I Used to Love to Travel

This is a fiction piece I wrote for my writing group.  I try to write every day.  500 words at least.  I hope that this will help in preparation for NaNoWriMo - either with ideas or being in the habit of writing at least 500 words a day.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Whenever I’m feeling particularly nostalgic for the old days, I dig through my memory box and pull out my old passport.  Ahh, the places I used to visit.

The stamp in my passport for England, and then again for France when we got off the ferry at Calais.  The stamp for Belgium and Germany.  The stamp for Australia when I thought living down under would be fun (it’s not.  It’s hot in December and the flora and fauna are out to kill you!)  The stamp for Japan, when I travelled there with the volleyball team. 

The multiple stamps from the United States when I would travel to visit family across the country.  And the stamps to Africa, Europe, China, Russia, the Caribbean.   I was very well travelled.  Now?  There are no more public airports.  No more commercial planes.  No more travel.

Because five years ago,  came The War. 

I don’t even know if the countries I loved to visit exist anymore.  Travel is completely banned.  Crossing borders is impossible.  Unless you are in the army.  Or you can find a way to cross the border.  But it’s illegal and people who are caught trying to cross the border are killed on sight.  No trial, no excuses. 

The group in power now, I don’t even know what to call them.  What country they originate from seems to change daily.  All I can tell you is that there is no more government as we knew it.  No more elections.  We’re essentially overseen by a military faction.  Rumour has it that it’s the same in the United States.  Whatever is left of it.  Rumour is all we have.  There’s no more news that isn’t heavily biased towards the Faction.  Whatever news we hear, it’s dictated by the Faction.  Which is what we call the government.  There’s really no other name.  We don’t even know what country they originated from.  It wasn’t even a military coup of the government.  You can’t overthrow a government when the government no longer exists. 

It started out with rumours of war.  Factions in the Middle East banded together and started invading countries surrounding the Middle East.  Then, other countries started taking sides – both the invaded and the invaders.  Some sided with the invaders before they could invade their country.  Europe fell first.  Then Africa.  China joined on and North Korea blew them off the map.  Pretty soon, most of the nuclear weapons were either launched or destroyed.  Governments toppled before countries were invaded.  Citizens were clamouring to their governments for help.  To ensure their countries weren’t invaded.  Then North Korea and Iran attacked the United States with nuclear weapons.   Before we knew it, there was no more United States.  There was no more Canada.  At least, not in the way they had been before.  Some parts of what used to be the United States became part of Canada’s land, but when the walls went up, it didn’t matter.  Families were torn apart.  And communication on the other side of the wall was non-existent.  I haven’t heard a word from anyone in my family on the other side of that wall in three years.  I don’t even know if they’re alive or dead.

The war lasted four years.  In some ways, it’s still being fought.  The American army, once considered so strong, was quickly decimated when Iran and North Korea bombed the US.  First they took out whatever weapons installations they could.  That included nuking the Arctic.  Colorado is a huge burning hole in the ground.  NORAD doesn’t exist except as a memory.

The British and Canadian armies fell immediately after.  As did pretty much the entire European armies.  Germany, quite unsurprisingly, took side with the Faction.  China and South Korea are also pretty much nothing more than large craters.  And with the size of Asia – that’s saying something. 

Most of what we know about the outside world is what little we hear from the Faction news and rumours that people say they hear from the other side of the wall.  Someone is always saying they know someone who snuck over the border and came back with news.

I don’t believe it.   My cousin tried to sneak across the border to get news of our family.  That was three years ago.  He never came back. 

I Am A Warrior

I Am A Warrior

Every day, I get out of bed.  No small feat, truly.  While physically there is nothing wrong with me in terms of getting out of bed, emotionally, some days are harder to get started than others. 

There are days when I almost bound out of bed, ready to take on the day, excited for whatever tasks I have ahead of me at work, and looking forward to the evening when I get to spend time with my husband and my children.

Other days, I don’t want to get out of bed and face the tasks I have ahead of me at work.  I just want to stay curled up in bed and sleep.  Not because the tasks themselves are insurmountable, but because the black cloud that is always somewhere in the periphery, has found its way in front of me. 

