Short Story / Beautiful
He wakes us before sunrise, smiling as he makes breakfast. We sit in the lessening dark and I listen to them talk, he and his little girl. She hangs on his every word, studying his smile as though she knows it's only put on. But it's put on for her, and so he never falters, never looks away from her huge blue eyes.
We eat on the rooftop, watching as the sunrise leaks over the horizon, with his girl snuggled between us, using our bodies for warmth. From up here we can see the world as it is; the derelict buildings and overgrown streets and rusted hulks of cars long-abandoned. We learnt not to look down a long while ago, and so we stare straight ahead as the sun rises.
The sunrise is theirs, his and his daughter's. They catch it with their eyes, their arms, their hearts, and hug it close. It lights up their eyes in that blinding moment when the world is awash with white, and stays there long after my vision has returned.
They never look away.
Then, just like every morning, he points to the horizon, lifting his daughter onto his lap, and whispers, "Do you see those hills? One day we're going to cross those hills, and we'll be there. It's close, and it's beautiful."
He doesn't believe it.
But he has to make sure she does.
***************************************************
Sometimes he coughs. He tries not to when she is listening, but sometimes it bursts out before he can stop. A bubbling, deathly cough that rattles his bones. When he coughs his body snaps in half and he clutches his chest, and I know that he's in pain, but he doesn't want help. Doesn't let me touch him. He just straightens and stretches a smile across his face and mumbles an apologetic, "Frog in my throat."
It gets worse every time.
I wish I could do more to help, especially after all they’ve done for me. I remember when I found them. I was sick – from infection, exhaustion, dehydration. Sick of walking, and of fighting, sick of the world. He took me in, shared with me his shelter and his food and what little medical supplies he had. When I told him I could never repay him, he simply smiled that same false smile and told me he didn’t want anything in return.
I know what he really wants is for me to go. To leave him and his daughter alone. That’s why he refuses to learn my name, or to let me tell it to his girl. In return, I have never asked for theirs. We are just three people whose lives crossed, and soon I will steal away in the night and continue on my way, leading a trail of footsteps into forever.
But for now, I stay. Because a part of me can’t bear to leave this weathered man and his tiny, innocent daughter alone.
***************************************************
She tells me she and her father are waiting. Until the time is right to head for the horizon. She tells me the stories he has told her, of other people, of singing and laughter and beauty. She has no reason to doubt his stories; why should she? She trusts him, the one vestige of solidarity and continuity in a dangerous, distrustful world.
He returns from outside before dusk, his arms laden with cans and rocks, objects he has salvaged from the surrounding debris. Anything that can be eaten or turned into a weapon. I count the tins in my head and my stomach sinks at how few there are. He catches my eye and I know what he is thinking. It was only a matter of time before the food ran out.
But maybe they could have stayed longer if I hadn’t found them.
He makes baked beans. We sit around the table in silence. Listening to the creaking of the empty hotel.
Wondering if others out there have found a shelter like this one. Wondering if we will ever have another place like it after we are forced to leave. Wondering.
It is during that meal that I decide to leave.
***************************************************
I sling my backpack over my shoulders. It holds an almost-empty tub of sunscreen, an apple, a battered novel, a bottle of water and three tins of baked beans. The baked beans and the apple are all I could take from them. They don’t have enough for me as it is. I steal from my room, glancing behind me to make sure there is no memory of me left. I will leave just as I have stayed – a ghost. No one. Just a figment of their imaginations.
The lobby was once decorated in gold filigree and vines. There are still vines, burrowing into the cracked floor, reaching for the earth deep below. Everything else is dust and rubble.
Except for him.
Standing there, waiting.
He catches my hand as I approach. Kisses it. Pulls me into an embrace. There are tears in his eyes and my throat dries as I struggle to keep mine from filling, too. He pulls me close and whispers in my ear.
“There is one way you can repay me.”
I think he’s going to ask me to give the food back. To tell him my name. Maybe he’s going to kill me. I’ve seen worse things than humans used for meat.
Instead he says, “Take her with you. Please.”
Then he coughs, the sound cracking through his chest and shaking his hands.
“I can’t look after her anymore,” he whispers. “I’m dying. Please… she needs you.”
