After the End of it All(Ryan Ziter) AFTER THE END OF IT ALL


It is after the end of it all and she is trying to keep from going insane. She walks through what is left of the dead city, stopping at odd piles of rubble here and there, imagining the places they used to be, imagining the people that had once filled them. She cries whenever she does this and she does this often. The lids around her eyes have begun to swell; they are always sore, always tender. She doesn't know whether it's the radiation or just the constant crying. She doesn't care.

The winds pick up and when they do they make an eerie whining noise wherever they whisk through gaps and funnels in the wreckage. It sounds as if everything around her is screaming. Whenever the wailing of the dead hospital is too much for her, she opens her mouth and screams along with it. She thinks, maybe, it will help her fit in.

She is utterly, completely, hopelessly alone.

She had long ago stopped talking aloud to herself, stopped looking for other survivors. She used to spend part of her daylight hours sitting and staring at the cover of a fashion magazine she had found in the clutter. Now she never looks at it, just carries the thing constantly, rolled tight into a small tube, cover facing inward, locked in the grip of her swelling fist. She never lets go of it, even when she sleeps.

Underground, in the demolished tunnel where she lives, she lies in the darkness and lets the bloated, slow-moving bugs crawl over her at night. She does this, unmoving on the cracked tile floor, with eyes shut and mouth wide open. Whenever a bug scuttles into her mouth, she bites down on it, chews, swallows. This is how she eats. This is what is keeping her alive.

After she has eaten her fill, she gets up and lights a candle. Her movement always sends the bugs scurrying away. The dim, constant, glow keeps them at a distance. It's the only way it is; she eats in the dark, sleeps in the light. This system works for her. There are plenty of bugs and she has found many matches, many candles.

She snaps awake, automatically when her candle burns out. She hears things moving around in the darkness. Close to her, something large, larger than the bugs, larger than anything she has seen or heard in a long, long, time, rustles and clomps.

She isn't scared or even surprised. There is nothing enough left in her emotional reservoir for her to do anything but tighten her grip on the rolled magazine and listen.

A quick scratching sound, then something flares. A small spot of light glides like a firefly around her. Another flare, then a dull yellow glow. Someone had struck a match, lit another one of her candles.

"I haven't seen anyone since the end of it all,” she says. Her voice is raw and flat and she finds her throat hurts when she speaks.

A short, thin man steps into the light. He wears thick, round glasses and has a bushy reddish mustache. His head is bald, chapped, and dirty. In one dangling hand he carries a stained canvas shopping bag. "Found some others . . . from time to time . . . out there," is all he says.

He walks closer to her. He lifts his free hand and lets his fingers skim the side of her cheek. The edges of his fingers are ragged, her cheeks are sore, but the gesture is intended to be gentle, so she doesn't pull away. His fingers feel better on her face than the tiny legs of the bugs.

She starts to sob. Not from anguish, not from loneliness, not from impotent anger or hunger or madness; she cries from happiness. Long-dormant, long-forgotten emotions twitch to life inside her. Someone is standing next to her. She isn't the only one left. She won't have to be alone anymore. Not alone.

"You're the most beautiful woman in the world," he says to her. His voice is softer than his touch.

She hasn't heard that description in a long time. The sound of those words makes her weep even more.

"I . . . used to be . . ." she trembles. She can barely speak, She removes the magazine from her fist, unrolls it for the first time in too long. She points to the cover. A bikini-clad model frolics in the blue ocean surf. "That . . . that's me . . . It is. Really. That . . . used to be me."

The man squints at the picture. He smiles and reaches into his shopping bag. He pulls out the frayed remains of a newspaper, one of the city's more sensational tabloids.

He pokes at the front page, pointing with pride.

"That's me," he beams and taps the headline. "That's me." Next to his dirty-nailed finger are the words:

TORSO KILLER STRIKES AGAIN.

He pulls something else out of his shopping bag and takes another step forward.

The candle tips over just then, and everything again is in absolute darkness. Outside, the wind kicks up; it screams across the night.

Well, maybe it's the wind...

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