No one knows the battles people face and fight day after day after day.  They see someone and make snap judgements based on what they see (I discuss this more in depth in my piece about What We See).  But really, you have no idea what any one person is facing at any point in their day.

Recently there was a video circulating on Facebook that has gone viral.  It started as a photo of three young men leaning out of the window of a drive-through coffee shop and holding the hand of the person in the car.  The story came out almost immediately.  She is, evidently, a regular at that shop, and the boys – all of them teens – recognized her and recognized that she seemed distraught. 

She was. She had just lost her husband and was feeling overwhelmed.  She had tears on her cheeks when she pulled up to the window.  This was during the busy morning rush, and the boys were eager to get through the drive-through line as quickly as possible.  Until this woman pulled up to the window.

What did these boys do?  These boys stopped everything they were doing and prayed with the woman to help her find strength to navigate her new life without her husband.  They held up the line of customers to offer love, support and prayer to a woman they really only knew by her coffee order.  They also gave her her coffee for free, as an act of goodwill and because everyone needs a treat now and then.

My office is attached to a shopping mall.  As part of my lunch and for exercise, I always go for a walk that takes me around the mall a couple of times.  I see a lot of people during my walk, and I have learned from watching the people as I walk, not to judge.  The woman pushing the dog in the stroller?  Don’t judge (and man, did I use to judge people like that).  Maybe she lost a child once, and this is how she copes.  Maybe the dog is handicapped and can’t walk much, but she enjoys being out.

The older child in a stroller?  Maybe that child isn’t able to walk for long for whatever reason. 

I see business people walking to and fro.  I see people meandering – some older, some new moms pushing strollers.

We all have our own stories and our own battles to fight.  Some of us are battling inner demons.  Some of us are battling addiction.  Some of us are battling our own feelings of self-loathing.  Some of us are just hoping they can keep it together until the end of the day.

I battle depression.  More often than not, I win the battle.  And when I’m losing the battle, you likely wouldn’t know it just by looking at me.  Because I’m up.  And I’m at work.  And I am a warrior.

Living vs. Existing.

He sat alone in the cold room.  The only noises were the hum of the air conditioning unit, the vending machines in the corner and the constant tick-tick-tick of the clock above the doorway.  But he wasn’t aware of any of the noises.  Nothing seemed to distract him. 

In his hands he held a small, blue blanket.  He kept turning the blanket – what remained of the blanket in any case – around in his hands.  It was no longer a full blanket – hadn’t been for years.  It was just slightly larger than a handkerchief now.  Still soft.  He brought it to his nose and inhaled.  It still smelled of her.  Mint and… paper.  Like books.  Something she always had in her purse – a packet of mints or mint gum (which invariably opened and scattered all over the bottom of her purse) and a book.  She read constantly. 

The blue blanket had been their son’s.  It had wrapped him on the day they brought him home from the hospital, covered him as he transitioned into his ‘big boy bed’, and had followed him throughout his childhood.  As a young boy, he had stuffed the blanket at the bottom of sleeping bags when he went to friends to sleep over.  As a teen, he’d hung it over his window.  Before he left for university, his mom had cut this small square off the main blanket, before packing it into one of his boxes.  Even at 18, he was bringing his favourite blanket along.

One of his friends, who had studied in the fashion department, had taken a small cutting of the blanket and woven into a tie, which he had worn on his graduation.  This blanket had been with him his entire life. 

And now, this small piece, the only piece that was left, would likely follow him to his death. 

His son, his bright, energetic and entertaining son lay just doors away.  Machines were breathing for him.  Machines were pumping oxygen through his body while keeping his heart beating and his blood flowing.  His hands were still warm.  His eyes seemed to move beneath their closed lids.  But without the machines, his body would do nothing on its own.

