Ihe
Forum Revolutionary
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2015
- Messages
- 1,119
Hiya all, it's been a while since I've put up something in Crits. Have a go at me if you have the time. 1200ish words long. This is the first third of the chapter. Any and all crits welcome, on anything you see of concern here. Cheerioh.
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It was probable Olga’s death had brought the Earth’s population down by 50%, leaving Aadi 100% alone. Nobody but him to dig, and so he dug, eventually, surrounded by bare trees and curious squirrels who knew nothing of respect for the dead. When he resumed the burial, the broken shovel was right at hand—had been in his grip since sunup. He finished patting down the ground ten minutes to midnight.
Aadi didn’t cry for Olga then. That would come later. Aadi cried for the simpler absences; parts over the whole: a new joke, a voice other than his own, the touch of warm skin and its proprietary smells, an effect to his cause; the unpredictable. It was snot-filled selfishness, he knew. But it was also raw truth. Olga would’ve recognized it as so, and she wouldn’t have held it against him.
The future was far from unpredictable now. All of the crazy variables were buried with old Olga, and only the more boring equations of life remained: eat, wash, hunt, salvage; sleep. They added up to the same meaningless result day after day. Olga, originally a maths teacher, would’ve said that was how it should be.
He blanketed the mound with her books to keep her warm and distracted. He briefly considered making a pyre with them in her honor, but the poetic gesture would’ve horrified her. So much so that she might’ve come back from the dead to save her books and skin him for the sin. This idea lingered with him longer than it should have. He fiddled with matches for the next two days. These were senseless times, and it would’ve been bad form not to go along with the trend. “The occasional descent into madness keeps us sane long-term,” Olga had said once, in that silly Slavic accent of hers, panting after taking an axe to her favorite chair for no good reason.
The time seemed ripe for an occasional descent. Aadi slept by the grave for twenty moons, despite the forest growing colder and the cabin being a minute away. He needed to be there if she ever dug herself up. He’d read not everyone really died when they died. Some would just sleep. She could be sleeping. She really could be.
On the twenty-first sun, Aadi finally parted with the best days of his life. They rotted below ground now, in a grave that would never see visitors again. The desolation of this thought almost convinced him to stay. Almost. He took nothing with him. The cabin would remain intact, for her to enjoy.
The trail back to the city was mud and growth and prohibiting signposts. It’d been nearly a year since he’d traversed it last, with her. The Novasuno Nature Reserve had been his—their—home for six years, away from the bustle of fusion-powered automation, but it did not cling to him as he’d expected. Trees and animals alike let him go without a second glance.
Aadi camped by the small pond where he’d first bathed after moving to the reserve. He listened to the birds and scattering critters, craving that familiar sense of oneness with nature. But Olga’s strained breathing and mumbled swearing in Serbian left a void in his ears nature could not fill. Maybe technology could. There’d be no company of living organisms once he stepped foot in the city—but also no gales to speak her words, no rustling leaves to wake him up with absurd hopes. The sounds of the city were different. Vojoligilo’s skyline and its artificial white glow pushed back against the salmon orange above, far away, and invited him to much desired oblivion.
The next morning Aadi broke into a park warden shack. Door was locked, but the window had been left ajar. Leaves, decay, and small, muddy paw prints carpeted the floor, with sunlight slipping in through the splintered wood of the walls and roof. The reserve had claimed back every square centimeter.
Aadi was hungry. He rummaged through the two rusted lockers, hoping to come upon sealed protobars, but animals had swept the place with fastidious efficiency. After five minutes, the totality of the booty amounted to a dirty magazine, a box of tissues, and a cracked key card, found in the breast pocket of a tattered coat.
He took coat and card. He circled around the shack and found the unit, just a few paces east of it, hidden by bush and dirt. A compact three-wheeled bike stood encased in clear plastic, critter and weather-proof.
The bike could get him to the edge of the reserve by day’s end. He closed in, key card in hand, but the bikepen did not react. He kicked it with a grunt.
