The next day brought about a reckoning of dry cold air and more frozen rabbit meat. It snowed. And the wind blew this way and that. Causing an updraft and flurry of snow. The Man looked around the environment that surrounded him. Dead things all around him that seem to loom and cast some great shadow over him or some great curse on his life. A forgotten look back at some forgotten look forward. He fiddled with the edge of a knife aimlessly running his thumb along its not-quite-sharp blade, the palms of his hands unusually slick with sweat given the winter.

          The Woman was wandering the city in search of anything of use, leaving The Man bored and alone. So there The Man sat under the corpse of a tree by the frozen pond in the forgotten park. Watching the day change and sunlight sweep by and leave. Three deer came by, nuzzling the ground with their noses trying to find something green, alive to consume. The Man shifted a little and the wind blew in such a way that it caught his scent. The wind carried it loftily and back down and in such a way that the deer caught it. Simultaneously they shot up from the hard dead ground and stared in his direction, alarmed initially by the smell. The Man did not move and so the deer did not care. They continued along their way shoving the built-up snow every which way as they searched for food. The Man followed them with his eyes until they were far outside the park and down a street and, eventually, they turned a corner and were lost from sight, going on, still ambling.

          The Man let out a sigh from his nose. Sheathed the knife. He lifted himself from his haunches and collected his things deciding then to go wander for his own. He went down the nearest street and walked, tamping down the snow as he did. A stiff wind, shallow as it was, picked up and caressed him causing The Man to tuck his head down a little against the chill. He watched as his own feet became mired in snow that had built up for going on far more days than The Man could count, entering the white abyss before quickly picking, kicking up and out and forward in a flurry of white flakes before once again becoming engulfed. The Man tread on this way for some time. An aimless but straight line.

          He came to a stop when he came upon the city’s edge. There were still some buildings and a stretch of road that lay that way, but it was the edge. The Man knew it and lived by it. Just more ruin out there. And more pinned corpses. Along the landscape of sparse trees scattered about like some great being collected them, plucked out the ground by their roots, and tossed about like dice and left where they rooted. In between and far behind and close up, were small hills, covered as they were, of strange mix of gentle and harsh edges and slopes. A great deal of the view before The Man was like that of a scape, barren as it was, with the mess of trees concentrated in its own way in a certain area. There, more deer could be seen dotting the land, while over here a few coyotes skirted around a pack of wolves that encircled some carcass or another, even while they licked their jaws and waited for their turn at some measly morsel of sinew and blood that brilliantly caked and contrasted with the bright white of the snowy ground.

          Further in the distance, more animals howled and yelled and screamed and cawed, and what could be seen was much the same as what could be seen up close. A forest, it seemed, could just be made out if The Man went up a building a few stories, he knew that much. Nothing much he didn’t know about the outskirts of the city. The Old Man had raised him here. In this city, his city, the Old Man’s that is. Dying and leaving its care in the form of a guardian, his de facto child, buried now, somewhere in that park by the apartments. 

          “Whatcha doin out ‘ere?” The Man asked. The Woman remained silent for a bit. “Whatcha doin out ‘ere?” The Man asked again more loudly.

          “I ain’t doin’ nothing that don’t concern you,” The Woman responded sullenly.

          “Well I rightly see it that it is my concern, now.” See’n as how you went up and bled half to death in front of me. So, whatcha-”

          “I dunno. I was just…I dunno. Wanderin’? I suppose. Just wanderin’.”

          “Jest wanderin’?” The Man asked, a little confused. “It aint dangerous out there?” He gestured loosely through a wall.

          “Sure, it’s plenty dangerous. But how else you suppose to get from one place to another? You have to wander. Only way you can really know things, you know? To understand what everything’s like. Not just what you think you seen. You don’t wander?” The Man spat on the floor, though he was uncertain if it was out of contempt or habit or something else entirely.

          “I dont need to wander. I understand plenty enough, as it were. Sides, wanderins dangerous.”

          “As you say.”

          “Wanderins dangerous,” The Man said quietly, half-spoken like a child trying to reassure themselves.  

          The Man pushed on a door. It didn’t move. He leaned into it a second time, grounding his feet and using more of his weight, and it swung open, before it creaked and with a loud thud that echoed inside the building and out it broke off its hinges, smacking the floor and kicking up a maelstrom of dust. The Man coughed as he inhaled the tiny particulates, waving his hands around in the hope of dispelling his fit. He walked forward a few more steps, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Windows long ago had been boarded up, good and tight, a wall against light. Sunlight followed him into the building, on the far wall, away from the man, his silhouette was caged, imprisoned by the light and danced just so in flickering hypnotism that only briefly caught The Man in wonder and illusion. He took a few steps in and the sound of his footfalls resounded in the emptiness, collapsing on itself.