The doctors had said he could exist like this for years.  That the machines would keep his body alive.  But he had to decide if that’s what he wanted to do.  And he had to make this decision alone.  He’d already said goodbye to his wife, the mother of the boy in the room down the hall.  He didn’t know if he could say goodbye to his son, too.  Not within a day of saying goodbye to his wife.   What would his life mean, if he didn’t have his family in it any longer?  Could he face the empty years?  Could he face going back to the house, knowing his wife and his son would never again walk through the front door? 

His son had been an adventurer.  In high school, he’d joined an orienteering club and gone on a week-long camping trip with his friends, using only maps and compasses.  No GPS.  In university, he had studied environment.  He wanted to make a difference.  He studied forestation and deforestation.  He studied environmental impacts.  He was an environmental scientist.  Or, that’s what his degree said.  He would never become that environmental scientist.  The drunk driver that hit his wife’s car while she drove him home after his graduation, took care of that.  The head injuries he’d sustained, the doctor’s said, would likely leave him unable to speak, see, swallow on his own, to breathe on his own.  Basically, that driver took a strong, smart and lively boy, who looked for adventure, who lived every day to its fullest, and always thought so much of the people around him – and left him a shell.  A body, that needs machines to breathe for it, machines to pump his blood.

He made the decision.  He could not allow his son to exist.  Not when it meant he couldn’t live.  His son would not want to lie in a bed, being kept in existence, if he couldn’t participate in life.

He got up, steeled himself, and went to his son’s bedside to say his final goodbye.  He would tell the nurses his decision, and he would sit with his son, until his son no longer existed. 

The Guy in the Bar

I usually stop at the Toad in the Hole on my way home from work on Thursday nights. It's my late night, and Marie is out with her friends on the nights I work late. I don't like going home to an empty house. Too much of that in my youth. You'd think a strapping guy like me wouldn't be afraid of anything, and I'm not afraid to go home to an empty house exactly, but I just don't like it. And that's another story altogether.
 
This here story is about that Thursday night I stopped going to the Toad in the Hole.
 
The day started like any other day. I got up, kissed my wife goodbye for the day, and headed off to work. What I do is unimportant to this story. Suffice it to say, it's hard, honest work.
 
So, I'm sitting there, drinking a beer and eating some fish and chips and chatting with Mike, the barkeep. Mike's an alright guy. Sorry I don't see him anymore. But after what happened that night, I can't go back to the Toad in the Hole. But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?
 
So, I'm sitting drinking my drink, and eating my food and chatting my yapper when this guy stumbles in and sits right next to me. The Toad in the Hole is usually pretty quiet on a Thursday night - part of the reason I like to go there on Thursdays. So, there were plenty of seats, both at tables and at the bar, but this guy sits right down next to me. I could tell from his breath that he had already been to at least one other pub in the area.
 
"Gimme a beer, mate," the guy says to Mike.
 
"Looks to me like you've had enough somewhere else," Mike said.
 
"Who asked you for your opinion? Just gimme a beer. After what I've been through, I need it. You would, too, if you'd been through what I've been through."
 
"I'll give you one beer, but I'm giving you some food to go with it. I'll order you a spaghetti."
 
"NO!! Not spaghetti. Please, anything but that. I'll have what he's having," he said, gesturing to my plate of fish and chips.
 
"Right, I'll get that up for you right away." Mike said, drawing the gentleman a pint.
 
"Thanks, mate," the guy said, taking a long pull from the glass. "Ahh. That goes down smooth, now, don't it?"
 
"Guess so," I said, turning back to my dinner.
 
"What a night," the guy said, to no one in particular. I wasn't really interested. I only came to the pub to kill time between work and Marie getting home from her girls' night.
 
“I tell you, pal, after what I been through tonight, I don’t think I’ll bother staying sober anymore.”
 
“I’m not your pal,” I mumbled.
 
“We’re all friends, here.  And after I tell you my story, we’ll be friends for life.”
 
“I don’t need any more friends.”
 
“I gotta tell my story, pal.  I gotta get this off my chest.  I don’t tell someone, I’m gonna, well, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
 
“I’m not really interested.”
 
