A citronella candle puddles away in a bucket, its sharp, warm scent hanging in the air. It smells like the old world—smells of summers long ago that were fresh and green and full of promise and those nights Robin had spent out on the porch with Jim, a few beers, and a guitar they passed between each other, plucking out the opening riff to “Stairway to Heaven” over and over because they never learned anything else.
Robin closes his eyes.
The old man does what he can for his shoulder, cleaning it with vodka and binding it with a torn-up shirtsleeve. No sense in fishing around tendons and muscle with the tip of a knife for the bullet, like in the movies. “With any luck, it’ll heal without severe complications,” the old man says, while wiping …show more content…
He putters around the store with it, looking for a place to spread it and curl up. He finds one between the bare, dust-furred shelves of the snack aisle. He spends his first few nights there with his hunting knife at his side, body humming with pain and tinglingly awake while some part of him waits to feel a hand snap around his ankle, dragging him back, thrashing and screaming, down the road in a circle of bandits.
But there’s no rattling of guns and crashing glass and boots tromping through the store. He only hears the old man coughing and the baby’s gurgling cry in the darkness every now and again, stirring him from sleep. There is a soft humming, sometimes, of a song that hovers on the edge of Robin’s memory, but he can’t figure out—just one more thing lost in a bygone era.
Life will go on with or without us, Robin thinks. It always does. But at least we still have some part in it, for the moment. Still have a roof over our heads and the food we scrape out from the bottom of tin cans. Our friends didn’t have that luxury. Not even the mercy of having their brains dashed or blown out rather than being torn apart piece by screaming piece to be left wandering the world as mindless parodies of the people they once were—people with hopes and dreams, people who loved and were
Robin closes his eyes.
The old man does what he can for his shoulder, cleaning it with vodka and binding it with a torn-up shirtsleeve. No sense in fishing around tendons and muscle with the tip of a knife for the bullet, like in the movies. “With any luck, it’ll heal without severe complications,” the old man says, while wiping …show more content…
He putters around the store with it, looking for a place to spread it and curl up. He finds one between the bare, dust-furred shelves of the snack aisle. He spends his first few nights there with his hunting knife at his side, body humming with pain and tinglingly awake while some part of him waits to feel a hand snap around his ankle, dragging him back, thrashing and screaming, down the road in a circle of bandits.
But there’s no rattling of guns and crashing glass and boots tromping through the store. He only hears the old man coughing and the baby’s gurgling cry in the darkness every now and again, stirring him from sleep. There is a soft humming, sometimes, of a song that hovers on the edge of Robin’s memory, but he can’t figure out—just one more thing lost in a bygone era.
Life will go on with or without us, Robin thinks. It always does. But at least we still have some part in it, for the moment. Still have a roof over our heads and the food we scrape out from the bottom of tin cans. Our friends didn’t have that luxury. Not even the mercy of having their brains dashed or blown out rather than being torn apart piece by screaming piece to be left wandering the world as mindless parodies of the people they once were—people with hopes and dreams, people who loved and were