The Time After

Learning More

Wow. Someone who can read and write actually found my letter. I didn't think anyone would; or if they did I expected them to either ignore it or destroy it. Honestly I don’t know why I checked. I was just passing through the area again and checked without thinking. I’m glad I did though. Finding your response is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Literally. Ever. Wow, that sounds dumb on paper…

Anyway, reading your letter gave me goosebumps. I think that’s what it’s called. You know when the little hairs on your arms stand up and there’s tiny bumps all over them? Like when it’s cold outside, or a cold breeze passes? Yeah, that. But not because I was cold. It was like I could see everything you wrote happening inside my mind. Your sopping wet shirt would have been hilarious, if not for the context.

I’m so sorry you have to remember losing your mom like that. I mean, you get to have those great memories of her, like dancing through cleaning the house, but they’re tarnished by witnessing something so horrible.

Oh, wow. I hope that doesn’t make it worse. Crap. Here I am, writing back to the one person in the world who might be decent, and I’m making it awkward. Oh, well. I’m not going to erase it or scratch it out because this is me. This is how I am all the time. I always speak without thinking and end up regretting it later. So I guess I’ll put it all here on paper and if you end up not liking me I never have to know because you’ll just never write back. Right?

So, I guess I should tell you a little more about myself. My name is Alex. Not short for anything, just Alex. I’m 5’2” by the old method. My hair is cropped short. It’s a curly red mass that’s untamable if I let it grow, so whenever it gets in my eyes I find something to cut it with. Which, of course, means it’s a terrible chop job. But it’s just me, so who cares anyway. My skin looks so pale it’s almost the color of this paper. Except for the dots all over it. I heard once that people used to call freckles “sun kisses” because they thought the sun touching their skin made them appear. Of course, that can’t be true since we never see the sun and I have thousands all over my body.

The last 6 weeks have been busy for me. Usually I spend my days foraging and avoiding other humans. It's the safest way to live. But lately I've felt compelled to do more.

I went back to my parents’ house. I was surprised to see how clean it was, considering. Yeah, there was the usual layer of dust, but somehow it hadn’t been looted like everything else around. My mom’s clothes were still in her closet, and by some crazy coincidence they actually fit me. Her style wasn’t too bad either. She mostly wore jeans and t-shirts. Dad’s clothes were all too big, or I would have tried those on too. He was probably at least 5’10”, so the pants would have dragged and the shirts were really baggy. But I kept this one of some red and black costumed character riding a unicorn with a rainbow in the back and some kind of food I don't recognize all around. It says, “Maximum effort!” in the speech bubble above him, which I liked.

Anyway, I found a bunch of pictures of me in a box. Mom wrote my name and age on the back of them. Life Before must have been so easy and bright. So many of the pictures have blue skies and huge green trees. There’s even a picture of the three of us in front of our house, and the grass in the space there was this electric shade of green I’ve only seen in my dreams. I have no idea why anyone would plant something like grass and then walk all over it. Seems to me like you might kill it.

The pictures all look so happy. Almost every single picture is of one or more of us smiling. There are some of me in a funny little cart with one of my parents pushing it. In those ones there are often strange animals behind glass or railings. I think the place is called a ZOO, because that's what the sign above us says in one picture. Other pictures have me in a little basket hanging from chains. It looks like the basket would swing back and forth, from my positions in the pictures. It looks like I really enjoyed that basket thing.

I wish I could remember some of that. My smile is so HUGE in them. I didn't know I had a smile like that, since I've never really had a reason to smile. I wonder what it's like, feeling that happy.

I looked through the pantry, too. There wasn’t much there. I don’t know if they didn’t keep much food on hand, or if someone took it. But all that was left was a package of chocolate sandwich cookies and some chili. I have no idea what “gluten” is, but apparently there isn’t any in the cookies.

All the stuff they used to have in kitchens was still there, though. Forks, spoons, knives, and these odd pairs of sticks were all neatly stacked in one drawer. I have no idea what 10 inch sticks have to do with eating, but whatever. Plates, bowls, and cups were in a cabinet up high. My parents must have been good at organizing, everything was so neat and tidy. I saw things for chopping, mixing, and every other thing you do to cook or bake in that kitchen. All I needed to do was learn how to use it all. Oh, and find a generator for the electricity. Since my parents lived in town, they must have been hooked up to the power grid because I couldn’t find a generator anywhere.

Once I finally found a generator, though, I started reading my mom’s books with all these descriptions of foods and how to make them. They are really detailed, too. They have all the measurements for the ingredients, and how long to do different tasks. It’s crazy! It’s like somebody knew we would have no clue how to do any of this. The only problem is that I have no idea what some of these ingredients are. So I improvise. Not everything turns out edible, but if somehow I manage to find all the right ingredients it’s usually not too bad.

That’s what I’ve mostly been doing these past weeks. Learning to cook all these elaborate things. I really like figuring out how to put things together to make better tasting food than the crap I’ve been living off of since The Culling.

I don't sleep in the house, of course. I'm sure you know how unsafe the ruins of the city are. It's worse than the wild animals that can find you out in the open. With them you can at least hurt them and run them off. The humans in the ruins are nasty. If they catch you, you either kill them or you're dead. I got caught by one of those crazies once. I hit her in the head as hard as I could with a pipe. She just started laughing. And kept trying to tear my skin off with the claws she had turned her fingernails into. I had to hit her hard enough to kill her before she stopped. It was awful. I still have the scars.

Crap, I’m running out of paper. I’ll have to try to find some more. I think some of the buildings nearby used to be businesses, so they might have some. I’ll bring some and put it here if I find any.