“You’ve got to listen.  Look.  I’ll talk.  Listen or don’t, but I’ve got to get this off my chest.”
 
I said nothing.  Clearly, no matter what I said, this guy was going to talk.
 
“The world is ending.”  He started. I rolled  my eyes.  Great.  So he was one of those doomsday guys.
 
“So I hear.   December 21, 2012.  The Mayan Calendar.”
 
“No.  I mean now.  As we speak.  There’s something going on out there.  People are changing. I started noticing it at work.  Then with my wife when I got home.”
 
“What do you mean?”
 
“I got to work today, I’m an accountant.  I know, exciting job.  Anyway, I got to work today, and the person who usually greets me was there.  I mean, she was there, but it wasn’t her.”
 
“What is that supposed to mean?”
 
“It looked like her, and it sounded like her, but it wasn’t her.”
 
“Then who was she?” I couldn’t believe I was getting involved in this.
 
“It wasn’t a she. It was an it.”
 
“An… It?”
 
“Not It.  It.”
 
“Oh. Well, excuse me.”
 
“Anyway, I  thought maybe that was just one, but when I got up to my office, there were more.”
 
“More?”
 
“More.”
 
“More what?”
 
“More of them, of course.”
 
“Who are they?” I asked.
 
“I don’t know.  I have theories, but I can’t be sure.”
 
“What do you think they are.”
 
“Like I said, I can’t be sure, but I have theories.  I won’t say what I think until I’m sure.”
 
“How will you know?”
 
“I have some.”
 
“Some?  What do  you mean some?” I asked.  Now I was hooked. Good gracious.  What on earth what I doing?
 
“I always loved biology in school.  I would have been a scientist, but I was rubbish at the Maths I needed.  I know.  Ironic – bad at Maths but an accountant. I did very well in Business Maths, but I was rubbish at Trig and Calculus.”
 
“And that has what to do with this story?” I asked.
 
“Well, you see, I had to do what I did.”
 
“What do you mean?”  I was starting to regret engaging this guy in a conversation.  Or rather, allowing myself to be engaged in his crazy talk.
 
“Well, I have to find out what’s causing it.  So I needed something to test.”
 
“Wait.  I don’t think I like where this is going.  I don’t think I want to hear the end of your story.”
 
“You need to. I have to tell someone this.”  I sighed. 
 
“Mike, another beer,” I groaned.  “Please.”
 
“So, I had to find out what was happening.  Why were they changing?  What was changing them.  So, I took a couple.”
 
“You… took a couple?”
 
“I got rid of the rest, but I took a couple with me.  I subdued them, and that was hard.  They bleed a lot.”
 
“They… bleed a lot?”
 
“Like stuck pigs.  I couldn’t believe how much blood there was.  But I couldn’t take them all with me.”
 
“Wha…?  Okay, buddy.  I’ve heard enough.”
 
“NO! You haven’t!! I have to get this all out.  So, I first noticed that they don’t move the same way.  More fluid.  Less… clumsy.  Then, I noticed their eyes.”
 
“Their eyes?”
 
“Yes. Their eyes.  Their eyes are clear.  No clouds.  It’s like they’re seeing the world for the first time, yet they’re not all that impressed by it. They’re almost bored.”
 
“Bored?”
 
“Yeah. Like they’ve seen it all before.”
 
“Like, maybe, every day?”
 
“Yes.  Well, no. Not exactly.  So, I just watched for a while.  Pretended I was going about my day.  But really, I was watching them.  They acted like the people I worked with every day for the past fifteen years. But different.  They moved differently and talked differently.  They looked at me when they passed my office.  They looked hungry.”
 
“Hungry?  Was this near noon, perhaps?”
 
“You don’t believe me.”  He stated.
 
“Well, you’re not making a lot of sense.  Pretty much all I’ve heard is that you had a pretty typical day.”
 
“Just let me finish.  I watched them.  I was going to talk to my boss, but he was one of them.  I realized, I was going to have to handle this on my own. I knew I was going to have to take matters into my own hands.  So, I started with my boss.  He was pretty easy.  Went down fast.  I got rid of any of the ones who changed.  Anyone who hadn’t, I locked in the conference room.  For their own safety, of course.”
 
