A Striving After Wind
A long, long time ago, the world ended. It’s almost forgotten now, what it was like in those days, early after everything came apart, slowly at first and then seemingly all at once. Not much remains, and many are grateful, afraid of the little that has been passed down. Still, some stories are remembered, though their truth is often questioned and dismissed. This is one of them.
Once upon a time, there was a woman who very much wanted to live. A desire not everyone held during those terrible years, but she was born shortly after the apocalypse began and knew nothing else, nothing but survival. To live has always been costly but it was more than usual then and she did many things, many terrible things that may now be easy to condemn in the warmth of our homes. She ran, leaving friends to die. She stole and abandoned, she heard people scream for help and walked another way. She took what she needed and more, reasoning she might end up needing more than she thought. She killed, on occasion, when it became necessary. Times were hard and people harder.
Amara, for that was the woman’s name, had never found a need to make a home in the local settlements. She mistrusted them – stories abounded of cruelties seen and unseen and she feared being trapped under the thumb of some petty overlord. She had been raised in the walls of a great old city now half empty, but she made her living in the depths of the woods turned dark again since the lights had flickered out and the trees had taken back the land that once was theirs. Everyone knew the woods were unsafe yet everyone travelled them anyway and it was easy enough to find good marks, smaller groups or individuals with food and clothing for the taking. Amara might form alliances with other thieves and murderers then break away, or work all on her own, but she never stayed in one place for long.
Once, hastily passing through a settlement, she overheard a few men discussing attacks in the woods with hushed voices. She stifled her laughter, realizing she was the thing in the forest people were afraid of. She quite liked the idea.
Older people had wishes, you see, of a world brighter and fuller than this one, remembering what had been lost. But women like Amara had no time to imagine more, choosing instead to survive on what they had rather than envision something they never knew. She was content with her life because she believed it was the best she would get. True, there was fear eternally lodged under her breastbone, but if that was to be her birthright, she would accept it wholeheartedly.
It was a dreary day, the sky calling for a storm yet refusing to give into it, when Amara, alone this time, came across a man with a bundle. He, too, was alone, afraid, foolish and foolhardy for taking a road known for its dangers with no company or weapon. It was basically his fault, at this point. No need to kill in this instance, she easily knocked him out from behind, catching his bundle as he went down to avoid damaging anything inside. It was practically an art form at this point. He would only stay down for a few seconds, but it was enough to drag his belongings away from his limp body and begin to examine them. She knew the land better than he would, she knew she could outrun him if he did anything more than cry and beg, which is what most of his kind did anyway.
His bag held the usual assortment of food, some fresh, some canned, left over from before. Clean water, too, she’d get a good price for that if she didn’t drink it herself. And then the bundle-
It moved.
In Amara’s arms, the bundle twitched. She almost dropped it in surprise, then flinched again when the man, dragging himself upright, spoke, his voice raspy with desperation.
“Please…” he said, apparently unable to muster up more than that. She must have hit him pretty hard. She ignored him and, carefully so as to avoid being bitten by whatever animal must be in there, lifted a flap of cloth.
A baby looked up at her. Expected, perhaps, what else would a man hold in the woods with such care? Yet unforeseen, why would a man go on such a dangerous journey with such a burden?
“Please,” the man spoke again, “I need to get him to his mother.”
The baby was sleeping still, despite the commotion. Surely it should have woken up and started crying by now, thought Amara, vague memories of children from when she was a child surfacing. Maybe it was sick, or there was something wrong with it.
“Why do you have him, then?” She asked. The whole thing felt surreal, holding a conversation with this victim who, at least, was sitting on the path rather than doing something stupid like making a lunge for her.
“We had to run, we got separated. We always said we’d meet at Cotbury,” he answered, naming a settlement about twelve miles away. “That was two days ago.” She flicked her eyes across his face, swiftly taking in the signs of exhaustion and wear. If not a travelling family, certainly he was telling the truth about a few days on the road.
“I’m surprised you still have so much food,” she said. She meant she was surprised that she was the first to try to take it, but he must have misread her tone as his eyes lit up with something like hope.
“You can take it if you’d like,” he said eagerly, “all of it, just let me have him back. We won’t cause you any trouble, we won’t tell anyone-”
“I’ll be gone in a few hours anyway, even if you did tell someone it wouldn’t matter,” said Amara, only half-heeding. She was looking at the baby and thinking.
What she was thinking was that there were a lot of men and women who would pay a lot for a child. Few called it slavery, tossing around instead terms like ‘assets’ or even ‘community-building,’ but that was what it was. It was a good trade if you could get it, she might be set up for months. The baby’s eyelids fluttered. He was young, which could be a problem, more work to raise him, but she could argue he would be more easily moulded with no memory of his parents. The man was saying something but she didn’t hear it. She chewed her lip.
To be clear, Amara was unmoved by the baby’s vulnerability, while a warmer-hearted person might have felt pity. Everyone’s vulnerable until they’re able to put it aside. She was unmoved, too, by the father’s pleading. He was a fool for making this trip alone and unarmed. She was even unaffected by memories of her own childhood, afraid of such a thing happening to her. She was lucky, others were not. This was the end of the world, not a place for miracles, or changes of heart, or fairy godmothers, or even goodness.
Perhaps we will never know what happened. The story has left that part behind, although I like to think there are simply lines we all have that we will not cross. Perhaps the father just got lucky. But Amara turned and passed the child back to him. He stuttered to a stop midsentence, shocked.
“Fuck’s sake,” she said, frustrated at him, and herself, and the whole situation. A little embarrassed, too. “Just go.” She swung his bag over her shoulder – twelve miles wasn’t that far, they could make it without food if he tried and there was another, closer, settlement just a little out of the way so if he had any brains and could recognize the signs he’d be able to get help there. She hadn’t heard anything particularly terrible about it and besides, it was his business anyway.
The man was perhaps wiser than she had assumed, he didn’t try to thank her. He just started walking, soon disappearing into the trees. If his path was left unusually undisturbed until he reached the sun again, slipping from the grasp of the forest into relative safety, then that was no one’s business. Amara would swear up and down that she’d never seen him since she first walked away.
Two days later, Amara killed a woman in a knife fight. A few years later, by random chance, she was killed in much the same way. The children don’t like this ending. It’s not a good story, the little ones say. The older ones, better able to articulate their grievances, ask what was even the point. If this is what all the stories from back then are like, no wonder no one wants to hear them. They live in a time when kindness is free, or at least a little less costly. I suppose that is something to be grateful for. But the world has not always been so.