There are a thousand and one stories of how we got here. Well, what’s left of us. Anyhow, as I sat with my new friend I wondered how many stories of ours were similar. Did we share experience in love in the same ways? Did we understand loss in the same ways? Who did we fail along the way?
And who failed us.
Taking small bites of what looks like a snack made to feel like a meal, we move towards the middle of the main room and what’s left of my unsoiled cushions of furniture I’ve long since burned. Books stacked high with candles surrounding a type of sitting and sleeping area.
“It’s not much, but it’s home-adjacent.” I apologize.
“It’s more than I had left, everything seems almost half-dead in here. Not quite, but like it’s hanging on for some reason.”
We turned our attention back to the food. Pushing around a mushroom in an awkward silence. I’ve never been good at making friends, apocalypse or not. Weird how that feeling doesn’t go away. Embarrassment.
“I remember the shut-down. The first one, when the whole world seemed to stop,” she began. “My brother didn’t believe it. He was so hard-headed about it. Distrustful of information coming out from one side versus what he knew and trusted. Even though there wasn’t a fucking difference. You remember, don’t you? Like, everyone just picks and chooses what they want to believe. Our brains are so scary-powerful. Like, realities are shaped through consciousness. It’s not: ‘you can manifest this for yourself,’ mind-hack bullshit, it’s: ‘you can trick yourself into believing anything to be true’ scaryshit. People can’t live on that tandem bike in between false and real. I can, I balanced on it all the time. Broke and fell a few times, though.”
“You ever join a cult?” I asked in abject curiosity.
“Ha! No, I enjoy the rabbit-hole but I realize that there are boundaries that are very real. Impenetrable. I can’t see past a certain light-spectrum. I can’t command elements, not that I know of. But you seem to!”
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“What?! No, I feel like the electricity stuff is a fluke, besides,” I add. “There’s no magic here. I mean, there wasn’t ever any to begin with. Death, maybe. If you consider inevitability mixed with uncertainty a type of magic.”
They shifted suddenly, eyeing me differently. Slowly considering something with a slightly open jaw. It’s on the tip of their tongue but our strangeness to one another flickers back to memory across their face. Their mouth closes again, returning to the more vigilant human I’d met previously.
I blurt out, “What’s your name?” Hoping it was distracting enough to elicit an answer without much prodding.
We hold a stern gaze once more.
I try for humor, “These calculations are killing me, love. It’s just a name. And I’m not trying to exorcize you, unless needed. I’m Ivy, no relation to Poison.” I outstretch a hand.
“Blue, but ‘Bleu,’’ they exhale. Releasing the information like a steam valve and a swift torque of their back to each side. Each crack of their back felt like electrical pulses in my hands, causing me to pop my knuckles in response. They felt sandy, almost. Finally, Bleu meets my hand with theirs in an awkward grab, not shake, nor remotely close to socially acceptable. But, I understood it.
“Do you remember when people would set themselves on fire?” Bleu asked. “I wish I would have set myself on fire, before, you know?”
They looked down to their side, staring at the floor as if to imagine their own self-immolation. I can see the small TV-Screen embedded in the floor as if projected, literally, from her mind. I can see the wafts of flames whipping around their already skeletal body. The fire melts their tattoos down into the bones as they crack beneath both fate and grief, smashed into powder through wails at the infinite wall of failed structures. Guilt and stress manifest in the boils of their skin, splintering out and beyond the reaches of their frame with blood, puss, and searing sweat. Bubbling up and around them, in awe and terror, the aura of a tormented soul lifted to a new plane.
And still, I see, no witnesses.
Just then, a familiar cold wet nose presses to my elbow. Nudging the fork, spearing a spare piece of chicken.
“Haven’t you eaten already, ma’am?” I protest.
“I don’t think she’s eaten, actually. I don’t remember you doing that.”
“Oh, must have gotten side-tracked. Let’s fix that, huh?” I groan to stand. The flames caught my attention and I stared into a candle for, well, I’m not sure how long exactly. “I can still hear him, you know. It’s faint and I can’t figure out if it’s a memory or I’m losing it. But, I have to know for sure. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. But, I need your help. We need to go back to the bog. Something is different in that place.”