“Of course,” I agreed.
 
“A couple of the women were far more vicious than the men.  They had more fight in them.  Once I’d taken care of the office, I took a few of them and put them in my car and brought them home.  I wanted to show my wife what was happening.  But when I walked in the door I found out that she, and our sixteen year old son, had both changed.  I had to take care of them, too.”
 
“What do you mean by take care of them?” I was afraid of the answer.
 
“I took care of them.  Made sure they couldn’t change anyone else.  Because they can do it, you know.”
 
“Can they?”
 
“They can.  You gotta watch for it.  You can’t miss it, when they’ve changed.  They’re themselves, but not.  You’ll see. Well, it’s been real.  I’m going to go.  After all, I have work to do.”
 
“Should you be driving in your condition?”
 
“I didn’t drive.  I live right ‘round the corner.  Walked here, din’t I?”  He was slurring his words at this point.  I was glad to hear he was walking home.  But I wondered if we shouldn’t be following him.  Or calling the constables.  “Watch for it, mate.”
 
“Right,” I tipped my glass at him as he staggered out the door.
 
“You believe that shit?” Mike asked me, clearing the guy’s plate, cutlery and empty pint glass. 
 
“Naw.  But I’m a little worried that maybe there’s something that’s gone down in the city?” I glanced up at the TV above the bar.  “Turn that up, Mike.”
 
“In late breaking news, London Police responded to a distress call at an office complex on Charing Cross Road.  Upon arrival, Police found several office workers locked in the company’s conference room and a scene of horror as they searched the rest of the office.  Police are looking for this man, who the surviving office workers say locked them in the conference room before beginning  his rampage through the office.” They posted a picture clearly taken from a security pass.
 
It was the guy who just moments ago had been sitting beside me.
 
“Shit! Mike! That’s the guy.  The guy who was just here.  You ever seen him before? Know where he lives?”
 
“He said he lived right around the corner.  Nowhere around here anyone could live besides Highland Acres.”
 
“You gotta call the constables, Mike.”
 
“I’m on it.  Look, you go home.  I’ll let the constables know you were here.  They can call you, right?”

“You sure you don’t want me to stay?”
 
“I’m sure. Not like you or I did anything.  I’ll give them your number.  You okay with that?”
 
“Yeah.  Marie should be home by now.  She works on Charing Cross Road.  She might have seen or heard something about this. I’m sure she’s worried.”
 
“I’ll be in touch.  Or the constables will be.  See you next Thursday?”
 
“You bet.  Take care, Mike.”
 
“You too.  Crazy fucks out there, huh?”
 
“Craziest.”
 
I drove home calling Marie’s mobile phone and our house phone.  There was no answer at either.  I was worried.  It wasn’t that late, but late enough.  Marie usually got home around ten, and it was eleven thirty.  She’d often be in bed by now.  I tried the house phone again, thinking maybe she’d been sleeping and the phone had roused her, but not in enough time for her to answer before the answering machine got it.
 
I pulled into the drive and saw Marie’s car in the drive.  If she was home, why wasn’t she answering the phone?  I unlocked the door and saw her sitting on the chesterfield, with the television on.  She was watching some reality show we’d both agreed was banal.
 
“Good evening Aaron.  I’ve missed you. How was your day?”
 
That wasn’t Marie…

I Understand

I understand what you meant.

I understand what you said.

But what I don't understand is why.  Why did you say what you said?  Why did you feel that what you  had to tell me was what I needed to hear?  What made you think that what you had to say was something I don't already know, or haven't already heard?

I understand you care.

I understand you think you're entitled to say what you want.

But what I don't understand is why you want to say those things to someone you're supposed to love.  Why would you say things that are hurtful? 

I understand that you're lonely.

I understand you have issues, too.

But what I don't understand is why I give and give you friendship, and you give nothing in return.  I was there for you.  You were never there for me. 

I understand that you're busy.

I understand you're stressed.

