Edge of the Sky - Part 2

After cresting the cliff face, he sat for a moment, catching his breath. The thin sun had turned to a red lidless eye that sunk lower in the hazy sky. He was on the edge of the city, which was literally an edge. The rim behind him was part of the collapse from years ago. Tall buildings still stood close to the edge, seemingly unaffected by the chasm that lie less than a hundred paces away.

Sam was adept at finding things in the ancient rubble. He was also good at getting in and out of those ancient skyscrapers without triggering a collapse. It seemed ironic that something that seemed so solid could come tumbling to the ground, but it had happened and many of his people were lost. The skyscrapers held a tenuous relationship with gravity and the surface of the earth had called them home from time to time. It was best not to tempt fate and Sam rarely did.

Rarely, but not never. After all, some of the best salvage were near the tops of these buildings.

The road from the rim lead past several of these buildings. It felt like taking your life into your hands when you stood below them and looked up. It was a challenge, listening to the groaning supports and the wind sending shivers through the building. Sometimes spouting cascades of rubble to a sudden stop in the hard packed ground.

“Any moment...” Sam whispered, “Any moment and everything could come crashing down.”

He took a somewhat winding route, avoiding hazards, but also shakily putting useful scraps into his makeshift sling sack. He couldn't afford to spend too much energy prying open boxes and getting into drawers, so he took what he could from the surfaces: a usable screwdriver slightly pockmarked with rust, a magnifying glass with a brittle handle that crumbled when he touched it, metal wheels from an old upended chair. He stopped several times, catching himself. His hunger was eating him from the inside. It had long since stopped being an obvious pain and more like a constant ache. It wouldn't be much longer. If he didn't get a full ration, it might even be tomorrow.

Sam leaned against the wall, he was afraid to sit or he might not stand back up. He leaned forward and pressed against the gloom that was swallowing the hulking towers. The sky turned from red to a dark purple. Then from the dark purple to a palpable dark blue. The mist eddied around his feet as he moved through the darkness. Every footstep made Sam’s entire frame ache. He couldn't tell if he was trembling from hunger or the encroaching cold. The smell of a campfire was on the air and reflected light penetrated the sky, guiding his way.

“Home again,” he said under his breath.

He moved to the checkpoint and raised a thin hand and a wavering voice.

“Sam here.”

A man looked over the wall from what he was doing. He had an old construction helmet with reflective bands lining the rim.

“Anything out there, son?” He barked, pushing his voice against the darkness like a challenge.

“Nothing, Trev, not a peep.” Sam said, breathlessly.

Trevor looked down and paused.

“You don't look so good,” Concern fluttered in his voice.

“Haven't eaten, sir.” Sam said, with some effort.

He sat, unmoving as he looked down for a couple of heartbeats. Sam couldn’t see his face, but he could feel it. Trev was a good man. He was there to protect the city from attacks that had long since ceased. He got a full ration which, for a Protector, was required. Trev had known his dad, Avery. He was probably the closest thing that Sam’s father had to a best friend. Regardless of how aloof as Avery had been.

Ever since his father had passed on, Sam had to work extra to meet his scavenging quotas. Everyone had to work, it was true, but the better the haul, the more likely you got a decent share. Last week he had been at half rations even when he felt he was doing well. This week, it was scraps here and there, but he hadn't officially been rationed. He felt like he was being punished and he didn't know why. This had been happening for so long it was hard to know when the last time he had felt full.

Sam was slowly giving up. Yet, he had this irreconcilable drive that kept him going. The drawing of him on the word filled page fluttered into memory again. It seemed so long ago, but it was merely hours past.

Trev had retreated from the wall and after a muffled conversation called down to someone to open the door. Sam trudged forward, stumbling slightly, but righting himself. Each footstep rattled his bones. It was a lonely procession, rows of Protectors parted as the emaciated Sam moved into town toward the supply hold.

“You're late!" Old Ty grumbled as Sam leaned through the door, "Well, later than usual..."

