The Last One(95)

The bus.

Those were real children.

Those were real children and I walked past, blind.

What did I step on?

Who.

I take a seat in the creaky exam chair, bury my head in my hands. It feels like the rest of my life can only be an apology, that with each step forward I have to beg forgiveness for the last.

I rest until I can try again, until I can refocus on something as mundane and concrete as putting in a contact lens. I return to the mirror. Plastic and cornea finally connect. I blink to help the lens settle and suddenly everything is so clear it’s startling.

I find Brennan in the front, trying on sunglasses. I see the holes in his red sweatshirt, the frayed cuff of his left sleeve, the fuzzed disarray of his growing hair, his unbroken posture. I see someone who doesn’t have to live the rest of his days in regret. He picks up a pair of glasses with huge lenses and bright yellow frames; I think they might be a women’s style, but who can tell and what does it matter. I see the pink beneath his fingernails and I think of Cooper’s hands covered in blood. A heat in my chest like anger and I know—I would feel it. If it were Brennan’s hands turned red, I would feel it. He slides the sunglasses onto his face.

“Those look good,” I tell him, trying.

He moves the sunglasses to the top of his head. “Thanks.”

We exit the store and follow the road north. The blankness, the bleakness, the rotting litter and stillness all around. It’s unmistakably vast. The extent of it overwhelms me. I don’t know whether to be thankful that my glasses broke or to resent it. Though, who knows, maybe I would have clung to the lie even if I could see. The brain is a terrifying and wondrous organ, and all it wants is to survive. I doubt I’ll ever be able to make perfect sense of those confused and confusing days. I’d rather just forget them.

Brennan and I walk despite the abandoned vehicles all around us. We walk because the world is too quiet for cars and without a word we’ve agreed to walk and for all I know I’m the last one on Earth who knows how to drive.

By dusk my eyes are itchy and tired, unused to being bound, unused to seeing. These lenses are daily disposables; I toss them into the fire and they disappear.

“Do they make a big difference?” asks Brennan. He’s reverted to a blur.

I nod, close my eyes, rub my temples. The fire crackles.

“Brennan,” I say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how bad it was. I don’t want to talk about…before. But I’m sorry.”

“It was because you couldn’t see?” he asks.

I nod again. It’s not a lie.

“Your eyesight’s that bad?” I hear rustling as he feeds the fire. I wait. I know what’s coming: a story. About his mom, maybe, but more likely about his brother. Aiden’s been walking with us these last few days.

“It didn’t seem so bad,” says Brennan. “I thought it was like—Aiden had glasses, but he only needed them for driving. That’s the only time he ever wore them.” He pauses. Did Aiden forget his glasses once and rear-end a traffic cop? Maybe he drove the wrong way down a one-way street. “Mae”—Brennan’s voice lifts—“at your house—”

“No.” An instinct. I can’t, I won’t. He’s caught me unprepared and my hackles rise.

“But—”

“No! I don’t want to talk about it.” Even this is saying too much. My eyelids are tight, but they can’t block memory. A shock of dark hair, a blanket falling. I feel the threat to leave him boiling in my throat. I’ll speak it if I have to, lie or not.

I can feel him staring at me.

“Brennan. Please.”

A long moment passes, and then he says, “Okay.”





In the Dark—Trying to find my wife Hello? If anyone is reading this, my wife was a contestant on In the Dark and I’ve been trying to find her since August. I’ve tried all the emergency contacts I have for the production but I haven’t been able to reach anyone. I know someone on here knew a cameraman, and if you can help me, if anyone can help me, please.

Please.

[-] submitted Just now by 501_Miles





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25.


The next afternoon as we walk along the road I see a parachute caught in the trees to our left. Brennan darts ahead to get the first look, and it’s the third time today he’s referred to himself as “the scout.” I see him pause at the crisp tree line.

“What is it?” I call.

“A box!” he yells back. “A big one!”

When I get there, he’s walking around a huge plastic crate, peering in. It’s as tall as he.

“What do you think it is?” he asks.

“A big box,” I tell him. He laughs, but I’m not there. I might never be.

“But from where?” He’s still circling, like a pup investigating a scent.

The box isn’t connected to the parachute, which is huge, bigger than I would have guessed from the road, and hangs above us like a great green sky. The cords have snapped, or been cut. Don’t look, scan, but these tracks are the most obvious I’ve ever seen. “It was air-dropped,” I say, remembering a trail in the sky, a sound in the night.

“It’s empty,” announces Brennan. He’s jittery—excited, I think. “That means someone emptied it, right? There are other people around here?”