But what I don't understand is why you think you're the only one.  Stress is not something that's specific to you.  We're all stressed.  We're all busy. 

I understand - and you have no idea.

The Affair

Every day you pass me by. I’m there – day after day, watching you. I see you, but you don’t see me. Or at least, you don’t look at me. I wonder how I can get your attention. Maybe tomorrow I’ll stand a little taller.

~~
You passed me by again today. You still didn’t notice me. I tried standing a little taller, but the rain made it hard. I think today you missed me because you had an umbrella up, and your head down against the rain. You were walking faster than usual. The rain was hard.

~~

Again you didn’t notice me. The sun was shining and I had my face towards it. It was a beautiful warm day. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll try another perfume.

~~

I think my perfume worked today. You slowed when you got near me. I saw you sniffing the air. You almost stopped in front of me. You took a deep breath and slowed – but then your phone rang and your attention was divided.

~~

You stopped today! Clearly my perfume was the key. Today you stopped. You saw me. You smiled and breathed in my perfume. You even came close to me to get the full effect of my perfume. You told me I was beautiful.

~~

You stopped again today and told me I was beautiful. You caressed my face and breathed in my perfume. I shivered. “Tomorrow.” You said.

~~

This morning you picked me up. You breathed in my perfume, and held me so delicately. You caressed my face and told me again how beautiful I was. Then, instead of continuing on to work, you turned away and told me you could take the day off. You brought me home and to the bedroom. I shivered with anticipation.
“Darling,” you said. “I saw this beautiful rose, and something made me pick it and bring it home to you. I love you.” Then you handed me to your beautiful wife. 

Water

It's all around me. I can hear it. There is no hiding from it. It rises and falls and rises and falls. But each time it rises, and each time it falls, it stays just a little higher than it did before. Before too long, it will engulf this tiny island. Before too long, any trace of this island will disappear.

We should have listened to our forefathers. We should have listened when they told us our consumerist ways would eventually destroy us and our planet. And now I am the only one left to see what has become of us.

Sure. The rich and powerful and lucky made it off this planet and are orbiting in luxury starships. Hoping for a day when the waters recede and they can come back and destroy what's left. Or go in search of other planets to inhabit and likely destroy. They won't have learned to curb their habits. But the rest of us?  The working stiffs who rarely had two dimes to rub together. Who couldn't afford to grease the palm of some bureaucrat to get a spot on one of those "star liners"? We were left behind to witness the final destruction of the chunk of rock we called home for tens of thousands of years.

Reduce, reuse, recycle. What a joke. All that did was slow down the inevitable. It still caused ozone-destroying gasses when the recycling factories went to work. Before all the ice melted and the waters rose, the gasses caused temperature increases. Summer lasted 365 days a year (366 in a leap year). It was such fun to go to the beach in February. For the first couple of years. Then reality set in. Food shortages became the norm. Prices rose. Somehow the rich kept getting richer, but the poor - we got poorer. Farms were all bought up and turned into factory farms and corporate farms. Farmers couldn't afford to keep running their farms without the corporate payouts.

Once the food supply started getting more and more scarce, rationing became the norm. After that, synthesizing became how we ate. There was very little food in our food. It was synthesized to look like something, but was little more than some vitamins and nutrients mixed together with something to hold them together and called "chicken-like" or "beef-like". Especially after all the animals died. It wasn't uncommon after the last cow died, to find domestic animals on restaurant menus. You learned quickly not to think of your old dog Sparky when you were at the diner eating "meat-like loaf".

And now, here I am, writing what will likely be my last words. The water has gotten even higher now. It's around my knees. I can't get to any higher ground. There is no higher ground. I'm at the top of the tallest building. I'm writing this and putting it in a plastic zipper bag in the hopes that someone someday will find it. Maybe they'll learn from our mistakes and treat this planet better than we did.

For now, I can only hope that if the starships are heading to the planet our researchers studied when it became apparent we would need to leave our home, they treat the new world with more respect than they did this one.

That is my hope for this new planet. That is my hope for Earth.