He unslung the bag and dropped it on the table with a clatter, then flopped on a close-by cot like a bundle of bones.

He had barely looked up to see where Sam had gone. The dark of the supply warehouse hid the desperation that was filling Sam’s eyes. They glistened as he stared at the wall wondering if this was his last night.

There was a knock at the door and Tiberius shouted for whoever to come in. Trev walked in.

“Ty, where’s Sam?”

“Eh, lying there. Why?”

Focused and completely detached from reality, Tiberius was stooped over some electronic components with faint wisps of smoke ascending from his soldering iron. Sam watched him from his cot. He was a thin, bony man with bright blue eyes. Ty’s close cropped white hair had a matching scraggly beard that framed a lantern jaw with few functioning teeth.

Ty drove him hard, which kept him occupied. It was something Sam appreciated, but he was driven to distraction so often he had little awareness for those outside of himself. Right now, Sam was begging to be seen—acknowledged—as he felt himself slipping away.

Trev’s face came into view, his concern turned to worry. This was a common expression for him. His face was etched with the premature aging lines to prove it. They tended to mar his seemingly unflappable exterior.

Trev's eyes were a deep penetrating brown set deep under his jutting brow and wealth of red brown hair. He had his wife and and two young sons to care for, but his lost connection with Avery connected that same fatherly concern to Sam.

Sam remember Trevor being young just years ago. He was sure that this only had happened since he now had a family to worry for, too. There was too much sorrow in the world to have children. Sam sighed and involuntary tears began to stream from his eyes.

Tiberius swung his head to the side and followed Trev’s gaze to Sam.

“Huh, you not feeling well, boy?” Tiberius verbally poked at Sam making him feel even worse.

Trev opened an old military pack and knelt by the cot. He rooted out a plastic and foil package printed with Meal Ready to Eat. It was incredibly old, but seemed to have weathered that time well.

“I've been saving this for a special occasion,” Trevor said, struggling with a pathetic smile.

Sam’s gaunt face looked pained, there was a mix of disdain and bone-crushing fatigue as Trev tore the package open neatly and handed it to him. Sam may live another day, but he really didn’t know how he felt about that. It was a constant struggle that he'd grown tired of.

The thought to refuse came and went as his stomach gurgled at the smell of chicken bacon loaf oozed from the package. He took it gracefully and nodded wordlessly to Trev. Sam drank the gravy and chewed each bite from the chunk of meat slowly and deliberately. It was then that he realized that these animals, if it was an animal, had likely been dead for decades, and—the more morbid thought occurred to him—that animal was likely extinct.

“Should we only be so lucky,” he thought to himself. Humanity seemed to teeter on the edge of the precipice.

Trevor stood, watching Sam unceremoniously slurp at the contents of the MRE.

“I knew we were low on supplies, but I had no idea they had cut rations to the children.” Trev was clearly upset as he spoke to Tiberius.

Tiberius shook his head and shrugged, only now being aware that such a problem may exist.

“I … I didn't know. I'd a done something if I had. He’s such a trooper, after all.” Tiberius said as he bent down and mussed Sam's hair absently.

Sam's stomach rumbled violently as his body remembered what to do next. He drank copiously from the aluminum canteen that hung off the edge of the cot. A wave of exhaustion settled over him pushing him into the cot and he drifted off, listening to the rumble of voices drone over him.

*   *   *

After Sam had slipped in a daze, Ty looked at the bag Sam had brought in. He upended it and pulled out the tools and wheels and carefully pulled out the magnifying glass.

“You don't see this kind of find anymore. Real glass!” Tiberius chuckled scratchily to himself as he tapped it with a grotesque fingernail. He took the lens and started fitting it with a wire clasp and attempted to mount it to an old lamp arm with stretched out springs.

“Hey, Ty. Let me know how he does when he wakes up. Tomorrow morning I'm going to find out why he’s not getting rations.” He said it sternly, grabbing Ty’s shoulder, making sure he was looking him in the eye.

