I wrote this about the Marauder that came upon him in the woods after the truck stopped. If you enjoyedThe Roadtell me your thoughts.
Its been seven days or has it been nine? A tingle that eats at your body the whole damned grey day. It greets you in the morning with a kick, pesters you in the day, sings you to sleep and coddles you during the night. It becomes your friend, your only friend on this God forsaken planet. Hah, God, I cant believe I still bring him up. Great Architect, there aint nothin great about this vast swirling grey shithole of a planet anymore. God I’m so hungry. I plead to an invisible jury, ask mercy from the dead brittle forest. They ignore my appeal each time, they smile with their dull crumbling bark and acquiesce my ramblings. I ask for food but would kindly accept death. Nine days or has it been ten? I think I may lose another loop in the belt before long. The man decided that he has wasted enough of the day in apathy and squander and began to unzip the sleeping bag slowly. The difference between death and survival lie on the fine seams of a sixty inch slightly rusted zipper. So many damn details. I’m not right handed, I really don’t even use it. If I could find a quick way to sever the tendons and cauterize the wound it may buy me another week. What am I talking about. The man began to ravage through the brittle grey leaves searching for a prize he knew didn’t exist. An Easter egg hunt in July. He let out a scream that trapped game would pity and fell into a disheveled ball of exhaustion. Over there! Faint screams in the distance began to close in. The man began to question his own sanity, is the forest talking? More screams, several distinguishable calls drove through the forest. Oh shit, hide! The man took cover in a hollowed tree trunk and tried to remain calm. The man peered out of a knot hole and could hear them, but he couldn’t see them yet. What he did see was his sleeping bag and personal effects in the clear open, damn it to hell! Later a wall of a man lumbered clumsily through the trees. He had no care to be tactful, in a world of withering travelers why should he. He shouldered a large piece of oak which seemed to have been fashioned into a rough shillelagh. The man watched as the oaf rummaged through his few belongings smelling them as if an animal. The man’s leather sheath hissed with excitement as he drew his blade out. The man saw a rugged chunk of granite at his feet, the size of a cassette tape from a time forgotten. As the intruder was finishing his investigation he began a call to the rest of his party. Heee… his voice cut short as the chunk of granite took home at the base of his neck. Before the man knew it he rushed to the intruder and had his knife resting on the stunned man’s throat.
You so much as breathe and I will end you.
Before time afforded the man an interrogation the marauders were upon him. A gaggle of men stood brandishing crude clubs and weaponry in a silent, stoic, manner. A man in a biohazard suit leveled a deer rifle.
What do you plan on doing here?
We have two problems. First off we have not eaten in days, second we dont have any openings in our cre...
Before the sentence could be resolved the man’s knife was rested deep within the intruder’s neck.
Says you, you just took out one of my best men, friend.
He clearly wasn’t that good and the way I see it you traded in for a newer model.
The marauders were a band of travelers that were at best chaos bound together with desperation. Each the most faithful counterpart necessity could afford. As soon as your utility or necessity had come to an end, so then had your existence. There was no orientation, talk of expectations or introductions for the man. The man’s greeting into the legion was not being shot like an animal and eaten in kind. The man fit in with little recourse, he had been a drifter most of his life before it happened. As one day closed and another drew near the drones marched forward into the grey. The only certainty in this life was a mixture of blisters, thick ash and that damn smothering cough. Before the world’s expiration date had come and gone, the man enjoyed having no home. Now the man wished he had that shithole hotel in Phoenix for one more night. Life used to have two certainties, death and taxes. Now there was simply death and ashes.
Hey! A chain struck the man’s leg, Dream at night grub!
The man offered only a begrudged snarl of a smile and trudged on. The road was his best friend and his mortal enemy. It tied him to his past. A constant vigil of the fucked up world he lived in that lead to nothing, or did it. If its black sweeps and curves could just leave him the hell alone maybe he could just end it all. He slid the knife into his chest, a sharp pain that was met with a static energy that cloaked his body. A hug of pleasure that slowly hummed from his chest to his finger, sparking at the tips. Is this what it would be like? That damned road wouldn’t let him find out. Always the possibility of finding a market with stocked shelves and God willing an intact issue of Hustler. These were among the dreams he was reduced to fixating on. The legion marches on. No matter how fast they walked the road was faster, always ahead of them.