          The Man wandered this empty building. The Man with one and guiding him along the nearest wall followed along ruinous hallways in the pitch black and grey light. The wall was coarse and pebbly, occasionally it gave out where the plaster was missing, exposing the haphazard collection of innards of the building, structural reinforcements and old wires and nails. Other times the wall sagged inward when he put pressure on it where some water had long degraded it and weakened it. Still The Man continued down the hallways. Stopping to check a room or to test a door every so often. Nothing was left. Not really anyway. The occasional piece of cloth or old rusty tool that ended up left behind and abandoned. There was no furniture in any of the rooms he went into, no serious evidence of residents that had ever lived there or anything. All that was left, that was not abandoned, was the colorlessness of the building.

          Every window was boarded and let no light through save for the thinnest and smallest strands that crept into the building. On the highest level The Man entered the best he could in all of the rooms. Some of the doors moved and swung wide easily enough while others were difficult to budge. All the rooms contained great amounts of furniture. Chairs. Couches. Tables. Shelves. Bed frames. Mattresses. They were all thrown together like some lazy tapestry. A quickly cobbled together mess of storage space. In the last room in the hallway the furniture was assembled carefully and with care. The Man imagined that it was set up like it was long ago in a past age. He entered the room, clean except for the thick layer of dust that had remained undisturbed by anyone or anything in quite some time. The Man entered the bedroom. A skeleton of some person lay in it. Clothed in what was once a bright floral pattern dress, now faded and tattered rags. The Man rummaged around for a short time before departing closing the door behind him gently so as not to disturb the dust so much more.

          He traversed once more the decadent halls of tombstone grey and choking claustrophobia. The Man became uneasy as he wandered back, his shoulders hunched unconsciously and tensed, waiting for the moment he felt coming to act and to react in an instinctual manner. An animal treading in the territory of predators. These feelings came together for The Man, even as he came closer to the exit of the husk of the building. But behold, he was then outside. Free to breathe in the air that was free of dust, cool and crisp it rejuvenated him and renewed his spirit. He felt at ease again. Confident as he walked down the street in that old familiar city that he thought of as home. As permanent and perpetual shelter a protector form the weather that would occasionally come in a frenzy, whipping about snow and rain and hellish winds.

          “Yew can read?” The Man asked in genuine and earnest wonderment.

          “Yeah I can read.” The Woman turned from the old street sign with its words, with the exception of a few letters, obscured by rust and exposure and weather. “You can’t?” The Man shook his head.

          “Nah. The Old Man never taught me none of that. I asked him once and he explained what it all was but,” The Man shrugged his shoulders. “Nuthin ever did come from it. ‘Sides. Readin ain’t too useful, now aint it?”

          “No. I ‘spose not.”

          The Man and Woman began to walk again down the street. The bright and hot sun beat down to them like a silent drum and they were rowers of an ancient warship, cast to the sea awaiting for their enemy appear so they may sink them.

          “Is it hard?”

          “Is what hard?”

          “Ta read ‘course. Is it hard?”

          “No. It aint too hard. Not when ya get used to it that is. It’s all ‘bout remembering the words and how they go togetha. What they mean anyways. Why you so curious?”

          The Man shrugged again, his go-to unconscious response to things. “It jest ain’t anything I ever seen fore.”

                                                    *          *          *          *

            The Man’s heart pounded, a thousand drums of some barbaric and rhythmic horror that could not so easily be expressed in words. The Woman was on the other side of The City, back at the apartment. But over there, in the not so distant distance smoke curled and fanged, sinuous as it was. The Man fumbled for a moment for his pistol and despite his uncertainty he moved forward toward that smoke. A wind picked up, carrying the smell of burning wood and animal flesh that tickled his nose. The Man did not know. What to do. How to act. How to think. In this moment, the Old Man had taught him many things, and the possibility of other humans showing up was certainly one of those. The Man’s brain screamed and throttled him to run, but another part told him to remain calm and investigate. “She’s nice,” The Man muttered and reasoned himself. He plodded forward, tamping down the snow as he did. Eventually The Man halted and crouched down. He could see where the smoke was coming from, a small copse of trees that were clumped together, an unprepossessing bouquet of wilted flowers. From there smoke gently wavered and clambered up, up, up.

          The Man was at the edge of the City. Those trees were not far off from him but still existed in a different realm from him, one that he was told and taught and told again as being dangerous. The Man sat, crouched there for an indeterminate amount of time considering what next to do, which action to take. Over there lay the unknown, a field of existential possibilities and utter dread, a no man’s land of a lifetime of tutored dangers stretching farther and farther and farther than The Man could imagine, daring or no. Here, there was the City, a fortress of a kind, The Man’s ward as guardian. That smoke though curled in such a seductive manner, a cruelty unmatched by the worst pains or the hardest trials, the forever away concept of human loneliness and the writhing agony of that look-again and farfetched ideal of companionship.