After rubbing his sore toes he went back to the shack, tore a piece of metal sticking out from under the desk, and attacked the plastic casing for half hour with it.
He arrived at the visitor’s center with the sun’s last rays, on his new bike. The car park was empty and the asphalt cracked all over. He left the bike charging at a battery dock and explored the surroundings. Post lights in the lot shone as bright as the day he’d first arrived. Automated maintenance had taken care of the ones he’d vandalized two years back. Olga had broken the first one. It’d been fun.
Aadi patted the glass doors of the center. He unwrapped the bloody strips of cloth from his hands and flexed fingers. He tore another strip from his already torn shirt to add more padding to his grip, then did a few practice swings with the blood-caked stick. He went at it energetically, with strength he didn’t have, but the building’s tempered glass proved too much for him.
The light was still on inside the center. He wondered how long it would take nuclear fusion to fizzle out, specially now that the world was down to minimum consumption. Olga and him had had a running bet of when the planet would finally shut down. She would never know; chances were high he wouldn’t either. The horrors of sleep took him on a bench, wrapped in the warden’s old coat. Olga was there, lost and confused.
“Where did you go, love? Was it something I did? Why aren’t you here?” she wailed by an empty tomb. Dirt clung to her weathered face, to every familiar line and wrinkle. She’d clawed her way out, and now she was alone. He’d left her. He’d left her and she had no one now. Aadi fell off the bench before even opening his eyes and scrambled to the bike, not fully awake. He started on the path back to her in the pitch black of an unadulterated forest’s slumber. Their little self-made cabin was still standing, full of their things; full of her, half a day away. He could feel her panic, the sickening worry, the desperation.
He stopped the bike three kilometers later. It was cold and humid. Maybe that’s why he was shaking.
The bike’s headlight would attract unwanted attention, but his hand did not reach out to turn it off. In time his ears picked up crunching foliage a stone’s throw away.
“Let it,” he whispered. Arms fell limp by his side; eyes did not chase the black mass closing in, instead fixating on the muddy path ahead, where he would never tread again. A single rabid dog could get it done. It was time he gave something back to the reserve.
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It was probable Olga’s death had brought the Earth’s population down by 50%, leaving Aadi 100% alone. Nobody but him to dig, and so he dug, eventually, surrounded by bare trees and curious squirrels who knew nothing of respect for the dead. When he resumed the burial, the broken shovel was right at hand—had been in his grip since sunup. He finished patting down the ground ten minutes to midnight.
Aadi didn’t cry for Olga then. That would come later. Aadi cried for the simpler absences; parts over the whole: a new joke, a voice other than his own, the touch of warm skin and its proprietary smells, an effect to his cause; the unpredictable. It was snot-filled selfishness, he knew. But it was also raw truth. Olga would’ve recognized it as so, and she wouldn’t have held it against him.
The future was far from unpredictable now. All of the crazy variables were buried with old Olga, and only the more boring equations of life remained: eat, wash, hunt, salvage; sleep. They added up to the same meaningless result day after day. Olga, originally a maths teacher, would’ve said that was how it should be.
He blanketed the mound with her books to keep her warm and distracted. He briefly considered making a pyre with them in her honor, but the poetic gesture would’ve horrified her. So much so that she might’ve come back from the dead to save her books and skin him for the sin. This idea lingered with him longer than it should have. He fiddled with matches for the next two days. These were senseless times, and it would’ve been bad form not to go along with the trend. “The occasional descent into madness keeps us sane long-term,” Olga had said once, in that silly Slavic accent of hers, panting after taking an axe to her favorite chair for no good reason.
The time seemed ripe for an occasional descent. Aadi slept by the grave for twenty moons, despite the forest growing colder and the cabin being a minute away. He needed to be there if she ever dug herself up. He’d read not everyone really died when they died. Some would just sleep. She could be sleeping. She really could be.