Pelting, pelting, eating away at his soul. The bleak rain was the only thing that could hold the sheets of ash to the ground. The problem is eats your soul. It had been raining for four days. A nagging stranger that you cant dismiss. New blisters tear through the rashes of your body, covered in a coarse sheath of tattered clothing. The landscape is his whale, the sheets of punishing rain are the beast he loathes, the beast that he is sure will be his death. Ahead in the horizon a break lingers to the west. It’s a stock yard of some sort!
Weapons ready! We rest in warmth tonight grubs!
After two or three miles in the shin deep sludge of infertile soil and ash they converged upon the building. As they approached the building they could see a barely legible company name ever flaking away on the tin wall. A faint glow could be seen from within. They barged inside and were greeted by two elderly occupants. The man laughed to himself, I will sleep dry on a dry piece of ground with a plump belly tonight. Sure was nice of them to start the fire for us.
After another day the rain passed and they surveyed the fields around. Walking through the field was a labor as if each step the earth pulled you further in return. In a small barn he found all manners of junk piled around a rough canvass cover. Broken bicycles, field plows, crates of glass coke bottles, relics of a foreign world. They were as a modern Stonehenge, a tie to a past world that had long departed. He threw a bottle against the wall and reveled in the dull shattering sound it produced. Having been removed from the indentures of the connected world of reality tv, blogs, texts, and the normality’s of his younger years; he found simple pleasure from breaking antiques as they now were. Just as the others clamored to the barn to investigate it happened. He peeled the dusty tarp off and found it. He gasped as he traced the outline. The curves were recognizable, the metallic green greeting them with awe. The strong rubber shoes on which it set could change their whole damn life.
It’s a Truck!!!! They screamed. Nestled beside the truck were four 55 gallon oil drums. The man struck them with his knifes hilt and a reverberating hum confirmed they were full.
Any of you grubs know anything about trucks?
I grew up working odd jobs, I can take a look.
The man knew his lie may be tested, but it was all he had. He cracked open the hood, adjusted some things and made a veiled attempt to sound competent. He slammed down the hood, turned the key and hoped for the best. The old diesel truck sputtered then purred. The, now foreign, stench of diesel exhaust crept through their masks and filled their ash caked nostrils. As the others noted, the mechanic came through; maybe there was still the possibility of a god.
No one was exactly sure where they were, what did it matter? An old aluminum framed compass they rummaged from a surplus store was their north star, if stars even still existed. The truck continued on, a powerful sentinel in their struggle with the road. A tawdry collection of women was drug behind the truck in a hodge-podge horse trailer. The meal that the elderly couple so gracefully provided was wearing thin within the recesses of the man and his companions. They had a half of a sack of feed they found that they had been feeding to the women, two of them were pregnant. Keeping the women’s energy high kept the men’s moral high. It wasnt a pretty arrangement for the women, but it wasnt a pretty world. There are no heroes. The truck claws another gap in the winding expanse of the black top before them.
Hey grub go check it out, a leader motioned to the man.
The man treaded up the hill being as quiet as the brittle leaves would allow. He crested the top to find a camp just inside the brush line. An abandoned fire was heating a can of peas. The juices were boiling into the fire producing a sweet mist that almost captivated the man and his hunger.
We’re searching for survivors, We’re part of a commune, see our truck?
A woman peeked from a brush pile.
NO! yelled a man in a raspy cough.
It’s ok, we can help, come with me to our truck.
The woman appeared from the brush. Her face comprised of sunken recesses bound together with skin leathered by years of soot.
We have nothing, my husband is dying.
We made it as far as we could; we will share the food if you just let us be. A band of travelers attacked us and took our food. They left us for dead and I have done my best to mend him. I fear there is no God left in this dim existence.
The man shouldered the injured traveler and helped them to the truck. As the woman approached the truck she could hear moans and warnings emitting from the trailer. One of the marauders poked at them with a pipe as if thwarting cattle.
As a numb look overtook the woman she heard a gasp from behind. Her husband lay on the ground with a knife buried inside.
I guess today is not your lucky day.
Life, no matter how harsh, is about the simple pleasures. Gone are the days of parking in a handicap space in spite of the world. Gone are the days of letting one go in a crowded elevator. Gone are the days of crisp beer meeting your lips after a day in the sun. Hell, the sun is gone! But one thing this world cant rip from my hands is the abounding relief ushered in every time I take a piss or a shit. I never thought I would look forward to the bathroom. Sometimes it’s the only thing I feel in the whole damn day that’s not the burning pain of each next stride taken. The man was supposed to be looking for something that someone supposedly saw, but at that moment he could care less. It was just him, the grey drape of a forest and his one simple pleasure. As he unbuckled his belt and broke through the trees he was greeted by a man, a child, and a pistol.