          That feeling, that sense of unbelonging, cast aside the uncertainties and doubts of the world unknown and outside of himself. The Man took one step out of the edge. Then another. And there he was, in that void of blackness, glistening and glittering as it was by the blanket of snow so white and undisturbed that it can only be described as being snow white. The Man bravely pushed forward toward the tree line, affixing his gaze onto it, unwavering, as though worried that any deviation could lead to his falling off the earth and being left there in any kind of suspended animation until he, like the multitude of trees and other living things, wilted and collapsed upon itself in the most tumultuous of fashion. When The Man was halfway to the smoke a small blaze of sparks erupted that could be seen between the trunks of trees, forcing The Man to hunker down for a bit and watch the copse for anything else that may alarm him. When nothing of that sort occurred he took up his seemingly never-ending journey again, still staring, a mixture of impatience and eagerness and sliver of regret that was slowly clawing itself up and up inside of him. And after what seemed like the entirety of the winter he was upon the copse. Wind had pushed the smoke his direction, causing his eyes to become red and watery, but he dared not cough, certainly not now. He lay on his belly crawling toward the nearest tree where he sidled up to it. The Man crouched, one hand on the tree for support, he reached down with his other, as quietly as he could, and scooped up snow. He inhaled, sharply but silently, and stuffed the snow into his mouth, preventing his breath from vaporizing in the cold air. He glanced quickly around the tree. One person was sitting by the fire, stoking it absentmindedly with a stick. The Man drew his pistol and slowly approached person.

          “No reason to be so cautious. I ain’t lookin to start nuthin’.” The Man froze where he stood, his mouth freezing and melting. The Stranger turned partially to look at The Man. I do have weapons on me, but I aint got no intention of using em. The Stranger gestured toward the fire. “Feel free to sit and warm yerself. I got a deer roastin too, if’n yer so inclined.” The Man still just stood there, the snow in his mouth having fully melted and slid down his throat. The Stranger smirked. “No? Then no reason for us to bother each other.” He motioned for The Man to leave. The Man hesitated, but shook his head, still standing there, dumbfounded by this discovery. The Stranger chose then to just ignore him and went back to tending to the fire and meat. The venison roasted and crackled, the waters inside it boiling, miniature explosions of untold energy that killed those microscopic, near invisible beings that so poisoned any foolish enough to ingest them.

          After a time of silence broken only by the sound of fire snapping wood, did The Man sit down opposite of The Stranger, who offered him a kind smile. The Stranger went about of removing chunks of deer meat with a knife and a gloved hand, tossing the first one of such pieces to The Man, who took it earnestly, if not a little hesitantly. They sat, further still, in silence as they concentrated on the food in hand. Clear-red juices from the meat ran down both their faces. Even after the food was gone they sat in silence. A gentle wind picked up every once in a while, flickering the fire’s lashes, as though taunting it and throwing insults that both anger and hurt the fire, of how the fire cannot be free like the wind, and how it is stuck there, jailed, in that tiny receptacle, it’s entire life debased by the fact that another thing must tend to it, lest it fades and dies in un-blaze and un-glory. The wind was a trickster, a harlequin, that acrobatically tumbled and turned and was nothing if not the personification of joy, even while lacking any characteristics of a person, a pariah in nature. So they sat in this manner for some indeterminate amount of time, upon the precipice of some forgotten clock that chimed upon some forgotten hour and the subsequent minutes and seconds that fell in kind.

          “You stay in these parts?”

          “Yeah, I stay in these parts. Always have.”

          “Always?” The Man just nodded in response. “Anyone else with you?”

          “Yeah, there’s one other. A woman.” The Man answered the questions unblinkingly and more out of instinct than anything else. The Stranger was charming in a way. A kind of person that had simply walked a ways, alone, and was simply content with attaching themselves to the first person who was there and could speak. The Man found that a strange comfort to be had. The Man had his own questions. “Where you from?” The Stranger jutted a thumb over their shoulder.

          “Out that aways. West, I think.”

The Man nodded absentmindedly. “No one else with yew?”

          “No.”

          The Stranger bent over and cupped some snow in a hand, cleansing them in their pure white. “You said you always been here. That mean your whole life?”

          “Yeah. Whole life.”

          “You and that woman?”

          “Nah. The Woman is pretty fresh for me. For a while there I had the Old Man takin’ care of me.”

          “He your pa?”

The Man frowned at the question, puzzled by its nature. “Nah. He’s the Old Man.”

The Stranger nodded. Taking a canteen in one hand and drinking from it. The Man reached for his own to do the same. The sweet cold water gently rolling down his throat, cooling and refreshing it. The liquid was welcome. A reminder of another day alive.

“If’n you want,” The Stranger said, prodding the flames with a fire-hardened stick. “Well, that is, if’n you and that woman yer with are so inclined, you can come join me and the group I’m a part of.”

