Was Going To

I was going to lie to you, but I have too much respect for you to do that. You’ve always been able to see right through me anyway.

Russia needs me. As a former KGB spy turned traitor, you’d think I wouldn’t care about the turmoil and injustice in the motherland just now. But defecting was never about the money, that was just icing on the cake. It was because I love Russia, because Russia needed to change. And now she needs me again.

More than that, I may not have much time left. The anti-aging drugs were experimental, but I volunteered anyway. They’ve worked this long, as you can see, but I have no idea how they’ll proceed as time goes on. Worse, some of my comrades from the bad old days have been falling off the radar. If that’s not the drugs, someone’s out to get rid of the last of the old guard.

And I just couldn’t bear to put you in danger. I won’t be able to write or call, or I might put the enemy on your trail.

And if you see me, it’s a plant trying to draw out my allies. Don’t make contact.

The Parable of the Warrior

The Master said to the Apprentice, “There was once a warrior who trained to be best at fighting with his hands. One day in battle, his hands were injured. He was at first despondent, until an idea struck him. He trained to fight with his elbows.

“One day his elbow-fighting was defeated by an opponent and his elbows damaged, and he trained to fight with his shoulders. When his shoulders were injured, he trained with his feet. When his feet were damaged, his knees. When his knees were injured, his head. When his head was injured, he had nothing left to him.

“What can we learn from this warrior?”

The Apprentice said to the Master, “Dude shoulda used a gun.”

From the Dust Farm

“We can’t pay you,” she said, and she stepped protectively in front of her son. Marika just nodded. She pulled up her dust mask and goggles, checked her sword and gun, and walked down the road. Minutes later, she stepped out of lee of the soy farm’s windbreak, a line of tired evergreens, and sandy wind hit her like a wave. She leaned into it and walked on, leaving the dust-yellow farm behind.

Marika didn’t look back. If she looked back, she’d want to go back, ask them to let her stay, to earn her place working in the fields. It never went well. Farm work didn’t suit her. The same thing, day after day after day, and always feeling exhausted, on her last legs from the endless toil in the fields. She never stayed more than a season.

Not to mention the way farmers treated her like a viper who might bite at any time, but hope that she’d be their viper if it came down to it. That’s what farmers do: promise her pay, point her at the local bandits, and hope everything works out when they can’t pay.

Maybe the next group of farmers would pay her.

Portrait of a Person

His sight followed his trail of piss down into the toilet. Blood in the bowl. Never a good sign. He sighed, finished, zipped up, and went to flush, then didn’t. Maybe it would serve the next visitor here as a warning.

At the sink, he washed his hands and looked in the mirror. Four days of stubble, lip swollen, eyes shot through with cracks of blood, and a bruise of deep-purple blood pooling under his cheek. Looking close, he could just about see the pattern of knuckles from the ugly customer last night.

When was he going to learn that he couldn’t live night to night, drinking and fighting? The friends he had gone out drinking with had evaporated, and now it was just him. Days in demo, nights talking to strangers, hitting on strangers, fighting with strangers.

He wanted to change. He wanted to strip his torn, blood-dirty clothes from him and run from the gas station bathroom naked, a new man reborn. He also wanted to not go to jail, so that was out.

He washed his face instead and made a resolution: Tonight, he’d only take enough cash for three drinks. One little rebirth at a time.

Softball Game

Click. Whirrrrrrrr. Up went the garage door, revealing two ski-masked men holding handguns. I was halfway to my car before I noticed them.

“Took you long enough,” said the short one.

“Seriously. We were out here for, like, an hour,” said the fat one.

“Uh, sorry,” I said. “What do you want?”

“We’re stealing your car,” said Short.

“Yup,” said Fat.”

“Really?”

“Yup,” they said in unison.

I looked at each of them, then at their guns. “Okay.”

“Really?” said Fat.

“Just like that?” said Short.

“It’s either that or, what, get shot?”

“Yeah!” said Fat.

“I choose not getting shot.”

“Wow,” said Short.

“That was way easier than I thought,” said Fat.

“Maybe you’re just really good at this,” I said. They smiled. “Listen, guys.”

“Yeah?” said Short.

“I was on my way to my daughter’s softball game.”

“That’s sweet,” said Fat.

“Thanks. She’s pitching. She’s really excited”

“Good for her!” said Short.

“Could I get a ride?”

Pause. “What?” they said.

“Well, now I don’t have a car, and the game starts in twenty minutes.”

Short and Fat started at each other for a minute.

And that’s why we need to wait for Mommy to drive us home.

Panic

She was driving the wrong way. Only two hours left on the babysitter’s clock, and she took a deliberate wrong turn and took them out of the pack. Just off the ferry, minutes after discussion about their timing and stopping for dinner, and after he’d said he was happy to be in the front of the pack. And she had him looking up details of her alternate route.

“Let me read,” he snapped, when she asked him if the road connected through, and she shut up and let him read. He shut the book.  “No, there’s no way through. There’s a ferry.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, we won’t go through the pass this time.” She turned.

He stewed. “We were ahead of the pack. We were going to make good time, we… Where are you going?”

“We can connect up with the freeway this way.”

“Oh.” He paused. “I’m sorry I snapped.”

“It’s okay.”

“I was happy we had the lead, and you just turned away, without knowing…” He looked out the window for a while. Farms with lakes, craggy bluffs with evergreens, like where he grew up, passed by. “This is a really nice route. Thanks for taking it.”

Ferry Dust

She’d never trained for anything like this. Three days after the end of the world, and she was the nominal captain of an inter-island ferry. She’d seen the detonations in her figurative rear-view and gave the full-steam ahead.

Now they were stopped, husbanding the fumes that remained in the tank while her engineer Kaplana figured out if they could scavenge gas from the tanks of boarded cars. No one had protested. She thought they were all still in shock from the blinding lights and the horizon-swallowing clouds. Hell, so was she.

At least Kaplana had an idea of what to do. Her training included useful skills. Not so, the captain. All she knew was how to drive a boat and log her hours, and now this group of two thousand waited on her decisions on where to go, what to do.

“Captain,” came the radio, “looks like the car fuel will work. We have about 200 miles before we’re dead in the water. What do you want to do?”

Cry. Give up. Put you in charge. Anyone, just not me. I’m not remotely qualified for this, or anything like this.

“Where are we going, Captain?”

Neither is anyone else.

“Alaska.”