Polly narrows her eyes and chews on her bottom lip for a moment as she thinks over what I’d said. For the first time, I see a hint of fear touch her eyes. As if she’d finally realized that this was something more than just an intellectual exercise.
“And you think that’s what’s happening? That people are just… well, just giving up on society?”
“It’s the only thing that makes any sense. At least, to me. And that, my dear, is precisely why I can’t get to sleep tonight. In a nutshell.”
Polly glances over her shoulder, almost as if she’s afraid that some shadow might be sneaking up behind her. She rubs her arms briskly and even in the darkness of the kitchen I can see the goose bumps creeping along her soft flesh.
I know that I’ve been laying it on a bit thick, spacing out my words with dramatic pauses and speaking in tones normally reserved for melodramatic b-films. But, to be perfectly honest, there’s kind of a small thrill in knowing that you’ve entirely captivated a beautiful woman. Knowing that a seed of fear has been planted and that maybe, just maybe, somewhere deep in the back of her mind she is seeing you as a potential hero. Someone who’ll protect her and make sure that nothing bad ever darkens her doorstep.
“If you’re right… and I’m not saying you are, mind you… but if you are then there’s really no hope, is there?”
“Honey, I don’t think there’s been any hope for a long, long time. And that’s precisely why we find ourselves in this current predicament.”
CHAPTER THREE
The smell of smoke still hangs heavy in the air, thick and greasy, like the ghost of a refinery explosion. I wonder to myself how long it will take for that particular stink to dissipate, for the air to simply smell normal again? Even the warm breeze that blows across the streets doesn’t do much to help scatter the stench. Instead, it’s almost as if the wind is scooping it up from the burnt out shells of buildings, carrying it down alleys and throughways, and depositing it into a cloud that hangs just over our heads.
Stay within the yellow lines….
The voice from the loudspeaker sounds as emotionless and cold as a computer. Hell, for all I know it could actually be one. After all, I can’t really see a microphone or anyone speaking the words. Just these drab green cones attached to every tenth telephone pole, a thin black wire stringing them together and disappearing somewhere into the distance.
Anyone straying from the yellow lines will be dealt with immediately.
Soldiers stroll up and down the sidewalks, machine guns slung over their shoulders as their eyes scan the crowd for even the slightest ripple of discontent. A few look scared, as if they’re afraid the assemblage will suddenly fall upon them and rip the weapons from their hands before they’ve even managed to squeeze off a shot; but most of them all wear the same solemn, tight lipped expression of neutrality.
The use of deadly force has been authorized. I repeat… the use of deadly force has been authorized.
I’ve been standing in line for nearly an hour now and have only moved forward a block or so. My kidneys feel as if someone is plunging knives into them and my bladder is demanding relief as I curse myself for not having the foresight to take a leak before leaving the house.
Please have your ration card and identification at the ready. Keep the line moving in an orderly fashion.
By now I know the spiel well enough that I could recite it word for word, pausing in all the right places for just the right amount of time. Which is really no mean feat: it’s basically the same message, after all, repeated over and over as we shuffle forward.
Do not attempt to make contact with the soldiers protecting you.
Protecting. That’s a good one. It feels more like they’re herding us. It’s all too easy to imagine that this long string of people are nothing more than livestock. That once we round the corner we’ll have little tags affixed to our ears and be loaded into cattle cars. Shipped off to slaughterhouses and processed for consumption.
Do not attempt to make contact with those in front of or behind you.
Christ Almighty, I should have gotten more sleep last night. Everything looks grainy and my eyes feel as if I’ve got little pieces of grit trapped in them. Grit that scratches and itches and burns.
Stay within the yellow lines….
It’s Polly’s fault, really. She kept me talking in the kitchen, kept asking all those questions about what I thought, how I felt, what my opinion was on this or that: and every so often she’d drop her cigarette and bend over to pick it up. The neckline of her shirt would sag and I could see nipples like little pencil erasers on these firm, round breasts. The first time it happened I thought maybe it was just an accident, that she’d simply grown comfortable enough around me to not realize how she was exposing herself; the second time, however, I began to wonder if maybe she were doing it on purpose. If she wanted me to see those beautiful mounds of flesh. So I kept finding reasons to stay up longer, new topics to discuss with her. All in the hopes of seeing if she would drop another cigarette. Or the lighter. Or the lid to her water bottle.
Anyone straying from the yellow lines will be dealt with immediately.
I ended up with around two hours of sleep, I’d say. Not nearly enough. I feel like every muscle in my body is wound up as tightly as a spring; I’m tired, cranky, and I really, really have to piss. But, as I’m so often reminded, I’m not allowed to ask the soldiers if there’s any way I can use the bathroom. I’m not even allowed to step outside the damn yellow line.
The use of deadly force has been authorized. I repeat…
Yeah, yeah, I know: the use of deadly force has been authorized. But to be perfectly honest I would almost be willing to take a bullet right now as long as it pierced my bladder and relieved some of this fucking pressure. Next time, Cody comes for the supplies. Let that little weasel deal with this shit while I stay home, all snug and secure with a bathroom only feet away.
Please have your ration card and identification at the ready. Keep the line moving in an orderly fashion.
Do not attempt to make contact with the soldiers protecting you.
Do not attempt to make contact with those in front of or behind you.
Stay within the yellow lines….
By the time I’d made it to the little tent with the desk beneath, it was too late. I simply couldn’t hold out any longer. Warmth spread across the crotch of my jeans and trickled down my thighs as the sharp stench of urine filled the air like a pungent cloud. Luckily, I’d worn dark jeans so it wasn’t obvious where the source of the smell was coming from. It could have been the old man in front of me. Or the lady who kept stepping on the heel of my shoe every time we managed to take a few steps forward.
“Ration card and identification.”
I handed the soldier the requested documents and noticed that his nose wrinkled slightly, as if the smell of my piss stung his nostrils. Good. Served the bastard right.
He glanced from my ID to my face and then back to the ID again.
“Richard W. Hall?”
I’d nodded my head, unclear as to whether answering his questions would be considered making contact with one of the soldiers protecting me.
He sighed as if he had been through this same routine a thousand times and in that fraction of a second I realized that this man hated his job. And, for some reason, I gleaned a bit of satisfaction from that realization; as if this somehow knocked him down to the same level as me and the long line of people stretching back and around the corner.