No. 12

“Dammit, Luce,” Ben said looking through the hand written pages I just wrote in a composition notebook. “Get to the other stuff.”
“What do you mean,” I exploded. “We are living in a world where we are always waiting on what the hell is going to happen next. I’m trying. For Christ sakes, give me a frigging break!”
He gave me the notebook back and I tossed it to the side. Walking to the window, he just sighed.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s okay,” I finally said. I knew he was right. We were short on time.
“That was the last cold beer we had,” he sighed. “Feeding us beer then sending us out to hell. You know, I hated that son of a bitch.”
I didn’t hate Grayson. Ben did. He did throw us to the wolves, but the reality was is that he didn’t know why we were still alive and he was really a lower level guy in the big scheme of things. Of course he had a gun and that changes things.

There was no epiphany. No shining light bulb that went on over anyone’s head. We just lived.

I guess, as he said it, we had evolved. A drunk and a writer, so far from each other yet very much the same and working together. We have found others, who made it through that first day, but they either go mad or they eventually die.
Grayson tried to tell us but his training as a life long soldier had already been tested by his resistance to the decisions being made by his bosses in government. He gave us some information and in all reality, wined and dined us with beer, water and food.
He just didn’t understand why we had lived. It haunted him and I’m still not sure why it was so important.
“Tell them what he told us,” Ben added. I had forgotten he was in the room. I’m bad that way. He deserves better. “Write it down.”
“I will. I promise. I’m just trying to work it out in my mind.”
“It’s getting dark. We are going to have to move tomorrow, you know,” Ben walked out the door toward the bathroom.
The apocalypse doesn’t have water mains blowing or swinging naked lights swinging in a darkened basement. Those who are in control still need the electricity as they create their new world utopia. Ben and I had learned that. They just didn’t expect some of us to be a part of it all.
Of course, Grayson had the protection with an anti-virus but we didn’t know that at the time.
And this is what Ben cannot forgive. Neither or I, but as we didn’t have the anti-virus, those in power needed to know about why our bodies worked and theirs didn’t.
Neither Ben nor I were fond of being dissected for others to live.

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