Around a campfire in what used to be a city, in what is now the rubble of civilization, four survivors sit. Eating the rat meat they’ve cooked over the fire and a few rations of packaged vegetable substitute. Grimacing as they eat, the two who are old enough to remember share stories of the comforts they knew before the fall. The younger two think they’re making things up. Teasing them into believing that things were ever other than what they are now. Even if they were different, they could never have been as good as these two claim. But, the reminiscing continues.
“My mother used to fry pork chops in an inch of oil! Man, I even miss the terrible greens she made us eat on the side! Couldn’t have the cake she made for dessert if we didn’t eat the greens! After dinner we’d head back outside for another hour of play before dark. Streets lined with houses, lawns, streetlights. It was just never dark back then. Now it feels dark even in the daylight,” Toby rambled on. “What about you, Old Lady? What do you miss?”
I look up from my packet of vegetable substitute, the texture of green applesauce, and clear my throat. I don’t usually participate in these memory throwbacks, what’s the use? It’s all gone and it’s never coming back. But, something’s been on my mind the past few days. One moment I would love to return to even for just a day. I clear my throat and begin.
“When I was a child I lived in a small house with six other family members. I know now that’s not very many, we pack people in houses twenty deep, but at the time it was unusual. I lived with my parents, my grandparents, my great grandfather, and my uncle. It never seemed crowded or chaotic to me, but I bet it was. There are so many things that I know you guys think that we elders make up, but it was true! It was all true! We ate dinner at a table together every night. Sometimes hamburgers and fries that no one had to cook. Someone just stopped and picked them up on their way home. My grandmother was a terrible cook, but I miss even what she used to make. My mother on the other hand could make a meal out of whatever you had on hand. I miss her Easter hams with pineapple slices. Don’t look at me like that, child! It was real!”
“I’ll back up that story, Lady!” laughed Toby. “I remember the hams too! Butter shaped like lambs. Crazy shit!”
“I forgot all about that lamb butter!” I laugh. “Maybe it’s better some things have disappeared. Anyway, it’s not the food I’ve been thinking about lately. It’s the beds. A soft bed all to yourself. A clean bed just for you. My bedroom in this house full of chaos was in the basement. We had divided up the basement to be almost like a little apartment.”
“What’s a basement?” asked the younger of the brothers that Toby and I had taken under our care. Orphans like so many others. Headed for trouble like so many others. And trouble took on a whole new meaning when stealing was just a way of life now. Toby still had this crazy belief we could make the world a better place. Take in a couple of kids, set the world on a straighter path. I couldn’t see how they had a chance in hell of being anything but outlaws in a town with no walls, but what have you got if you haven’t got just a shred of hope?
“Many houses had a main floor, level with the ground that you walked into. Then there might be stairs going up to a second floor. Usually that is where the bedrooms were. We only had one floor above ground in this house, but there were stairs that went down to another level below ground. That was the basement.”
“You mean it was like dirt walls and floor? How didn’t it cave in?” Asked the older brother.
“No, the walls and floor were made of cement. It wasn’t as fancy as the upstairs, but it was solid. We had these roll down curtain things that we put between the rooms we had created. A living room with a couch and TV, my parent’s room, my uncle’s room, and my little area of the basement. With a bed, a table, and I suppose a place for my clothes. Anyway, I didn’t always want to sleep in my area of the basement. I liked to sleep upstairs where it felt like a real house. My grandma liked to spoil me, so she would say yes sometimes. We had a couch that had a bed inside! The bed just folded right out and I would sleep there sometimes.”
I paused letting the memory soak into my bones. I felt my body relax a little and I sighed. Willing myself not to tear up. Toby put his arm around my shoulders. Nodded his head for me to continue. “You’re making me feel more hopeful, actually warm with this story. Keep going if you can.”
I nodded and took a deep breath. Another bite of rat meat. Grimaced with the taste of reality, and continued. The boys were wide eyed and leaning forward to drink in more of the past.
“My strongest memory of sleeping on that couch bed was in the summer. It used to get hot in the summer, but not like it does now. Now you almost have to stay inside until the sun goes down. Then the days were long because there was no school, bright, sunny, and green. Nights were quiet, and cooler. A breeze coming through the screen door.”
Toby holds his hand up to the younger boy who was about to open his mouth. Probably to ask what a screen door is. “Later,” Toby mouths.
“The night sounded like crickets and frogs and smelled like fresh mown grass. I would climb into bed in that semi-darkness of a house asleep. Light filtering in from the outside lights. My grandmother’s sheets had the freshest smell. A little hint of bleach, a little hint of being put away in the linen closet for awhile. They were soft, and the blanket had a silky edge. My grandfather snored like a train, but it was soothing. Everything was safe and the future was certain. And I’d fall asleep secure in that house of people who held my history. While cars would pass occasionally, the frogs would continue to sing. And I would just sleep. That might be the most unbelievable part of the story! Sleeping without waking for a whole night. Sleeping without a look out. Just sleeping.”
My voice wanders away and Toby stares ahead lost in his own memories of summer and sleep. The boys are quiet staring into the fire. The rats and vegetable mash forgotten. We all look up at the sky and watch the stars which are more visible than they ever were when I was a child. That’s something we have that’s better and we hold onto those little dots of light and dream of the other things that can be made right.