I was even glad it would be him.

Soon he led me away from the crowd and toward the Group House. There is a room above it which is used solely for the Ceremonial Act. Inside was dark and damp, the smell of times before hung on the air, too close, suffocating me. My fear came back in full force, and I began to pull away.

“Shhh. It can’t be helped,” he said. His voice was gentle and soothing, and I knew his words were true. A bed stood in the middle of the floor, and he pulled me toward it. It was the only piece of furniture in the room. He told me to lay down, and I did so obediently, mechanically. I heard him remove his clothes and drop them on the wood floor at the foot of the bed. The pile hit the rotting floorboards with a dull, hollow sound, like death. When he came back to me, he said nothing, his fingers working the buttons on the front of my new dress. I remember I was crying, my body shaking from the effort to hold back the sobs. He wiped the tears away from my face and leaned over to kiss my cheek.

“Shhh. It can’t be helped,” he repeated, his lips brushing my earlobe. “Just close your eyes and relax.” I tried to do as he said by imagining myself somewhere else. A flash of a small package, wrapped in brown paper flitted through my memory. I opened my eyes and it was my mother’s face staring down at me, smiling kindly but sadly.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice was harsh and bitter, a voice reminiscent of a sick woman standing in the middle of a dusty road, looking at nothing. “I’m sorry,” I repeated, as one final tear slid down my cheek, “but we have to eat.”