By Rick White
We sit on the floor of the assembly hall and draw straws, as a fierce crimson dusk gathers outside. One big person, one little person, that’s how it works.
I am chosen to hunt, along with Rafi — a boy no more than six or seven years old. He arrived at the fence a few nights ago, bare-chested and bare-footed. A mane of shaggy black hair. He was covered in soot and dust; the particles rising and hovering in the convection of warm air around him, so that at first he had the appearance of a burnt, smouldering child.
The only person not to draw is Maddox, who leads. In a candlelit chamber, he checks our provisions as we wait for the night to cool.
“Do you know why we choose one big person and one little person?” Maddox asks Rafi. “It’s because Littles are quick, they are agile, and they are brave. You will protect Maia, and she will protect you.” He ruffles the kid’s hair and gives him a wink, then leans in close to me; the warmth of another human distinguishable from the heat of the air as a thickness, a depth.
“If you hit trouble,” he whispers, “you know what to do.”
I don’t respond. This is the real reason we choose one big and one little.
“Maia? I need you to say it.”
I allow my gaze to travel through his, accepting the weight passed silently between us.
Leave the kid. He knows I understand.
“Get some rest,” he says, “it’s not quite time yet.”
In this place we hardly sleep any more. I hold Rafi’s hand and walk the halls of our building, through pooled moonlight on linoleum floors. This used to be a school, and there are still things to learn. Paper drawings, not yet turned to ash, cling to peeling walls. One of Earth — when she was still beautiful — a blue and green sphere floating serenely through space. I tell Rafi it’s where we live, and watch him stare at the scribbled crayon in wonderment.
“Maybe we’ll find a can of find peaches to eat,” he says, and a part of me dies knowing this is the best thing he can possibly imagine.
I tell him peaches didn’t always come in cans. Their skin wasn’t made of shiny aluminium, or chapped and parched like ours. It was fuzzy-warm, like the top of a baby’s head brushing your top lip. I tell him there were animals you could never’ve imagined, even in your dreams — elephants, whales, lions, bears.
“I know what a lion is,” he says proudly. Of course he’s too young to remember, but who am I to take it from him? He’s been told so many lies. It’s true lions did exist, and truth is a thing worth carrying. Doesn’t matter the thing — a lion’s roar; the weird pinch of skin on your elbow; the stubborn oily-scented-ness of orange zest; the strange, unfathomable courage of a lost, doomed little boy.
“Yes!” I say. “Lions are fierce! And brave. They hunt together in packs, like you and I.”
I ruffle Rafi’s hair the same way Maddox did, and we go outside. The chainlink fence on our perimeter rattles in the wind. It never offered us any protection, merely a vestigial symbol of a time when imaginary structures held the world together. Tonight it looks like a thousand hollow eyes, staring out into a black future.
It’s almost time to go, Rafi takes my hand in his little paw and I realise — to my shame — I’m grateful to have him with me. Maybe our history isn’t written yet. There are no seasons any more, but there is still change. In distant nebulas and in the hidden cracks of insect-caves: life is spawning. Hold on to your silly hope child, I think. Clench your tiny fists. We’re standing in the light of stars burnt out centuries ago and yet, we are still here. Tonight we run for our lives.
Rick White is a fiction writer from Manchester, UK whose work can be found in Flash Frog, Milk Candy Review and Trampset, among others. Rick’s debut short story collection ‘Talking to Ghosts at Parties’ is available now via Storgy Books.
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