“Will do!” Ty belted jovially, nodding at Trev while looking through the magnifying glass at the project on the table, seeming to forget everything that had just happened.

Edge of the Sky - Part 1

Haze ebbed and flowed around the cliff edge as he approached. Sam, a thin, frail youth stood at the edge of the fog as it lapped around the cliff face like waters on the shore. The sound of his footfalls were consumed by the dense fog, greedily absorbing everything given to it.

The sun was thin in the sky, a glowing disc through the layers upon layers of gauzy clouds. It was mild; not exactly cold, not exactly warm. Sam had little else other than his own exertion warming him. He was very hungry, but that he kept moving in spite of the pain in his gut. Blue-gray eyes pondered over the buckling and waving fog. He knew what he was looking for, but was being cautious in his search.

He moved into the fog until it was up to his ankles. Until, through the mild breeze, he saw the thin branches of rebar coming from the cement hulk that lay just below the cliff’s edge. Sam caught hold of it, carefully picking his way past rows of buckled wire mesh and hunks of cement below. It was like a familiar dance, hopping from one stone to the next, avoiding the gaps and sharp spiny juts.

Sam was used to taking care of himself. He couldn't decide whether it was that he was more cautious than others or whether he didn't need help because there was no one who could help. It was a question he'd often pondered.

After a moment of descending the chunky crags, he reached his spot. It was a familiar outcropping that remained steadfast against the wreckage, a gray steel pipe nearly perpendicular to the cliff face. Sam grabbed the sharp edges carefully and made his way into the twisting tube. It was nearly man-sized and caked with white residue, but there was not a trace of rust.

He was exhausted with the effort of getting here, yet the success revitalized him. The warm wind moving from within causing tendrils from his tangled mop of dark brown hair to twist toward the exit behind him.

These kinds of pipes, they had told him, were part of what was once called the sewers. A place where the refuse from the surface was shuttled through to processing plants. This hadn’t been the case for decades, maybe even centuries. It didn't really make him queasy as one would expect, because the wind and the smell that carried on it was like the smell like old, dried out pipe tobacco.

Sam wandered deep into the pipe. He had counted it off once, two hundred twenty-seven steps. That’s where ancient grate was. He had found this place only a week or so ago while looking through the rubble. He could probably fit his head through the large bars, but he wasn't that interested in trying to find out. He had cleared out the crusted remains that had clung to the grate from ages past and was sure that, with some effort, he could find a way to bend the grate back, but he wasn't as interested in that much adventure. He just wanted a place to be alone.

"Plus, others lived down there." He reminded himself.

Others. It wasn't a name; more of a designation. They were humans that weren't exactly human. Back at the camp, the adults were afraid of them. They had sealed every hole into the sewer they came across. But Sam's dad hadn't been afraid. He had seemed sad when people talked about them, but he wasn't afraid. He recalled his dad's memory painfully. It was a hovering ache that remained just out of sight and he didn't want it coming into sight. Then he'd have to feel what he had lost and fight it, and his tears, back into the dark edges of his mind. A place Sam had reserved for anything he didn't want to see.

The thought crossed Sam's mind, "It might be getting full in there."

But he let the thought persist. It was easier to grasp now, malleable and warm, but still painful to the touch. Sam’s father, Avery, had died a little over a year ago from what Tiberius, or Old Ty, called an infection. It was said that, in ages past, that there was medicine for this. That was a very long time ago. Whatever magic was used to make such a thing had long since turned to dust.

Sam found the wadded clump of blankets and pillows at the base of the grate and unfolded the blanket there, laying a pillow on one side of the curved wall and twisting himself in multiple layers of the cloth. He unslung a thin, patchwork burlap sack that had been made into a makeshift backpack. He produced a squat candle and put it near the grate and lit it with a beat up Zippo lighter. The lighter had been his dad's. As the candle got stronger, he twisted it and looked at his reflection in the scarred surface, then put it away quickly.

