New Purpose

Ash. Ash in my mouth. That is what morning feels like. It wasn’t always this way, but today and so many days before now that has been my truth. There were forests once, greenery, birds. Now ash and haze pervade everything.

The soil is dead, growing a potato is about all you can manage, deep, deep, deep underground where some moisture still exists. The animals that live now are mainly worms, or some approximation on a worm. I don’t remember the taste of fruit.

When morning has no freshness, waking is a huge struggle. No real sunlight, just a sort of amber glow through the haze. So, I lie here a while trying to swallow to encourage some moisture into my mouth. It hurts.

Eventually I rise, put on old shorts and an old t-shirt because longer clothes stick to you in an awful way in the acrid atmosphere. Then I can leave the tin construct I now live in.

Going where, I don’t know, friendship is hard to come by in bleak times. Rape is about as much human contact as you get and that is best avoided with no recourse to proper abortion facilities. I had to poison myself last time to lose the baby.

It’s always a different man, I usually leave them marked with bites to dissuade them from trying it again, but there are a lot of men, even in this fucked up reality.

Still, I digress, I’m going out of these four tin walls, for better or worse.

I never had any siblings and my parents died in the war. Perhaps I would find more solace if they at least were still alive, but perhaps they would have got as poisoned as everyone else.

As I break out across the dirt expanse that stretches pretty much to the horizon I see a blob, nothing huge, just a blob in the distance. Who cares right? Only, it can’t be an object, it’s pulsing a bit and seems to quiver.

Something to discover. I break into a run. I don’t know why, but this is the most exciting thing to present itself in years. The taste of ash grows as I start to inhale the barely air more deeply.

After about 10 minutes I can see something humanoid where the blob was. I slow. Could just be a man and men mean trouble. However, as I get closer it doesn’t look like a man, I raise my gun anyway.

It is blue, turquoise blue and shimmery, it reminds me of a seal, but with more human features. It is panting, it sounds female? As I get closer it raises too large eyes to meet mine. Are those tears? I can’t remember the last time I cried.

I reach out a hand to touch… Her. She recoils, dipping her head and shielding her stomach and squeals. “It’s ok,” I cajole, “I won’t shoot.” I drop the gun. She looks up and stares, eyes still wet. I can see the swell in her stomach now. A pregnant blue seal… Here. How?

Then all of a sudden, the bulge shifts and in a rush of squeals and shuddering a small blue ball emerges, wet with silver blood. Her eyes close and she falls backwards, still, lifeless?

The ball unfurls and starts to squeal. The first cries of another monster. A friendly monster. Its big eyes focus on me and the squealing stops.

I am an adoptive mother now. I have made her a heart shaped locket made of tin with her mother’s teeth in, so she will remember. As for me, potatoes taste better, worms seem nutritious and there is someone that depends on me in this world and I might be remembering the taste of peaches.