Human

There.

I heard a creak.

A rusty chain was moving, back and forth, back and forth.

I turned my blurry and blinking eyes towards the source from my little hollowed out space in a stack of pallets. Some snow fluttered down that I hadn’t disturbed yet from the wood above, and I carefully brushed it off my cheek with one gloved finger. I could barely feel the touch in the penetrating cold. I had been there for three hours, hoping one of the rare deer would come by for the sparse grass still left at the elementary school’s playground.

Instead of deer though, I saw a little figure on the swing, going back and forth, back and forth. I could feel their warmth, feel the cloud of mist that their breath left in the freezing air. The narrow viewing point I had was still enough to see the little figure’s blue puffy coat, with black zippers and black boots.

Why are they out here? That isn’t enough clothes for this winter. Surely there is some shelter?

But reality is harsher, and I knew this little figure probably had nothing left, in fact my own stores of food were gone, and I was far better prepared to survive the aftermath than this child. Suddenly, the thought dawned on me.

What if I…? No, that’s terrible! But they’re not likely to survive much longer now are they, not like that. I won’t, I can’t, I will never stoop so low!

Despite my resistance, my hands moved instinctively, finding the ow I had found in the sports store on the other side of town, my right hand fitting an arrow. Conveniently, that narrow gap was wide enough to fit an arrow head.

Even as my hand drew the string back to my cheek, and my eyes sighted the target’s little neck, something stopped me. Some shred of humanity left alive, despite the beast in my stomach. I relaxed my grip, and tears started to flow, but before I could even process it, my hand jerked back to my cheek, the woolen cloth barely cracking my icy exterior.

They’re just another living thing, like all the rabbits and deer from the fall. They are human! It’s survival of the fittest. They are a child! That won’t survive long enough to have to make decisions like this. What have I done to deserve this? Just keep surviving. I WANT TO LIVE! Why, why did I live? What crueler fate could have been bestowed on one human? Keep fighting. Yes, I’ll keep fighting. I’ll live on this meaningless life as I lose the memories of those I held dear before the blast. But I’ll do it right. Right is a relative term, a grey area.

So it continued for almost an hour, the string becoming taut and lax as either side was winning, death on the line. The arrow went back and forth, back and forth, a pendulum of destruction. Throughout it all, the small, puffy figure kept swinging, oblivious to the presence of another. Eventually the internal battle was interrupted by a new sound, the faint sound of crying. So strange, the two of us sharing in this deep tragedy, loss as stinging as the salt of our tears in open wounds. For five minutes, I mourned the near loss of my humanity and the growling of my clenching, empty stomach. For five minutes the little, blue figure cried, and I think it was because of the memories of a time that would never be again, when the worst thing they had to worry about was that one grumpy math teacher. What a simple time.

The crying abruptly stopped as the little figure fell forward into the snow, and lay still. I was stunned for a moment, but slowly got up and removed the lid, showering myself with a dusting of snow. I shook it off as I climbed out and replaced the top pallet. I realized that the sky had grown dark quickly, and I had gone another day without a catch. I crunched through the thin layer of snow on the ground in between the shed and the playground until I reached the prone body.

I flipped the small body over and saw that the eyes were frozen shut with a pair of frozen streams down each cheek. I touched my own cheeks, and felt ridges that said I had them too.

I knew she was dead, but there must be a way to melt her frozen heart right? Maybe it was her reminder of a half remembered neice. I carried her back to my hunting pallets, as it was too late to get back to my shelter, and set up a tarp, covering it up for the fast approaching cold of night. In the pitch black of that hole, I rocked the frozen body back and forth, back and forth.

I am still human. I am still human. I am still human. I am still human. I am human. I am human. I am...