The warm glow took hold and he pulled out a hard covered book along with three ancient magazines from the sack and placed them neatly near the candle. These he had scavenged from the surrounding area. He couldn't read, but the pictures were interesting. It was from another time and another place. It was so far from where he was right now. It made his heart beat painfully as he saw the beautiful people wearing bright and colorful clothes, smiling with bright, clean faces.

Sam could imagine them smiling at him, welcoming him, embracing him. He closed his eyes against the dim light for a moment, then, licking his fingers, he pinched the lit candle wick and embraced calm darkness with the sweet warm wind blowing over him. Chasing the images as fervently as he could. His head slumped to the pillow just as he caught up with them.

*   *   *

Sam awoke slowly, leaving his new friends with their kind faces behind. And was, yet again, submerged in the inky black. He resisted the urge to stretch and opened his eyes against the darkness. He looked to the end of the tunnel. The dime-sized entrance was still a hazy gray, perhaps only slightly darker.

The only sounds in the tunnel were the whispering wind eddying through the grate. His stomach growled again. He winced briefly from the pangs gripped the blanket, waiting for them to pass. He was perpetually hungry and, thus, perpetually exhausted. Sam had been fading for weeks and he knew it.

This made him desperate to look at his magazines. Sam lit the candle and was surprised to find the he had misplaced the magazines. His desperation began to consume him little by little as he shuffled through his blankets. His head was dizzy with hunger, and frustration.

He slumped back against the wall, feeling his rapidly beating heart slow to an even thump. He was calm again, but every ounce of energy he gained from sleeping had ebbed.

He pinched his face, trying to remember what could possibly have happened. Looking past the grate, he saw the book and one of the magazines opened side by side. Moving slowly to his belly, he twisted his arms through the grate, landing just shy of the book, but he was able to grab the magazine. He pulled it back slowly, deliberately through the grate, closing his eyes against the effort of sitting upright. Sam breathed slowly again, hunger amplified every sensation. He was wondering if he would make it back to the camp. Food rationing happened in the morning and it was at least a mile from where he lay right now.

Sam opened his eyes and bent forward again, attempting to return to his belly to reach through the grate, but the book was there—open and pressed against the grate. He screwed up his face up again and squinted into the darkness. The candle seemed make it harder to make out anything beyond it’s cast light.

“Thank you,” he said, breathlessly into the darkness. Not exactly sure, but still not letting any good deed go unwelcomed.

Sam was unsure if this hunger was now gnawing at his sanity. Then he looked down at the open book. Drawn over the words on the page was rough outline of a face, looking pained with eyes closed. Sam's own face, drawn with such quality as to be instantly recognizable. His heart skipped a beat at the same time that a chill ran up his spine. He breathed deeply, feeling the ache of tears gather in his eyes, feeling overwhelmed. The picture captured something he had never seen in himself. It touched him so deeply he couldn't keep himself from the feeling. He shook gently against the burgeoning torrent of emotion.

He was unsure of how long he wept, but his mouth was dry and chapped with the wheezing. He wiped his face with a dirty hand put the book aside, pausing momentarily to look longingly into the darkness.The magazine was under the book, laid opened in a similar fashion. Another chill shot through his body, replacing the violent mix of sad and happy with a palpable uneasiness. All of the clothing models—a woman in brightly colored small clothes used for swimming—had been nearly completely blacked out with dark red smeared over each and every eye.

He pulled the page closer in the dim light. Each red drop was blood. He had seen plenty of it, both from himself and from others. This seemed a deeper red; almost luminescent in the darkness. He closed the magazine and the book and put them near the candle. He stirred, gathering his strength to begin the monumental task of walking back to the camp. He looked again into the darkness beyond the grate, blinking slowly with the effort. Then extinguished the candle and turned toward the deepening gray dot.

“You're welcome,” the whispered female voice that reached toward him was lost in the breeze.