I think about refusing. I think about leaving the food and going. But the desperation in his eyes stops me. Not for himself. For his little girl. His little girl who will be alone in this world once he is gone. Who so wants to see the beauty over the hills. He can never take her there. But I can.
I leave him my backpack. I take everything else. Even his little girl, clutching around my neck while she stares back at her father and his smile. Silent.
When the hotel falls from sight, she buries her face in my shoulder and cries.
***************************************************
So I walk.
I carry her as far as I can, her and the food and the weapons. And when I can’t carry her anymore, when I slump to the ground and feel like dying right there on the spot, it is her who carries me. With her words, and her eyes and her smile. Lifts me up off the ground and keeps me going.
We walk for days, towards the hills, with no thought but to reach the horizon. It never seems to draw closer. We trudge through the wreckage of the world with our hearts in our feet and the sun pounding down on our skin.
There is no life. Not anywhere.
I have a mantra. I say it out loud, every time I feel too tired, too worn, to take another step. For myself, and for her. I say, “It’s okay. We’re almost there. It’s close. And it’s beautiful.”
On the eighth day, she slips her hand through mine.
It makes me want to keep walking.
***************************************************
We reach the bottom of the hills on the eleventh day. They are mountainous.
Staring up at them, the fear squeezes itself between us, into our lungs. My head pounds. Her legs shake. When we start the climb, I think we both know we’re not going to make it.
“It’s okay,” I say. “We’re almost there. It’s close. And it’s beautiful.”
What if we reach the top? What if we do make it there, after all this, and it’s not? What if it’s just the same as everywhere else?
We keep climbing. We have to.
We’re halfway up when my legs give way. When my spirit breaks and I fall to the ground and there’s nothing left in me that wants to get up again. She sits down next to me, taking my hand, and says nothing. Just waits. Sometime between falling and sunset, I sleep.
When I wake up, she is gone.
“It’s okay,” I say weakly. I don’t know who I’m talking to. “We’re almost there. She’s close. She’s there. It’s beautiful.”
There’s something in my hand.
A small white flower. Glistening with dew. I tilt my head, looking up, up where the hills stop and the sky begins. Sunrise floods over the horizon. And there she is, framed in it, looking down at me.
And smiling.
I push myself onto my elbows. Get shakily to my feet. I almost fall again, but I stop myself because I know if I fall again I’ll die right there. I won’t be able to get up. I place one wooden foot in front of the other, making my way slowly, painfully, up the slope. I don’t look down. I don’t look back. Just keep my eyes locked on the girl and the sunrise waiting for me.
She meets me halfway, taking my hand and half-pulling me along, picking our way through the rocks at the hills’ craggy top.
Then I smell it.
Grass. And flowers. And fresh air.
“Look,” she whispers.
There is a field of grass on the other side. Then a forest. Small white flowers flowing from the top of the hills to meet the line of trees. And there, at the edge of the field, shaded by the trees…
There are people. A camp. They’re singing, and talking, and laughing.
And it’s beautiful.
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This 71 word review has not been unlocked.
This is great work, especially for an under eighteen. I’ve read tons of stuff by people twice and three times your age that’s not this good. That’s not to say there’s nothing I’d prefer to change, just that I think that if you want it, you could make a career out of this.
I wasn’t expecting the favour, and the climb up the hill was perfectly executed. I very much liked the whole lack of names thing too…who needs them?
Here are my suggestions…(which are mostly window dressing):
You have a sparse style, which is great, but you might want to mix it up a bit by joining some of those many short sentences. There are points where I can see your style would be strengthened by replacing periods with semi-colons.
(Not for himself. For his little girl) – I think these two sentences deserve to be closer to each other, perhaps with a semi-colon.
(Even his little girl, clutching around my neck while she stares back at her father and his smile. Silent.) – I would have thought she’d be crying around now, screaming even. Expected more emotion from her.
(We reach the bottom of the hills on the eleventh day. They are mountainous.) – seems strange to call them hills then refer to them as mountainous immediately after.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve already considered not showing us the landscape over the hills. It may be more poignant if you were to only show us the elation in the little girl as she looks over the peak, and relay to us the narrator’s elation. Just an idea. I think something in the story died a little when you described what was there.
Fantastic work, and I hope you keep at it.
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