The Man frowned, a little confused. “You said you aint with anyone. The Man’s hand dropped to his pistol grip.”

“I aint with anyone. Not now, least. I come from a group of people. Take your hand from that gun, fore you do somethin’ stupid.” The Man’s refused to move from the smooth grip of the pistol, worn down by hands, weather, and oils over the years.

“What group?”

“My group. I’m out here searching for a better place for us to stay.” The Stranger eyed The Man’s hand every once in a while, casting a nervous glance at it here and there. He shifted in his sitting position, alarming The Man.

“Dont move!”

“Goddammit! Get yer hand off the goddamn gun! Yer making me more nervous than…than I dont know what, but you’re making me nervous, goddammit! I dont know what yer gonna do when yer like this!” The Stranger shouted this, the voice rippling, breaking and splashing against the trees that surrounded them, then, rebounding before again breaking and splashing and rebounding, cycling through this until absolute diffusion. The Man was taken aback by the otherwise soft-spoken person sitting, albeit uncomfortably, in front of him. The Man took a moment before finally removing his hand from the grip. The Stranger let out a small sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

          “If yer part of a group, and yer lookin for somewhere else to be, then why you out here by yerself?”

          The Stranger shrugged, body shaking a little still, laughing a little. Honestly, our group aint lookin too strong right now. “There aint too many able-bodied folks that can do this kind of thing, so we could really only send myself out. Well, I volunteered anyway. Everyone else is too old or too young.” The Stranger shrugged. “That’s about all to it. Think you and yer friend would like to join us?”

          The Man sat there, digesting the offer, vapidly staring into the bowels of the fire. The gentle pulse of the charcoal buried beneath flame and tree was mesmerizing. A heartbeat and a deathbeat. A beginning and an end. An ouroborical sign or omen, that flares and beats against the smothering ashes, all-consuming, killed by water, the only thing that commits suicide every time it drinks. That gentle and seductive pulse that lies in its depths calling out to The Man. Cautioning him, warning him, against some unseen or unknown threat, idea. The coals pulsed just so, before coming to a point and exploded, a torrent of sparks sputtered out of the husk, the former tree, letting loose a cracking noise split the silence that pervaded the two people.

          “Sorry. I’m afraid that aint for us.” Pulse.

The Stranger nodded and said, “That’s fine.” Pulse. “Y’know. I been in the area a couple of days now.” Pulse. “Scouting the city,” The Stranger gestured toward The City. Pulse. “I think, when I get back I’m gonna let my group know about this place. It’s a good place.” Pulse. “I think we can really grow our community.”

          Pulse.

          The Man’s breath caught in his throat, trying to claw its way out, frantically and fervently. Eventually it tumbled out, not his breath but fear came up and was replaced by more. A hard cold lump of stone and anxiety, racing towards the theoretically limitless possibilities that exist in the future, but only focusing on a few, the worst. The unknown, the never-before-considered of what could lie ahead. The Man’s fear became prevalent, took control and whipped The Man into a wild-eyed, barbaric savagery. He stood quickly, his breath running ragged and worn, his lungs feeling burning and cold. The Stranger said something unheard and lost among the trees and the air and the fire. The Man kicked those pulsing coals, all wicked and sinister beauty into the eyes and face of The Stranger. The fire roared at the disturbance, like a long dormant dragon seething. The Stranger yelled, unanswered, and clutched and clawed at their eyes. The burning and smoking searing The Stranger. The Man lunged across the fire, tackling and forcing The Stranger down, one foot dipped into the fire causing another shower of sparks and anger. The Man pinned the crying stranger on the ground and gripped their neck with both his hands. Squeezing ever so tighter, tighter, tighter. The Stranger, in their blindness, realized what was happening and struck out wildly, and bucked up, raising their haunches trying to force The Man off of them, kicking out violently, striking the fire like a hammer, more sparks flying, landing on the back of The Man and on his bare neck, burning pain ignored in his bloodlust. The Strangers eyes fluttered open, still struggling but less so now, revealing them to be swollen and red and burned, and, even so, wet with tears, the skin around the eyes was also singed as the face turned quick to purple and blue. The Man raised himself on top of The Stranger, forcing even more of his weight into his strangle. A sharp crack occurred and The Stranger stopped. Eyes still bulging, still wet and burning. The Man did not let go immediately. His hands still wrapped around the neck, holding on to it with an death-like grip, no longer afraid or angry, instead now, just scared that The Stranger will wake up and bring back those feelings. The Man sat there, unmoving, for some time. Eventually, though, The Man moved off of the body. In calm regret he used his hands, uncaring for their bareness and the bitter cold, and shoveled snow onto the pit, extinguishing the fire.

The Man left the copse of trees and without another glance back returned to The City. ��1w��K