On the twenty-first sun, Aadi finally parted with the best days of his life. They rotted below ground now, in a grave that would never see visitors again. The desolation of this thought almost convinced him to stay. Almost. He took nothing with him. The cabin would remain intact, for her to enjoy.
The trail back to the city was mud and growth and prohibiting signposts. It’d been nearly a year since he’d traversed it last, with her. The Novasuno Nature Reserve had been his—their—home for six years, away from the bustle of fusion-powered automation, but it did not cling to him as he’d expected. Trees and animals alike let him go without a second glance.
Aadi camped by the small pond where he’d first bathed after moving to the reserve. He listened to the birds and scattering critters, craving that familiar sense of oneness with nature. But Olga’s strained breathing and mumbled swearing in Serbian left a void in his ears nature could not fill. Maybe technology could. There’d be no company of living organisms once he stepped foot in the city—but also no gales to speak her words, no rustling leaves to wake him up with absurd hopes. The sounds of the city were different. Vojoligilo’s skyline and its artificial white glow pushed back against the salmon orange above, far away, and invited him to much desired oblivion.
The next morning Aadi broke into a park warden shack. Door was locked, but the window had been left ajar. Leaves, decay, and small, muddy paw prints carpeted the floor, with sunlight slipping in through the splintered wood of the walls and roof. The reserve had claimed back every square centimeter.
Aadi was hungry. He rummaged through the two rusted lockers, hoping to come upon sealed protobars, but animals had swept the place with fastidious efficiency. After five minutes, the totality of the booty amounted to a dirty magazine, a box of tissues, and a cracked key card, found in the breast pocket of a tattered coat.
He took coat and card. He circled around the shack and found the unit, just a few paces east of it, hidden by bush and dirt. A compact three-wheeled bike stood encased in clear plastic, critter and weather-proof.
The bike could get him to the edge of the reserve by day’s end. He closed in, key card in hand, but the bikepen did not react. He kicked it with a grunt.
After rubbing his sore toes he went back to the shack, tore a piece of metal sticking out from under the desk, and attacked the plastic casing for half hour with it.
He arrived at the visitor’s center with the sun’s last rays, on his new bike. The car park was empty and the asphalt cracked all over. He left the bike charging at a battery dock and explored the surroundings. Post lights in the lot shone as bright as the day he’d first arrived. Automated maintenance had taken care of the ones he’d vandalized two years back. Olga had broken the first one. It’d been fun.
Aadi patted the glass doors of the center. He unwrapped the bloody strips of cloth from his hands and flexed fingers. He tore another strip from his already torn shirt to add more padding to his grip, then did a few practice swings with the blood-caked stick. He went at it energetically, with strength he didn’t have, but the building’s tempered glass proved too much for him.
The light was still on inside the center. He wondered how long it would take nuclear fusion to fizzle out, specially now that the world was down to minimum consumption. Olga and him had had a running bet of when the planet would finally shut down. She would never know; chances were high he wouldn’t either. The horrors of sleep took him on a bench, wrapped in the warden’s old coat. Olga was there, lost and confused.
“Where did you go, love? Was it something I did? Why aren’t you here?” she wailed by an empty tomb. Dirt clung to her weathered face, to every familiar line and wrinkle. She’d clawed her way out, and now she was alone. He’d left her. He’d left her and she had no one now. Aadi fell off the bench before even opening his eyes and scrambled to the bike, not fully awake. He started on the path back to her in the pitch black of an unadulterated forest’s slumber. Their little self-made cabin was still standing, full of their things; full of her, half a day away. He could feel her panic, the sickening worry, the desperation.
He stopped the bike three kilometers later. It was cold and humid. Maybe that’s why he was shaking.
The bike’s headlight would attract unwanted attention, but his hand did not reach out to turn it off. In time his ears picked up crunching foliage a stone’s throw away.
“Let it,” he whispered. Arms fell limp by his side; eyes did not chase the black mass closing in, instead fixating on the muddy path ahead, where he would never tread again. A single rabid dog could get it done. It was time he gave something back to the reserve.
